Terrific, Terrifying and Terrible Tanzania
The Tanzanian part of our adventure has been interesting to
say the least. It was a country of very
long drives, hot weather, the worst roads we have traveled on so far, bad
traffic, rich in history and amazing animals.
The pictures are put at the end of the text as I don’t have time to
organize them properly and the wifi is very slow here in Nairobi.
I will explain the meanings of the words in the title. Terrific were the game drives and camping in
the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater (much more on this later) and the history
and views from Zanzibar. Terrifying were
the camping in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater (more on this later). Terrible were the roads –both in condition,
construction and speed humps (mini mountains)-, also the stomach issues in
Zanzibar (Montezuma’s revenge in Mexico has nothing on this).
Our journey here started with an uneventful border crossing
and a 12+ hour drive (bounced around a lot) which brought us to the outskirts
of Dar Es Salam (the countries capital) which was very warm and traffic
congested. It puts the Toronto traffic
into the fast lane. There is no
semblance of organization. It’s everyone
for themselves with city buses doing whatever they wanted. Below is a picture of one of the buses in
traffic (this is on the main highway and people just hop on and off since we
are not going very fast). The temperature at the time was in the high 30’s with
a humidex in the high 40’s. We didn’t even get to the campground. We ended up getting off the truck and took
tuk tuks which moved much faster. The
truck got to the campground 2 hours later. Racing each other through congested streets
was the best part of the day. The
drivers are nuts. (sorry no pictures – we were just hanging on)
The second day had us up early on onto the ferry that took
us to the island of Zanzibar. This
island has a very strict Muslim culture and the women had to dress
appropriately (no visible shoulders or legs).
They have had incidents in the past where women were attacked for not
dressing appropriately. The first night
in Zanzibar had us staying in Stone Town.
This place has a lot of history and is very dirty. The slaves were sold here at the slave market
in town. The buildings were very
interesting and the street mazes reminded us of some of the areas in Europe and
old Quebec City. We got lost a lot and
were being constantly bombarded with shop owners trying to hock their wares. Our group definitely stands out in the crowds. The second and third days saw us drive to the
north end of the island to a beach resort.
We were definitely not expecting this type of travel but it was
definitely welcome as we were able to recharge ourselves and slow down a bit. The last day on the island saw us back down
in Stone Town and this is where I (Dan) had some real stomach issues ( I passed
out in the hotel for hours and made many and powerful visits to the toilet)
After Zanzibar we made a big push the Serengeti (a very
large grassland national park with an unbelievable amount of animals – I only
set some of the pictures). Here are the highlights and terrifying times. We boarded our jeeps for the safaris. The leopard is one of the hardest animal to
see and we were able to find three different ones (even our local guide said to
seeing that many is extremely rare) We
got up close (in the jeeps) to almost all the animals. The elephants, lions and leopards seemed to
be the favourites of most of the safari trucks.
I have a lot more to tell on this but will explain more when we get
home.
Now for the terrifying stuff -well maybe not so terrifying
as amazing. Our accommodations in the
Serengeti and on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater were our tents. Keep in mind there are no fences around the
campgrounds and all the animals roam free and we found out this included the
area where our tents were. In the
Serengeti we were instructed to stay in our tents at night but one of the ladies
from our group thought it would be ok to go out at 5:30 am since this is when
we were supposed to start breakfast.
What she failed to hear was the sound of the lions in our camp. (We had been hearing the zebra and wildebeest
all night long and only the lions from just before 5) She was quickly and
loudly instructed to get back into her tent unless she wanted to get
eaten. The lions left and we exited our
tents and got ready for the day. As we exited
the tent area we found out why the lions had left – they had killed a
wildebeest right beside the road – right outside our camp - and were feasting. What a great way to start the day. The rest of the Serengeti was just as
amazing. That night we headed to the rim
of the Ngorongoro crater (a large caldera formed when the volcano that was
there erupted and left its mark). This
is when the next two terrifying (amazing) things happened. We were milling about awaiting supper (they
have caged in pavilions and for good reason we found out as this area also has
many wild animals around) They have
armed guards (not like in the Serengeti) here but not for our protection but
for the animals. They hire Masai
warriors to do the guarding and these guys mean business. Look them up to find out why they are so
fearsome – if not wait till we get home and we’ll tell you. Enough on that and back to the animals. As we awaited supper a large bull elephant
wandered into camp –some idiots thought it would be ok to go right up to it and
take photos (the masai warriors were quick to react). We though the entertainment was over – wrong. The elephant came right up to the pavilion and
then stole food from the kitchen area before they started banging pots and pans
to scare the thing away. After supper we
socialized for a bit and then went to our tents. Part way through the night
Lisa needed to go
to the bathroom and we were getting ready to leave the tent when we could here
munching sounds right outside our tent and smell was very powerful. We waited about a half an hour until the
noise went away and went to the bathroom.
There was nothing we could see in the area and thought nothing more. Later on in the night we heard the noises and
had the smells again on the other side of our tents. It turns out we had a herd of cape buffalo
grazing around the tents. As with the
Serengeti if there are grazing animals then there will be predators and
scavengers. We then heard the lions,
hyenas and jackals in the area but nothing much happened the rest of the
night. Morning had us descend the crater
and go on our last game drive for a while.
The first thing we saw was a pride of lions with a kill and a bunch of
cubs. The day continued for the hunt for
the last of the big five (the rhino). We
eventually spotted two in the distance.
Our safari was now complete.
Those two nights and days have been an unbelievable experience that mere
words cannot describe.
We are now in Nairobi, Kenya awaiting the next leg of our
adventure. I am not sure about wifi for
the next 14 days but will try and post when I can. We hope those of you that had March Break had
a wonderful time and for those of you who did not, we hope you are well.
Kenyan Family Robinson
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Getting some local fruit |
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Human Pickup trucks for hire |
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Bringing home the daily water |
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That must hurt the neck |
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Another use for a bicycle |
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Crowded bus and traffic jam |
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Lisa in the market area of Stone Town |
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Car pooling |
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Narrow streets of Stone Town |
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Fishing Boats In Northern Zanzibar |
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Heading to the beach from the resort |
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Enjoying the beach in northern Zanzibar |
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Mud walled village |
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Mt Kilimanjaro above the clouds |
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Mt Kilimanjaro with a Mt Kilimanjaro beer |
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Going Bananas |
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Taking home some local fruit |
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Young Masai |
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Two Black Rhino |
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Elephant stealing food from the kitchen |