Our Last day in Africa

Today is election day in Tanzania! We have seen many campaign posters and we've even had some Massai children educating us about the hand signs for the two main parties. A "thumbs-up" symbolizes support for one party, a peace sign shows your support for another. At first we were confused why the children kept grabbing our hands to change our finger positions until  it was explained to us. Apparently there is a Massai woman candidate running in this election.

We have no safari plans today so Issa is picking us up late. We are visiting another Massai village and then we are heading to Arusha to check in with Judith at Ajabu before we leave. We are planning to do some last minute shopping along the way, hoping that Issa gets back in time to vote.

First stop—a Massai village. This time we did't have to dress up. I was so glad because it is sooooo hot when you are wearing (and dancing) with all the layers.

Massai women

Massai Children

We ended up passing through many small villages and towns on the drive back to Arusha. Polling stations were scattered throughout. It looked like everyone was dressed in their "Sunday best" in order to cast their vote. 

Polling station in the field

Since most of today we are on the road, we took as many random pictures from the vehicle as possible.

 Many of the dala-dalas that we saw throughout our stay were named. Not sure if this was a way of identifying the actual vehicle or if it was more whimsical. This one was named "Brain", and no, hanging on for dear life to the outside of the vehicle is not legal in Tanzania!

We stop to eat our boxed lunch outside a large curio shop. Another last minute chance to do a bit of shopping. Sitting on the patio, we get swarmed by a bunch of "wild" kittens. We couldn't resist feeding them some of our chicken...(I know! I know! don't feed the wild animals...but cute kittens!!!)

Back on the road to Arusha...

We arrive in Arusha around 4-4:30pm. Issa checks in to head office by phone and finds that Judith and Gert are out of the office. We arrange to meet them outside of a store in the down town area. When we meet up with Judith we start to relate all the experiences we've had in the last 6 days then it really hits us...next stop is the airport to go home. Since our flight doesn't leave until around midnight and our tour with Ajabu is officially over, Gert makes a suggestion that we hang out at the Kia Lodge for the next several hours. The lodge is only 3 minutes away from the airport, and for a small fee the lodge will drive us to the airport when the time comes. Judith makes a short phone call to make arrangements and after several heartfelt goodbyes, we are back on the road to the airport and lodge. At the lodge we hit the outdoor bar, took a swim in the pool and had a great meal (soup included!) The lodge had a large shop dedicated to Tanzanite gems. Unfortunately it was closed :-(

Pool @ KIA Lodge

Pensive moment over dinner and Kilimanjaro beers

Manyara National Park

Our final lodge is named Losirwa Camp (the first time we will be staying more than one night in one place), It has a pool overlooking a plain with Massai herds, but no Internet access (no surprise there). The only guests are us and another couple.

Like all other lodges, we were greeted with cool, wet towels to wash our hands and faces and a cool drink. It is amazing how much dust and dirt are on our hands and faces after driving all day on dirt roads. At one point we had looked at the back seats of the safari vehicle and it had about 1-2 mm of dust collected on it. One of our cameras is not functioning properly and we think it's due to the dust. We have developed (at times) what our CACHA team had dubbed "the Kilema cough" because of all the dust we have been breathing in. We've now determined that the cough is not just limited to Kilema!


Morning coffee waits on our porch

 Our night at the lodge was a restless one. This is the first time that we did not have a good sleep. Because of the low altitude (1,000 m), the heat is high and there is absolutely no (or very little ) breeze in the area. The tent was sweltering, even with all flaps open. The birds in the area were EXTREMELY noisy and woke us up way too early. As we lay in bed, we could hear the tinkling of the cow bells of a nearby Maasai herd, the lowing of the cattle and the faint sound of Maasai voices calling to each other.  Despite our lack of sleep we are enthralled with this surreal experience.

  Coffee was delivered to our porch at 7:15. A quick wash, breakfast, then on our way again.

KUDU!

Today our game drive is in Manyara National park. Not even a km out of the lodge area, Issa stopped the car stating "oh my god...its a kudu. He said this was a very rare animal to see and that this was the first time he had ever seen one. Since we were not inside a park, we were able to get out of the vehicle. Rick and him got out, both with cameras in hand, and started tracking it for a shot. It was definitely aware of us so we didn't get a very good shot.


emanyara


Back into the vehicle and we continued on to the park. We learned that the park name "Manyara" is derived from a Massai word (surprise, surprise) emanyara —a plant that grows plentiful in the area.  When you break off a piece of the plant, a white milky sap comes out. This sap can apparently cause blindness so we didn't bother.



Hippos at the hippo pool





In this park we encountered a lot of monkeys! This really was the first park where they were plentiful. Something else that we hadn't seen a lot of were hippos. There was a huge herd of hippos lazing around a big pool. We were able to get out of the vehicle to stretch our legs and get some shots. The hippo pool seemed to be a popular spot because a huge bus load of school kids arrived and a lesson in hippo behaviour began.



