Tanzania Day 10 -  Learning and Discovery

Today was our day for being immersed in the local culture of Tanzania. First we visited a primary school which is supported by the Grand Circle Foundation, the parent organization of Overseas Adventure Travel.  GCF supports schools, orphanages, community organizations all over the world where they send travelers.  We had a great visit at the school, starting with a talk by the Head Teacher (aka Principal) and then followed by visits to the classrooms.  Those of our group who are K-12 teachers went off to classrooms and did a short lesson with the kids.  The rest of us visited several classrooms and the children sang for us and we had some chance with the older ones to do questions back and forth. After we left the school we went to an outdoor field in Karatu and watched a performance of African dance and acrobatics performed by a local group. After we left there we visited a local market in Karatu where the local folks shop for food, household goods, spices, clothing etc.  From there we went to visit a local Iraqw tribal family.  To get there they had us ride the Tanzanian version of a tuk tuk, the three wheeled vehicle popular in Asia. The locals use them as taxis because they are much cheaper than taxis.   When we got to the village, the assistant chief of the village met us and spoke to us about village life and how they make bricks which they then sell all over Tanzania.  The soil here is rich, red volcanic soil, and it makes very good bricks, apparently.  We then went to the assistant chief's home and met his wife and some of his 8 children and learned about the life of the Iraqw tribe, who originated in Ethiopia.  The chief is a musician and he sang songs for us and he and his wife and daughters sang and danced.  They then got all of us up and joining in as well.  His wife and daughters dressed all the women in the traditional African fabrics that women wear, including the skirt like garment worn at the waist and the headscarf African style.  The fabrics are very colorful.  

Tomorrow we head back to Arusha where we will have our last African lunch and then have access to day rooms to shower and get ready to leave.  Our flight out is 9:45 PM.  So the fun is over now and we're just in travel home mode.  

Tanzania Day 9

Today we left the Serengeti national park and went to Ngorongoro reserve, where the big caldera is that is home to many, many animals.  The caldera was formed when there was a huge volcanic eruption and the crater hollowed out by the eruption is now a fertile plain with a small lake and other ponds that provides home to Tanzania's wide variety of animals.  The descent down into the caldera is just shy of 2000 feet.  We had great luck viewing animals today.  On our way out of Serengeti we ran into a lioness lying by the side of the road, close enough that we could practically touch her out the jeep window.  She had a couple of friends with her, hidden in the grass, but they got up while we were there so we enjoyed yet another close encounter with lions.  When we got to the caldera we saw more lions, this time about 5 lionesses also along the road.  In fact one of them was lying in the road and all the Jeeps were having to move around her.  She finally got up and ambled over to one jeep and laid down right against the right rear tire and proceeded to drape herself around the tire which meant the driver of the jeep couldn't move his car.  He tried honking the horn, revving the engine, trying to rock the car gently to see if he could get her to move and at least while we were there she seemed to have no intention of moving.  You are not allowed to frighten or hurt the animals so somehow he had to figure out how to encourage her to move on before he could do so!  We drove all through the caldera and saw wildebeest, zebras, hyenas, warthogs, hippos, and the big thrill of the day, 2 rhinos - a mother and child. We also had a sighting that is very rare of a serval cat, a small cat that looks somewhat like a cheetah but smaller. They are very elusive so it was a real thrill to see him.  He was very pretty.   We also saw baboons playing in the trees near the road that heads up out of the caldera.  We stopped for lunch beside a lake, which also had hippos resting in it and as we sat on the grass with our lunch a large bird swooped down and stole one of our party's lunch sandwich!  The whole time we were there it kept swooping down trying to steal our food.  We had to keep our lunch boxes closed and try to get the food to our mouths before the bird figured out what we had!  It was very entertaining!  

After 7 hours of driving and game viewing we finally wound up back at the lodge we were in last week before we went to the Serengeti.  I was thrilled to be back in civilization with a hot shower, a hair dryer and a bar with gin!  We were all exhausted from the long drive.  The roads are so unbelievably bumpy and rough and the Jeeps rattle and bounce so you feel like you've been inside a tin can with a bunch of pennies being shaken constantly for the whole time.  It's a truly bone rattling experience and we arrived very tired and extremely dusty.   This lodge is really nice and feels positively luxurious compared to 4 days of camping in the Serengeti bush!

