Week 5

Thursday 19th May.

Nmemba Atoll

I didn't sleep very well because of the 3rd degree burns I got while swimming with the dolphins yesturday- well, at least it feelt that bad. We all met at the brekky table at 8am to go snorkeling with the turtle sanctuary people. We were met by one of the staff and walked down to our beach where the boat was waiting for us, and had to wade out to meet it. There was us, Jan, Benne, Jimmy, Sheri, Jerome, Andrea, Emma, Fiona, Marcus, and Aileen- who has learnt how to swim while on this trip! There were also 8 other people on the boat.

It was about a 2 hour boat ride out to the Nmemba Atoll where we would be snorkelling. The Atoll is a shallow reef surrounding a small island. The island itself has accomodation on it but we were not even allowed to set our flippers down on it. The accomodation starts at US$3,000 a night and you have to pay US$100 just to set foot on it if you want to visit!  Needless to say we didn't go check out the island!
The coral was nice and the water was the most perfect temperature. There were heaps of different colourful types of fish and we had a disposable waterproof camera with us so we took a few photos. Time will tell if they turned out ok or not. When we were all done swimming we got back on the boat and were taken across to the mainland directly across from the atoll where the staff had prepared lunch for us. We had king makerel with rice and some fresh fruit to finish off. The makerel was delicious. After chilling out for a bit and going for another quick dip in the water we boarded the boat again to begin the slow journey home. And I mean slow... for some reason unknown to us, they decided to try and sail back instead of using the engine. Only problem was there was next to no wind.... Hmmmm.  After about two hours they finally decided to turn on the motor and we finally made it back to our beach.  TIA. Another awesome day for US$20.

The water was irrisistable so I went for another swim and Alex went to get his fishing gear as he had managed to organise while we were snorkelling that the captains brother would take him out in the afternoon. Gotta give him points for determination! He got back a few hours later.... without any fish.... Gotta give him points for determination! They did however loose a fishing rod to some mysterious and massive fish, luckily it wasn't Alex's rod.  For dinner a group of us went down to another restaurant on the beach and had more seafood and more cocktails. Another awful day in paradise.

Friday 20th May.

The gods must be crazy.

We were picked up at 8am by the same mini van and driven back to Stonetown, arriving by 10am. We didn't have to meet for the ferry until midday, so had a good two hours to do more exploring of this eclectic place. I really love Stonetown. It is my favourite place so far. The people are friendly, the town itself if a wonderful labrynth of stone alleys, there is an interesting mix of cultures, and need i mention the food! It is where the Africa you see on the National Geographic Channel meets the Middle East. We will definatley be coming back here in the future.

We spent the two hours organising US$ for the serengeti (again or still, I cant tell anymore), wondering through the labrynth, we grabbed some lunch, and I bought a heap of really nice scarfs for me and for gifts, I got 4 for 10,000 shillings (US$6.60, or about US$1.60 each).

It was a comfortable ferry ride back to Dar Es Salaam. They were playing 'The Gods Must Be Crazy I and II', which was a perfect choice of movie, and one that a lot of people in our group had never seen or heard of. Farron was at the terminal to greet us when we arrived and we all made our way back to camp. Some people chose to walk to the other ferry and get a taxi on the other side, we jumped in a maxi-taxi with Janet, Sheri, Wil, Fiona, Marcus, Lars, and BJ. Bad decision. What should have been a 30 minute drive and ferry crossing turned into an arduous 2 hours drive. Our taxi driver thought he could sneak up the side of the que and push in front of someone, but was caught doing this by the traffic police at the ferry crossing. The female officer told him he had to turn around and go to the end of the quem, so he tried to bribe her to let us in. Well, this just pissed her off. She was not going to let us squeeze in. After sitting there for what felt like an eternity our driver finally realised that she wasnt going to change her mind and started reversing back down towards the start of the massive, peak hour congested, line of cars. He only reversed far enough though to be out of the traffice police's line of vision, got out of the taxi, and walked up and down the line of vehicles until he found one guy who accepted the bribe to allow us in front of him for cash. Finally in the line for the ferry we had to wait for 3 or 4 to come and go before we got on. From there it was a quick journey back to camp.