Mother and baby elephants

 Like in other parks, we saw lots of elephants yet this was the first time we actually felt in danger. We happened on a mother and her baby. Issa stopped (as usual) and we started taking pictures (as usual). The baby started walking, slowly towards us. We were so excited to get close up shots of the baby that we didn't notice the mother getting agitated because we were closer to her baby than she was. Issa firmly told us to "stop moving" and "don't make a sound". We didn't want to even breathe. The mother started "running" towards the baby and strategically placed herself between us and baby. She ended up being so close to us that we could have reached out of our window and touched her. It was so bizarre to be eye-to-eye with an elephant in the wild.



Small stream running out of the Hot Spring

 








Looking into the "hole" of the Hot Spring

 Another interesting feature at this park is a hot spring. Although it is a very small spring, the sulphur smell permates the air for quite a large area around the spring. Issa invited us to touch the water warning us to be careful—that it might be too hot. It was hot, but not that hot. We could see egg shells scattered around the area. Apparently people bring eggs to cook in the hot water (not sure if they eat them after that though —ewww).

On the way back to the camp we took the opportunity to stop at a few more curio shops along the way. Some of these shops are incredibly over-packed with goods. The shops can be dark, very dusty and cramped—generally you need to watch where you are walking because you could easily step on or knock something over. Regardless, shopping in these stores is fun and very interesting because you just don't know what you are going to find.

Enjoyed drinks, a swim and an amazing sunset by the pool. There is one other couple staying at the camp. and they were poolside with us enjoying the sunset. Turns out they are retired, living in Vancouver, but had lived most of their life in Stittsville, Ontario. WTH!!!! Small world indeed. Tomorrow will be our last day in Africa.

Oldupai Gorge—Day four on safari

View from our porch

During the night and early this morning, we heard the bull elephant (that we saw yesterday), hanging around our tent. We got up and sat on the porch hoping to get a glimpse but no luck. Every time we went back to bed, it would start grunting and growling again, almost like it was teasing us. There were mounds of poop outside our steps the next morning!!

We grabbed breakfast and had our custom boxed lunch made, then we were off on the road again.



Secretary bird




Driving along the road the first new animal/bird we saw was a large secretary bird. As soon as we slowed down, it started walking away fast.

At one point Issa started driving off the path, plowing through bushes and rocks. He had spotted some water buffalo and wanted us to get some close up shots.




buffalo skull

 

We are noticing that there are bones of animals everywhere, especially skulls of water buffaloes (not just on this plain, but on every plain we have driven on). We have not see many other skulls, but you can be guaranteed of seeing a water buffalo or wildebeest skull every 5-10 km during a drive through the flatlands.



Today we are heading to Olduvai Gorge to visit the museum and learn about the archaeological finds of the earliest human remains. The path we took was a dirt road between the Ngorongoro National park and the Serengeti. It was extremely barren; at one point driving on dried, white lake bed and at other times on barren, dried wasteland.

We are constantly amazed at Issa's ability to get us around. We will driving on a paved, lined highway and then all of sudden, he swerves off the road onto what looks like a tire tracks in a never-ending, dirt landscape. This has happened time and time again.

Maasai @ the Shifting Sands dune

At one point we could see in the distance this smooth, large, dark mound appearing slowly out of the flat lands. It was a very strange thing to see in the wastelands. When we stopped, we discovered it was a huge, black sand dune named the "shifting sands". Pop!! out of nowhere two Maasai women appear to sell us handicrafts.

The Maasai are EVERYWHERE!!! In a restaurant in Moshi—they are at the bar or hanging out watching the TV. At our lodges/camps—they are working as porters or security guards. On the paved highway—they are on their bikes going down the road, walking or crossing the highway with their cattle. And in the barren fields and wastelands—they appear out of nowhere.


Oldupai gorge

 Arriving at Olduvai, we attended the orientation and quickly learned that the proper pronunciation is "Oldupai" with a "p" NOT "Olduvai" with a "v" (the latter is used in most textbooks). The word Oldupai is a Maasai word (surprise, surprise) for the sisal plant which grows in abundance in the gorge area.

We visited the small museum, took some pics and then were on our way again. We were disappointed that they didn't allow people to walk freely around in the gorge, which was something that we would have liked to do.

Driving back to our tented lodge, we came across several animals up close, giraffes being one. At one point we all spotted a black cat wandering in the scrub...we were wondering...could it be a small leopard? Issa thought maybe a cheetah. Off road we went again, trying to figure out what the heck it was. It turned out to be an small black, domestic house cat, in the middle of friggin nowhere. Very bizarre.

Baobab trees viewed from our porch

Made a few stops at curio shops along the way to check out paintings and masks, then off the highway onto another dirt path to our next tented lodge—Losirwa Lodge.

Sunset viewed from pool-side at Losirwa Lodge

Ngorongoro Crater—Day three on safari



Entrance to Ngorongoro Park

Ngorongoro crater was amazing! It was very difficult to grasp the size standing on the rim. Our Ajabu Adventures guide Issa said it was approx. 22 km x 15 km.