Tanzania Day 7 -8

The past two days we've gone on long game drives in the Serengeti National Park.  Our morning game drives are the longest, starting yesterday at around 7 am and today at 5:45 AM.  The animals are more active and visible very early in the day and we have certainly had our most exciting viewing on those morning drives.   Yesterday morning we saw hippos going into the water and actually in it, a few lions off in the distance, and we spent a very, very long time watching a leopard who started out in a tree and then came down quickly and went after prey.  We saw it catch something and that it had it in its mouth but then the leopard disappeared in the grass for a very long time.   We left there and went for a stop at the local airport to pick up three of our group who had done a balloon safari and when we got back in our trucks we went back to the leopard tree where the leopard was eating his kill.  We waited a very long time for him to finish and climb back up into the tree.  We also saw wildebeest, zebras, and hyenas and thousands of gazelles and impalas.   We also saw a very small animal called a dik dik, which looks like a very tiny deer.    Yesterday afternoon we went in a completely different direction and saw a rhino off in the distance and then found an area where there was a pride of lions.  They were very far off across the grassy plain near some big rock outcropping and we could only see them as tiny little dots.  We saw elephants, giraffes, some hyenas with very young pups, a couple of grand gazelle males fighting for dominance, and hippos again.  

Today our morning drive was spectacular as we returned to where we had found the pride of lions yesterday and they were out and active this morning.  We watched them for almost three hours and followed them as they moved around. At one point they all moved over to an area where yesterday we had all gotten out of our Jeeps and stood up on the rock outcropping for a group photo.  TOday we saw the alpha male, his brother, at least 10 lionesses, and many many cubs.  It was fantastic, as the lions were right next to our vehicles, close enough to touch and we were able to watch a young male lion get put in his place by his father, we watched the alpha male lion following a female in heat, watched the lionesses and their cubs moving around, playing with one another, climbing on the rocks, coming over to our trucks to check us out.  It was absolutely fantastic to be so close to them and to watch them for so long.  This particular pride is quite large.  The guides all said this was an unusual viewing and we were really lucky to be able to see so many and to watch so much activity.  On our afternoon drive we saw a leopard, followed a cheetah across the plain in search of prey, saw lots of cape buffalo, giraffes, families of elephants, gazelles, impala and hyenas, wildebeest and zebras and on and on.  The Serengeti is just teeming with wildlife and everywhere you turn there is something to see.   The game drives do require patience,however.   There are times when we are just sitting in the truck looking out over the grassy expanse waiting for something to happen.  The guides are very skilled at scanning the horizon and seeing what's happening. They also understand the animal behavior so they know what the animals are likely to do and how best to position us to see them. 

This is our last night in the tented camp and I am more than ready to get back to more comfortable lodgings!  I've never been one for camping and I am completely ready to have running water, good plumbing, hot showers when I want them, electricity for a hair dryer, access to the internet etc.  Mind you, this has been fairly comfortable camping by camping standards, but for me, it's been a bit of a stretch.  I don't regret it because it is only by being in this camp literally in the very center of the Serengeti that we have been able to have the kinds of game drives we've enjoyed and they have been fantastic.  But I will be happy to get back to civilization tomorrow evening!

Tanzania Day 6 - Game Drives

Our first full day at camp Serengeti was marked by a very early awakening at 5:30, breakfast at 6 and departure for our first game drive at 6:45.  The temps are much cooler in the morning and it was very windy so we started out in fleeces and jackets, which then came off later as it got very hot.   We had a fabulous first game ride.  First we saw hyenas, a whole clan of them, in a mud hole along the road. They were gnawing on kill and wallowing in the mud and playing with each other.  THen we drove on and saw a pod of hippos wallowing in a pond.  Those things are huge!  After that we drove on and our guide spotted a leopard in the brush.  ON the other side of the road was a herd of elephants.  We didn't know which way to looK!   We wound up following the leopard for the better part of an hour.  He seemed to be looking for kill although he let a number of gazelles go so we finally concluded he wasn't that hungry.  It was fabulous to watch him stalking around however.  He was a big guy.  THen we went back to the elephants and drove right up where they were.  A young male came right over to our truck and right as he got near us he lifted his trunk as if to say hello!  We stayed with the elephants for awhile and then drove on.  We heard from one of the other drivers that they had spotted cheetahs so we drove over to where they were and we saw a whole family, a mother and three cubs.  We watched that family for a very long time.  They were gorgeous and we were able to get lots of shots of them.  They walked along for awhile and then they settled under a tree for a rest.  We watched them for a long time. After we left there we found a lioness under a tree.  Then another family of cheetahs, mother and two cubs.  We then went to the big plain area and had a break surrounded by wildebeest and zebras, who are on migration right now. Hundreds and hundreds of them and they are fine with us stopping there to have a snack and watch them.  On our way back to the campsite, we saw the leopard we had seen earlier, sleeping in a tree.    We also saw hundreds of gazelles and impala, some jackals and a plethora of bird life.  It's truly amazing out there.  We came back for lunch and rest.  I did some yoga to stretch my muscles after sitting in that jeep for hours.  RIding around in that thing is exhausting because it is both noisy and exceedingly bumpy, and, later in the day, very hot and buggy.  I've used a lot of bug spray the past two days!  Our afternoon drive was much shorter.  We headed to a swamp area which was really pretty quiet at first.  We saw a lot of water fowl, a large lizard, herons etc.  Then we came upon another pod of hippos so spent a lot of time watching them.  ON the way back to our campsite we saw some giraffes, lots of Cape buffalo, many of whom we had seen as we started out the afternoon drive, jackals, gazelles,wildebeest and zebras...It just goes on and on.

