The past few days have been incredible. We departed Nairobi fairly early on the morning of the second day of the tour, but not before we had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. Before digging in I was quite nervous to try the eggs, because they were really runny and had a consistency comparable to oatmeal. Yet, they were probably the best eggs I have ever had, and my friends who had climbed Kilimanjaro who were served eggs every day for breakfast confirmed this from their experiences.
While I would call the vehicle that we are traveling in a bus, our CEO (Chief Experience Officer) Massivu has made it clear that we must refer to it as a truck. In fact, every time someone calls it a bus they have to contribute a dollar to a group party fund. The truck is great - it seats 22 people, but because our tour is only 11 strong each person gets a row. There's a bulletin board in the front that lists the chores and schedule for the trip, as well as a table to put community items on and a couple of coolers for keeping water. No one has used them yet, however, because its plenty cold outside as it is. There are also two tables in the front seats that you can work at that have strips of power to recharge devices and cameras.
The roads are OK. In Kenya we travelled on a lot of dirt roads, which made us bounce up and down in the truck. There are some paved highways, however, which have been a great treat. In Tanzania the roads have been a bit better. We crossed the border from Kenya to Tanzania without much difficulty. We had to get out of the truck and walk across the border to get our visas, and along the way we were bombarded by women selling bracelets. I tried to say no, but they placed one on my wrist anyways saying that it was a gift. I ended up paying 100 kenyan shillings for it though. I'm happy to have it - it's beautifully beaded and I have worn it every day since. My Tanzanian visa cost $100, but all of the travelers from other countries only paid $50. The German, Canadians, Japanese, and Kiwis were lucky...
Tanzania is actually made up of three different republics, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Ugunja. The name Tanzania is derived from Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The country consists of over 120 tribes with the Masai and Bantu being the main two tribes. The country gained independence from Britain in 1961, and has been a very peaceful country that is growing in infrastructure and economy.
The Masai people keep cows and goats. They gave the Serengeti its name, as it means "endless plains" in their language. The Masai practice polygamy - each man will have multiple wives proportional to the amount of cattle he has. The wives build homes out of mud and wood, and each woman gets her own hut for herself and her children, but they help each other to build them. A Masai diet is very different from out own, and consists almost completely of meat, milk, and blood. They will tap cow's jugular veins to release blood in order to mix it into the milk, and the cows heal within 4 days.
After a long day of travel and learning about Tanzania, we arrived at our first camp site it Arusha, Tanzania. The site was called Snake Park, and while it didn't have electricity, it ended up having nice enough facilities and a really cool zoo of sorts that had many of the regions most poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and large lizards. Right off the camp site was a snake clinic that was the only one in the region to provide free anti-venom. The owners, two kiwi expats, fund the clinic through the sale of beer at their bar to travelers camping there. I thought that it was a very interesting example of social entrepreneurship.
We departed the camp early the next morning in new vehicles - two 8-seater land cruisers to begin our adventure into the Serengeti. In order to make it to the Serengeti we first had to drive through the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. The park rose up to about 2500 meters in altitude and was very densely forested. We saw our first glimpses of wildlife here, and stopped for a panoramic view of the crater - which was absolutely BREATHTAKING. I nicknamed it the "Land Before Time Paradise," because it was void of all human life, had a huge lake, green pastures, and was surrounded by forested mountains. It is home to thousands of animals.
We didn't drive down into the crater that day, but instead continued into the Serengeti for a game drive. Along the way we witnessed multiple tornados - each of them very weak and harmless but awesome to watch nonetheless. The Serengeti plains are unbelievable. The plains have an area of 14,763 square km and is home to more than 1.6 million herbivores and thousands of predators (gadventures). Although we only covered a fraction of the park, the amount of wildlife we saw was incredible. We searched for the big five: Elephant, Rhino, Lion, Leopard, and Bull. We came away only seeing 3 of them, but our full list was quite large:
-Elephants
-Lions (males, females, cubs...!)
-Bulls
-Wildabeast
-Zebra
-Black Mamba (At our camp site! Ah!)
-Impala
-Topee
-Gazelle
-Water Buck
-Hippo
-Cheetah (we even caught it hunting! It is SO fast!)
-Serengeti Eagle
-Hyena
-Baboons
-Blue Ball Monkeys
-DikDiks
-Guinea Fowl
-Giraffe
-Ostrich
-Warthog
-Mongoose
-Hyrax
-Vulture
-Secretary Bird
-Bastar Bird
-Lizards
-Maribu Stock
-Tste Fly
-African Fish Eagle
-Lovebirds
-Red Birds
-Egyptian Geese
-Lilac Breasted Rollers
-Storks
-Crown Crane
-Flamingo
We also made our way down into the crater after two nights on the Serengeti where we spent the first night camping in the middle of the plains where there was absolutely no boundary with the wild, and the second night at a community campsite near the crater where there were about 40 other campers. The views were incredible, but it was really cold! The temperature was around 45 degrees f, but we drove with the top up and the windows open, which made it markedly colder.
We're currently on our way to Moshi for our next campsite. The police are really strict in Tanzania, so we cannot go a single km over the speed limit which makes for slow traveling. Tomorrow we make our way to Dar Es Salem and will travel 500 km in the truck - it'll be quite the long day. We'll make it to Zanzibar soon though and get to spend some time off the road, which will be really nice. I cannot believe that I have this opportunity to see a new part of the world. I realized last night while I was looking up at the stars that this trip is my first time in the Southern Hemisphere. I saw the southern cross and scorpion constellations for the first time, and was blown away by how even the skies can be different here. I am having an incredible time, and am so glad that my journey will continue on this continent for another 35 days!
*Note: This blog post was written on the bus without internet. It may be posted days later. Date written: June 27, 2014.