We were told that we would be leaving at 4am so make a quick dash to the bar to organise an upgrade so that we wouldnt have to get up at 3.30am to pack up our tent. The upgrade was awesome, Alex said it was his favourite upgrade so far. It was a little tree house/bungalow type thing with two mattresses on the floor and a big mozzie net over both of them. It also had a power socket so we were able to charge everything. It was also an excellent price, only setting us back 16,000 shillings- thats US$10.70- not each, total!
We chose to skip the cooks groups past dinner and ordered from the bar. Alex got a chicken schnitzel and I had a steak, both for about 10,000 shillings each (US$6.60). We went to bed early and set our alarm for 3.45am. Yuk.

Saturday 21st May.

Happy birthday to my brother!!!

We left the campsite at 4am as planned, got settled in our new, replacement, temporary home and fell back to sleep. The replacement truck is much smaller than our home and the seats are all inward facing and much more uncomfortable. There is no locker space downstairs so everything we own has to be stored in the 'loungeroom' with us. So now all of our big packs are under the loungeroom floor, and everything else- our day packs, sleeping mats, sleeping bag, pillows, pantry's, books- are stored under our seats and above our heads. I am a fan of the overhead storage because it is easier to get to the things that are there, but it is a pain having things under the floor because if you need to get anything you first need to get everyone to move. At least its only for a few weeks then we will have our home back.

It is strange how a big green truck can feel like home, and how attached and comfortable we have gotten with it in just 5 weeks, but it really is like our home and we will be glad to have it back.
We pulled over on the side of the road somewhere that looked like a good pee spot and cook group also brought out breakfast. We had fresh local pineapple and watermelon and the usualy cereal and bread was there too. Tanzania has the juciest, yummiest, freshest, sweetest pineapple I have ever tasted!

We stopped again at 11.30am for a stretch and toilet. It is going to be a long drive day as we make a dash for Arusha, Tanzania's capital. We stopped for lunch at a small town surrounded by towering mountains and got some meat and chips from a roadside stall, of which there are always at least 10 in a row all selling the same thing. Back on the road again, it wasn't too long after lunch we pulled over to admire our first sighting of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is such a beautiful, gigantic mountain, and I stood there thinking about my brother, on his birthday admiring the mountain he climbed a few years ago.

We stopped at 5pm in a town to do cook group shopping. Being Saturday night, Felix and Marcus and I were cooking. Farron asked if we could try and use as much as we could from the truck so we bought some mince meat and some veggies. We didn't end up getting to the Snake Park Camp in Arusha until 9pm, whipped up a potato and pumpkin mash with the meat side for the carnivours and a bean side for the herbivours. After dinner we had to pack what we wanted to take to the Serengeti and then it was straight to bed.

Sunday 22nd May. 

To the Serengeti.

The safari cars arrived to pick us up at 8am as planned, we all paid and got settled into one of the three 9 seater 4WDs. We were in a car with Tony, Wil, BJ, Benne and Jimmy. The drive to the Serengeti National Park was really pretty and on the way we passed through lots of Masaai villages and Masaai warriors hearding thier cattle and goats. We stopped in a town along the way where the staff were picking up food to cook us dinners and breakfasts for the next two nights.

At lunch time we pulled over at a nice picnic spot overlooking the Ngorogoro Crater where we ate our packed lunch consisting of bread, chicken pieces, peanuts, a banana, a carrot, a juice box, some cheese and a muffin. Gotta love a good packed lunch. We saw our first Maribu Stalk while eating lunch. They are the ugliest birds on the planet. They look like they really pissed evolution and mother nature off somehow. Another way to describe them is 'The bird that time forgot'. They also seem to have absolutley no idea how big or how ugly they are. They stand over a meter tall, with thier head easily reaching my chest. And yet, this one Maribu Stalk looked like it was trying to sneak around us- like we wouldnt notice it if it moved real slow and steady.  There was also a wild pig that was after some food and charged at a few people. All in all an interesting lunch packed full with wildlife- a sign of things to come?!!