At our camp, we get shower water only once a day, one  5 gallon bucket per person and we are allowed to shower only then.  Our tent toilets also have a limited water supply so we have learned to be circumspect with flushing so as not to run out of water too quickly. The food at the camp is pretty good and quite plentiful, although this seems to be a drinking crowd and our supply of beer is clearly not going to make it till our last day.  I'll be on water and soft drinks by then it is clear!  I'm not one for camping, but the game drives make it worth it.  The accommodations and inconveniences of camping life are somewhat annoying to me, but all in all I'm tolerating it because the chance to see this wild kingdom here is more than worth it.  The sunrise over the hills was gorgeous this morning also. The sun rises very quickly here.  I assume it is because we are so close to the equator.  One minute it is dark and the next daylight is upon us.  Tomorrow is another early morning, so I'm off to bed now.  5:30 comes way too soon!

Tanzania Day 5- Ngorongoro Crater, Oldupai Gorge and Serengeti

Today we left the Lodge near Ngorongoro Crater and drove to the crater, along the conservation area where the crater is located.   That entire area is populated by the Masai tribe. The government moved them there when it created the Serengeti as a national park, and they wanted the Masai in the conservation area because they are particularly good at living with wild animals.  They do not believe in eating wild animals, only the domesticated herds that they care for, mostly cows and goats.  So they live well alongside the wild animals.  As we drove through the Ngorongoro reserve there were many, many Masai villages and Masai people walking along the road, or out on the plain taking care of their animals.  We saw a couple of young warriors in training, with the white markings on their faces.  Driving through that area we saw many wildebeest, buffalo, giraffes and zebras, and a few warthogs.  We stopped at Oldupai Gorge, which is a famous archeological site where Mary Leakey and her husband, famous archeologists of the 20th century discovered a skull of a very early form of hominid, pre homosapiens by a lot, and they discovered footprints of hominids who lived 3.6 million years ago in this area.  That whole site is a gold mine of fossils and clues to the origins of our modern day humans.  They have a small museum there and every summer they get archeological research teams from all over the world coming in to study the fossils and to dig for more remains of pre-human history.  That was a fascinating visit.  