First glimpse of the crater



From the top of the crater's edge, we could see an area with very salty water and mist rising from it, some patches of swampy area and then some patches of green, possibly forested area. The rest of the crater was covered with dry, beige grass. Looking down you could see very tiny, tiny specks that were apparently animals.







Massai at the side of the road

Just before passing through the second park gate, Issa stopped the vehicle and backed up. There was a Massai lying at the side of the road. Afterwards Issa said this was highly unusual because they are usually standing or sitting - not lying. He explained to the man that he was lying in a very dangerous spot and was in danger of being hit by a car. He then passed out a bottle of water to the man. We were not stopped for more than 30 seconds, when some older (white) man driving in the opposite direction yells out his window at us that this is a public road and that we shouldn't be stopped there. Freakin' unbelievable how stupid and rude some people can be. We continued on our way, shaking our heads at encountering such rudeness in a moment of compassion.

 The long slow drive down through winding  roads was awesome—to your right cliffs going straight up, to your left cliffs going down a long, long way straight down. When we reached the bottom it was still unclear how big this area was, our eyes  were really playing tricks on us. We headed for the area with water first. Some of the area smelt bad—like bad fish combined with sulfur.

Wildlife that we saw—flamingos, wart hogs, wildebeest, ostrich, a single hyena, lions, hippos, zebras, gazelles (both Thompson and Grant's), water buck, water buffalo and tons of different birds.

 

RHINO!

The one thing that Ngorongoro is known for is the presence of black rhino. We were constantly on the alert, hoping to catch a glimpse of one. We didn't realise at the time that there are only about 35 rhinos in the park. (Had we known this, we probably wouldn't have been so positive that we would see one!)

Issa headed us off to the forested area where the rhinos are known to stay. They go there to stay out of the heat as they have no protection via hair and have small ears so the wind bothers them.  At one point Rick says loudly that he thought he just saw a rhino and asked Issa if he could back up. Issa seemed a bit doubtful that Rick saw one, but was all too willing to back up the truck to check it out. Rick was saying "I bet $100  it's a rhino" and we were all laughing at that. Turns out Rick was right!! It was a black rhino and we had front row seats as we were the only safari truck in the area. We started clicking away with our cameras and sharing binoculars.

Craziness ensues!

Within about 5-10 minutes we were surrounded by no less than 11 other safari vehicles. Word had gotten out on the radio (not by Issa) and the crowd converged. A party atmosphere ensued as people were climbing up on truck roofs, pointing and taking pics. In one vehicle everyone cracked open beers and were cheering each other. Seeing the rhino was the completion of their "Big Five" sightings so it was a moment for celebrating.

Lions with their kill

Driving away out of the forested area, we were lucky to come across a pride of female lions who had just brought down what looked like a buffalo. Lions were rolling around in the sun, being lazy in the sun after their feeding. We could see jackals hanging around in the background, waiting for their chance at the carcass.

One of the many memorable sights of the day were the zebras that were intermingled with the Maasai herds of goats and cattle that were wandering the hill sides. It was weird to be cooped up in a jeep (which you are not allowed to step out of for safety reasons) yet the Maasai are wandering freely around the crater.

Young Maasai boy

On drive to our next lodge, we were driving for miles off-road and ended up driving into a humongous heard of Maasai cattle. There were hundreds of cattle!  Issa slowed down and Maasai warriors surrounded our vehicle; poking their heads in through the open windows and looking around. This was the one time during our whole trip that I felt a bit scared...not because we were surrounded but because all of the warriors and the young boys had the strangest eyes. Their irises were so dark that they seemed black, and therefore they looked like their entire eyes were black with a tiny bit of white on the edges. We started passing out water bottles and Rick asked if it was OK to take pictures. Issa tried to talk to them but they didn't understand him.  Issa speculated that they were probably an old (rich) Maasai  tribe which doesn't interact with outsiders.  We could not negotiate to take pictures so we continued on.

About two minutes before turning into the lodge driveway, we passed the biggest, bull  elephant we had seen to date. He was eating vegetation right at the edge of the road. Of course we stopped to take loads of pictures.










Lake Masek Tented Lodge




We ended our day at Lake Masek Tented Lodge—yet again another romantic, beautiful setting.

A full day in Tarangire National Park—Day two on safari



Front porch of our lodge



We woke up to coffee delivered to our front porch. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. We we excited for what the day would hold.



Our hot shower is being prepared

 When we had arrived last night, the front desk had asked us if we were going to have a shower in the morning. We thought it was weird question but we were too tired to ask why they were asking us. We found out why in this morning. Each private lodge had a wood stove at the rear of the buikding that heated the water. The lodge staff had lit a fire in our wood stove so we could have a hot shower.



Double sinks in our tent



We end our day at the Ngorongoro Farm House