Tanzania is Stripey!!!
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2002
1
37
158
Trip End
Aug 08, 2005
Dar Es Salaam,
Tanzania
Friday, July 18, 2003
We are currently in a little resort called Silver Sands, a short distance up the coast from Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. The sun is shining and we have reached the warm weather again, thankfully. The beach is quiet and we are enjoying the relaxation but unfortunately we must leave this afternoon.
After our brief re-visit to Kenya, we headed pretty quickly to Tanzania, stopping only for a couple of hours at a town where they mine and carve soapstone and where we spent lots of money we didn't have! Crossing the border into Tanzania, we made it to the gates of Serengeti National Park at about 4p.m. The campsite is about 4 hours drive into the park so we had to move quickly as you get fined huge amounts for driving in the dark there. Along the way we saw thousands of wildebeast running in large herds. This was actually the final stages of the migration and it was pretty spectacular. The park was an amazing place, it's absolutely huge with wide open plains and open grass savannah. We didn't make it to the campsite before sunset so we had to slow down and take it easy in case we ran over any animals. The sunset was spectacular, we had a stripey African sun which went from purple at the bottom to yellow at the top! Shortly after dark we stopped suddenly, looked out of the truck and saw a male lion sitting in the middle of the road. It got up slowly and ambled away to resettle in the bush a short distance away. Not long after we again stopped the truck in a hurry, to see a lioness at the side of the road with a freshly killed wildebeast.
01 Ostrich
If we had been a little earlier we might have seen her take it down. The animals were really close and incredibly beautiful. We finally arrived at the campsite, pitched our tents, then learnt that just 10 minutes earlier 2 lionesses had been drinking from the water tank right next to our tents as it was the closest source of water. In the night we were woken by the sound of animals drinking there and didn't dare turn on a torch to see what it was. A bit later on, our curiosity got the better of us and we turned on the torches, shone them through the tent and saw a spotted hyena just a couple of feet away. Again, these are really beautiful creatures and quite large. The next morning, we stared our game drive early and saw more lions, zebra drinking in a pool, their reflections in the water, saw many hippos bathing and snorting and then, finally, a cheetah under a tree. There was a short traffic jam as cars and trucks lined up to see it, one at a time, inching forward. It rolled in the grass for us, yawned, washed and generally posed for the photagraphs, probably in the hope that we would all just leave it in peace. Before leaving the park later that day, we saw 5 more cheetah in the long grass, blending so easily into the landscape. From the Serengeti, you drive straight into the Ngorongoro National Park. We headed towards the crater's edge, to a hotel, again driving in the dark. We stopped abruptly and saw a huge bull elephant wandering down the road towards us. It stopped, seemed to sit down next to the truck at the side of the road, and then came stomping towards us really quickly.
02 Zebra
It was absolutely incredible to see the enormous face, so close up on a level with ours! We eventually crept past it and drove a little further along to the hotel and when we awoke in the morning, the view was indescribable. Right on the crater edge, you look down into an immense crater, where the sun shining through the clouds cast beams of light in stripes onto the crater floor. We hired a landrover to do a game drive into the crater, enjoying the spectacular scenery. The landscape was very different and we saw the by now, usual array of animals. Reluctantly, we left the parks that afternoon and headed towards the coast, unable to see Kilimanjaro due to the clouds but stopping along the way in Arusha where we visited a snakepark and then spent the night in a Maasai village. This wasn't a tourist trap place, it was the village of a Maasai chief Paul met some years ago, who don't normally allow visitors to stay. We camped amongst the mud huts, the children stroked our skin and hair and then went absolutely crazy as we all played with balloons. The adults started dancing and singing and showed us their beaded jewellery and head adorments. Groups of boys dressed in black cloth hung around at the edges, watching us, they are teenagers, who leave for 3 years at the age of about 12, to fend for themselves in the bush and are eventually re-accepted into their tribes as having become men. Leaving the village we continued our journey to the coast to Dar Es Salaam where we caught a ferry to Zanzibar. We enjoyed a few days by ourselves, away from the truck, just relaxing. Zanzibar has got to be the most touristy place we've seen since we left home, a cross between the Mediterrean islands and Venice. Stone Town is a maze of narrow alleyways and dilapidated buildings with shutters swinging in the breeze. We ate the first night at the food stalls on the harbour where Sian actually ate and enjoyed fish kebabs, a first and probably the last! There was all sorts to eat, mainly seafood, and the local drink was freshly squeezed sugar cane. The sunsets were nice and we explored the island a little during a 'Spice Tour'. The island is a major exporter of spices around the world and they showed us many of the different fruits and spices grown locally. We learnt heaps. At the end of what was obviously an extremely tiring day...we had to relax on a small secluded beach for a while. Unfortunately, we only stayed for 3 days on the island and we wished we had more time but we will definitely go back there some day.... another place to add to the list of 're-visits'!Well as you can probably tell, we are moving very quickly in order to get to Cape Town for August 17th. Next we will head to Malawi and enjoy more days on the beaches, this time on Lake Malawi. We hope this entry finds everyone well and look forward to hearing what you've all been up to.
Take Care,
K & S.