After the gorge we drove to the Serengeti national park.  It was a long, exceedingly hot and bumpy, not to mention incredibly dusty ride.  Two of our three Jeeps broke down.  One had a leak in a fuel tank and the other had a flat tire, so we were delayed by awhile for the tire to be changed and the hole in the fuel tank was temporarily plugged with a piece of wood until we got to the gate to the Serengeti where our guides had arranged for a new Jeep to come and be exchanged for that one.  Our lunch stop there was seemingly endless, as we had to change over the Jeeps, and the registration process took absolutely forever.  You can't enter national parks in this country without a lot of paperwork, and ours was delayed because the guide was paying by credit card and the internet went down and the card couldn't be processed so we had to wait.  We wound up being at that entrance area for nearly two hours.   One thing we are learning in Tanzania is that this is very much a culture of "hurry up and wait."  The bureaucracy here is unbelievable and there is no rushing anything.  Akuna matata is the order of the day here and you just have to give up expecting anything to happen on time.  When we finally left the entrance and headed into the Serengeti we spent about 2 1/2 hours on a game drive.  We saw hundreds of wildebeests on migration, lots of zebras, warthogs, hyenas, ostriches, gazelles and finally, at the very end of the day, as we were getting near our camp, we found three leopards each sleeping in a diffferent tree.  The number of Jeeps crowded around those trees was amazing.  The leopards seemed completely oblivious to the stir they were creating among the safari folks like us, and they just kept right on sleeping, ignoring us altogether.  We saw two males and a female.  I was surprised at how small they are.  It was hard to get photos of them because they were well hidden in the tree, probably on purpose!  After gazing at the leopards for quite awhile we then drove to our tented camp. This is true camping, not nearly so glamorous as the OAT camp in India.  We are right in the middle of the Serengeti plain, with animals and wildlife of all sorts all around us.  The tents are fine as far as tents go, but this is way more primitive than I've done before.  We each get one big bucket of hot water a day to shower, and all showers are done just before dinner.  We get another bucket of water to wash face and rinse out clothes, and bottled water for teeth brushing.  We can only charge phones, camera batteries etc. for a few hours in the evening while we are eating dinner.  And we're told that we will be given one lantern after dinner to provide very limited light in the tent for when we retire after dinner!  It's pretty clear that it will be early to bed here, since once it's dark there won't be much we can do!  We can't keep any snacks in the tent because they may attract animals, so we have to put them in a secure box in mess tent.  I can already tell that I will be more than ready to return to that gorgeous lodge we were at last night after 4 nights of this.  I just have to remind myself that seeing the animals is worth it and this is a once in a lifetime experience!

Tanzania Day 4

Today we left the Lake Burunge tented camp and spent our morning at a Masai village for our "day in the life" experience.  When we arrived at the village, the chief met us and then the women all came out and each one adopted one of us and led us to a hut.  The Masai huts are made from elephant dung with thatched roofs.  The huts are quite small, round, with an outer living area and sleeping rooms.  We were in the hut of one of the chief's three wives.  The women demonstrated their basket weaving skills and let us see the bedrooms.  Then we were led outside and the women dressed all of us women up in their traditional garb.  Once we were dressed we were invited to join in a traditional singing/dancing ceremony.  That was followed by a march to where the firewood is kept and we were given the material to cover our heads and then balance firewood on them and march back in line to the village to deliver the firewood.  Then some men of the village demonstrated their jumping prowess.  Masai men are amazingly skilled at jumping many feet straight up into the air.  It's all part of a dance ritual.  Very impressive.  Then the chief talked to us for awhile about Masai customs and way of life.  We ended the visit shopping at the market where the women were selling the beadwork and basketry work that they make.  The children of the village hung around near all the commotion, not really sure what to make of all of us white westerners parading around their village!  

It was really interesting to see this culture that is still so unaffected by modernity.  The Masai are pastoralists, herding cows and goats.  They are also polygamous.  The chief we met today has three wives.  He is an unusually progressive chief, working on establishing a school for the village children and also beginning to try to educate his people about the risks of Female Genital   Mutilation (female circumcision) which is still common in these tribes.  He is getting a lot of resistance to his desires to change that practice because it is seen as so integral to their culture.  It was like stepping back in time to visit this village and see how these tribal peoples live.  

After we left the village we stopped at a woodworking shop where local tribal artisans do the famous African wood carvings out of ebony, mahogany and other indigenous woods.  We then had a long drive to the lodge we are staying in tonight near the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.   This lodge is on a huge, 500 acre coffee plantation, where they also do organic gardening of vegetables and fruits.  We took a tour of the plantation late this afternoon. It was really beautiful and the views out over the mountains were impressive.  The food at this lodge was fantastic.  We had a huge lunch when we arrived and a delicious stir fry dinner this evening.  I was relieved to be able to wash my hair and feel human for the first time in three days.  And everyone was thrilled to have decent internet access after two nights with such terrible service.  

Tomorrow we are up very early and off to the Serengeti where we will have no internet access for the next four days.  So radio silence begins now!