On the road again we reached the gates to the Serengeti National Park in the early afternoon. The plan was to have a game drive on the way to the camp site we weould be staying at for one night. We saw heaps of animals, and as I sit here writing this I'm having trouble remembering what we saw on what day (it's June now). We got to the camp at sunset and we set about putting our tents up while the staff started dinner. The camp was really basic with a toilet block that had one male toilet and one female toilet only, plently of space for our tents, a fire pit that we sat around, and a cooking area that was fenced off. You could see places in the fence where animals tried to break in because the wire was all bent out of shape.

Dinner was a nice local meat dish with rice and fruit to finish. We stayed up and had a few drinks around the fire, but were pretty tired after being in the car all day so went to bed reasonably early. We had to do 'toilet buddies' and wake each other up if we needed the bathroom in the middle of the night because we needed to be really careful of all the wild animals. We heard hyena over night but had no visitors to the camp area.

Monday 23rd May.

Safari in the Serengeti.

We were up early to have a quick breakfast before leaving for our morning game drive. We saw everything you could hope to see on a safari in the Serengeti. We saw so many different types of antelope, countless baboon, zebra, giraffe, water buffalo, lion, hyena, jackal, leopard! I'll let the photos do most of the talking because I think they will describe it better than I could.

We went back to camp to pack up our tents while the staff prepared lunch for us. After lunch we piled back into the cars to go on our afternoon game drive.
We got to our camp in the afternoon on the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater and set up our tent. I was feeling really ill so slept all afternoon and night, hence, not much to report.

Tuesday 24th May.

Ngorogoro and Maasai Market.

We woke up early for the morning game drive through the crater. It was a cold and rainy morning with a heavy fog settled over the crater. As we drove down into the crater we broke through the fog cover, it was a sureal sight driving into a gigantic bowl surrounded by mountains with a fog cover as a roof. The fog looked like waves racing up the side of the crater. Beautiful.

Getting to the bottom of the crater we first came upon water buffalo standing in front of a small lake that had pink flamingoes in it. Once again, we saw too many animals to list so I'll leave it up to your imagination. The only thing we didn't see that we were really hopeing to was a male lion with a big fluffy mane. Sigh. I suppose we shouldn't complain.

After lunch we headed out of the crater and started the drive back to the snake park. Once there we set up our tents, thanked our guides, got a beer and walked through the area behind the bar where the turtles, snakes and crocodiles were housed. We got to hold a tree snake that wrapped itself around my neck like a fancy necklace, and we also held a small baby crocodile. After playing with the reptiles we walked the short distance to the market just outside the camp. There were about 40 little mud and straw huts in a row with old Maasai women in them. I went into one after the after looking for the best price for the Maasai rugs, although I am sure they were all in kahootz with each other as the price was static and they weren't budging. I finally gave in and bought 4 Maasai rugs for 10,000 shillings each, about US$6.
Back to camp after a hard days work, cook group made hamburgers for dinner. I was STILL not feeling great so I didnt really eat and went to bed early.

Wednesday 25th May.

Lets go shopping for a Tanzanite...

We left the snake park in the morning and made our way to the Kenyan border. We stopped in Arusha, Tanzania to look at Tanzanites. There was a big cultural center and Farron had organised for the Tanzanite dealer to be there early in case anyone wanted to look at Tanzanites. Arusha is where Tanzanites are mined and they are estimating that the mines will be dry in about 7 years. I was first looking at the cheaper stones filled with imperfections, which I thought would make a nice souvaneir. Then Alex came up and told me to buy the nice perfect, princess cut Tanzanite. Ok then! He said that he was buying it for me and that I should have a perfect one. Also, the perfct ones will acrue value, especially when they are unable to mine for anymore, whereas the imperfect ones would not. So I ended up with a nice 0.48 carat, perfect, pricess cut Tanzanite! I walked out of there with a massive smile on my face and was unable to wipe it off for hours. My plan was to immediatley express post it home to mum and dad but the Tanzanite dealer told me not to do that under any circumstances, but rather to keep it with me, he said that if I posted it, I would most likely never see it again.

Moving on to the Kenyan border, we had a smooth crossing and arrived at Karen Camp in Nairobi in the afternoon. I tried to get on the internet but instead ended up having a nervous breakdown. After messing with net for over four hours and only managing to actually do things on the net for less than 30 minutes I went to bed in a bit of a mood. Then I was reminded about my beautiful Tanzanite and fell asleep with a smile on my face!