Tanzania Day 3 - Tarangire National Park -  Lake Burunge Tented Camps

Today we got up early, like 5:45 to go to breakfast so we could get an early start on our game drive.  We walked to the lodge in the pre=dawn darkness, accompanied by our Masai guard with his powerful flashlight.  By the time we got there the sun was starting to rise over the lake and the scene was gorgeous.  It was amazing how quickly the sun rose.  I was glad to get some good shots of it on my iPhone.  After breakfast we left for our game drive.  Today our driver was Samson (Sammie) and we were riding with Rebecca and Ilene and Irwin.  They were a good crew.  We spent about 5 hours driving through the park, looking for big cats.  We only saw one lioness and she was quite a distance from us.  No leopards or cheetahs.  We did see a lot of giraffes, impalas, water bucks, warthogs, wildebeest, mongoose, a variety of birds, a leopard turtle, a huge lizard, baboons with their babies and many elephants.  We spent a lot of time watching the baboons as they were quite lively, playing with each other, feeding, wandering around and there were a number of very tiny babies clinging to their mothers' tummies or backs.  At one point a male baboon grabbed a baby away from the mother while she went off to feed!  I was amused to see that the dads sometimes get tasked with babysitting so the mother can eat.  It was a very hot day today, near 89 and when you are sitting in the Jeep it can get very hot even with the windows and roof open.  We also spent a long time watching the elephants and we stopped for long time to watch a lone male elephant who was injured.  He was alone because he could not keep up with the herd and he was drinking from a big puddle and splashing himself with water.  We felt so bad for him because he will likely be killed by a predator since he cannot run and cannot stay near the herd for protection.  The National Park does not interfere with nature, which means the law of survival of the fittest rules out there.  We stopped at a lunch spot in the park which was full of macaque monkeys who were very good at stealing food.  Tracy's sandwich was stolen before she ever got the box, and when we were sitting at the table and I was sharing some of my sandwich with her, a monkey landed on the table, first tried to take my sandwich and then chose some broken bits of bread I had discarded and then leaped away.  We had a real laugh over that as it was quite a surprise to have the monkey join us for lunch!!

This tented camp is pretty nice.  More like glamping than camping, although I am suffering because you cannot use hairdryers here, so I have not washed my hair in two days.  I'm hoping that tomorrow night at the lodge I'll be able to use a hairdryer and right now my hair looks better even dirty and slept on than it would if I washed it and couldn't style dry it so I'm toughing it out.  If there's not sufficient electricity tomorrow night I'll have to give up and wash it and then look ghastly until next I can get to a hairdryer!  The other frustration here is the very poor internet.  I can't even post pics on FB because the system is so slow that the photos from my camera simply won't upload.  I managed to upload some from my phone.  I can't do the blog because the app has just quit working altogether so all I have is FB and I'm going nuts not being able to post there.  One realizes on a trip like this to the wilderness in the third world country how very spoiled we first world, affluent folks are.  We are just so used to high speed reliable internet and robust and plentiful electricity, that these inconveniences cause real annoyance. I have to remind myself that these are first world problems and the Tanzanians live with much worse tribulations all the time than these minor annoyances.  

A lot of folks on this trip are sick with upper respiratory bugs of various sorts and even Tracy started coming down with something today.  I'm trying desperately to avoid getting anything from anyone.  I have managed to do yoga twice since we've been here and hope I can make myself keep at it at least every other day.  It's amazing how tiring it is to sit in the Jeep all day.  After the noise and the extremely bumpy rides where you are clinging to handles for support and being bounced and jostled constantly for hours, you just feel done in.  But, as one who has never been a fan of camping this is stretching me a bit beyond my comfort zone as it certainly lacks the creature comforts to which I am accustomed!  But it is fascinating to see this culture which is so different from those I have studied and visited so far. We've been learning a lot about the Masai tribe and some of their customs are quite surprising.  They are polygamous, and indeed, in order to be a warrior and an elder in a tribe a man has to have several wives.  They do arranged marriages, very young.  When boys become men they have to be circumcised in a public ritual with a shaman who circumcises a number of boys at the same time, using the same knife.  This is obviously a problem when it comes to spreading infections.  The boys are not given pain killers and it is considered a shameful thing for him to cry out or show any sign of pain.  Then as they train to be a warrior they wear all black and paint their faces with white paint that looks pretty scary!  To finally make it to warrior status they have to steal cows.  Our guide said that the tribe still practices FGM even though it is illegal in Tanzania at this point.  Seeing these very old tribal cultures is really an eye=opening experience for me, as it is so very different from the European, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures I've seen before.  

Must be off to bed now.   We're taking an early morning walk to the lake tomorrow before we leave here which will mean seeing another sunrise.  Then we're going to spend the day with the Masai villagers and finally wind up a Ngorogoro tomorrow night.