african roller coaster

safari day one

picked up at 7am sharp by mohammed, our safari guide for the trip. apparently he first entered the house where the canadians stay (they never lock their door) and tried to get them to come on safari. chalice and paul, both feeling friday night, were none too happy and ‘hapana’-ed him over and over until paul finally got up and was like ‘do I look like im ready to go on safari?!’ – poor mohammed, wrong mzungus. then again, we all do look alike ;) when he finally tracked down the right people, he piled our packs into the car and we went to the soko office (plug for soko safaris, they were absolutely wonderful and locally owned, as opposed to a lot of the other safari companies here owned by Indian families) to get the other safariers – here are their bios:

Anne: from amsterdam, only 21 years old. here volunteering as an optometrists. she has a 15 month old daughter named flower that she left home with her parents (crazy, we know). she was nice and easy going, we enjoyed her company.

Michelle: from ottawa, canada, 23 years old. here volunteering with TVE (tanzania volunteer experience) working at orphanages. she was very quiet but also nice and easy company on safari.

Avigail: from israel. maybe in her early 30’s? she was a character to say the least. she never listened to the guides and paid the “I told you so” price several times on the trip. she consistently drank too much coffee in the morning and made us stop to allow her to pee way too often, and did I mention she forgot to bring toilet paper? she sang off key to buffalo soldier for a majority of the third day… the stories will keep coming, she kept the trip interesting and consistently left us giving each other looks behind her back that said “what the $%*&!”

our final company for the trip was our daktari wtumbo (stomach doctor), prosper, a cute and quiet young guy who had learned to cook at a school in moshi. he did not let us down and kept us fed and happy the entire the trip. more details on the menu later…

the eight of us set out for our serengeti campsite, a 6 hour journey, most of which was on unpaved roads at speeds so fast that I thought the safari vehicle might rattle apart. we saw a giraffe before even entering the park. it’s wild to me that these animals really do live amongst the people here. we also passed many maasai, a big draw for safariers and great income for the maasai and their villages, from charging the safaris to bring people through. these maasai were very different than our lengasti tribe, they know how to exploit the tourists and in addition to selling ‘maasai necklace and bracelet’ they jump at capturing a photo with you and then charge for their appearance in it. mohammed told us that there was one maasai man in the village we passed through who had 34 wives and over 100 grandchildren. apparently they opened a school for his children alone, and all of the kids are in class with their brothers and sisters.

we had to pass through ngorogoro on our way to serengeti, the road is steep and winding that takes you to the ridge of the crater, and as we climbed we passed from the dry, brown of the warm valley to the lush, cool jungle atop the crater rim. the clouds were flying by, touching the treetops. the fog faded the trees farther from the road lighter shades of gray. moss hung thick from the trees overgrowing the road, greenish-black in color and it made the branches look fuzzy. red dirt, kicked up by the safari vehicles, stuck to the nearby plant life, and just out my window everything was a monotone brick color. our first glimpse of the crater was breathtaking: miles down the floor was faintly visible through the clouds, I couldn’t help but imagine all of the animals too small to see. satisfied that he had given us our crater preview, mohammed drove on. we could look down the steep right side of the road into the crater, then down the left yet steeper side into the lush jungle. we were quite literally driving along the edge of the crater and it was incredible! my gaze was fixated out the window, taking in the scenery that reminded me so much of home, but in a more wild and overgrown way. it felt like we had entered jurassic park, and I was eagerly searching the jungle for exotic wildlife.

the road leading to the official gate into ngorogoro was littered with olive baboons, far too comfortable in the presence of humans. we got out to stretch as mohammed paid our entrance fees, and within seconds we watched a lady flee for her life as a baboon, irritated that she had gotten too close when snapping a photo, charged aggressively. needless to say we backed off after that, and gave baboons a wide berth for the rest of the trip. they’re funny to watch though, picking bugs off each other just as you imagine the stereotypical primate interaction would happen. one in particular, a big male, was sprawled on his back beside the road, feet resting in his hands, as a smaller female picked bugs off of his tummy. they were definitely entertaining to watch, a little scary, but mostly funny.

at this point we had been driving for hours and prosper and mohammed were trying to manage a car of six ladies getting progressively more hungry. not a minute after I had asked prosper when we eat, thu climbed back into the car and asked him when we get to eat. avy begged for bananas and prosper distributed one to each of us to tide us over until lunch.

at the 15 minute mark mohammed started giving us minute by minute updates of how long it would be until we get to eat. it was cracking me up. 5 minutes… drive down the road a little further, 4 minutes… around a corner, kicking up red dust behind us, 3 minutes…. turn a corner and a sign labeled for picnicking, 2 minutes… as he’s pulling to a stop in an opening overlooking the crater… 1 minute!! he’s been leading safaris for 15 years and you can tell he is very experienced dealing with tourists. two stories about that:

first, he pointed out several different safari cars during our trip saying that he had worked for that company before. apparently a ton of the safari companies are owned by indians and the locals tend to strongly dislike the indian families in tanzania. they own businesses, exploit the locals, underpay them, don’t treat them well, and so on. mohammed pretty much told us that he wanted to shoot one indian owned safari company. he took out his imaginary air rifle and shot his imaginary air bullet, specifying that he does not want to kill them, just shoot them in the leg as well as have each indian person in tanzania spend 3 months in jail each year. he has apparently really thought this one through. this was the first we’d really heard a local talk about their frustrations with the indians in tanzania, though we’ve caught on that there’s some conflict – ‘we are like cats and dogs’ mohammed said. pretty interesting to hear about. we all laughed and took it light heartedly, but made a note not to get on mohammed’s bad side as none of us would like to be shot in the leg or spend 3 months in prision.

second: mohammed talked a little about what makes good safariers and what makes bad safariers. naturally we were curious whether we’re the best safari group he’s ever had or what?! :) get this, he’s had tourists come on safari with him who will sit in the very back seats even when there’s only two of them (this is odd – there are four rows of seats, and the closer you are to the front the less bumpy it tends to be), and he has to yell to try to talk to them. he says he’s had people who read a novel in the back while they drive around – what?! and that often the difficult people are those who don’t want bumps (aka no driving fast, driving fast was the best part, more on that later), don’t want dirt (dirt is part of the experience, we embraced it and used the ‘we’re on safari’ excuse so that we didn’t have to shower for three days :), and want to the AC on the whole time (fresh air is the way to go, nothing better than smelling the animals, part of the experience!)…we were baffled that he’s had such picky people on safari, and sometimes for weeks at a time!! luckily our whole group (minus avigail ;) was very easy going and he thought amy, thu and I were quite funny (the other two girls didn’t talk much)… I think he really liked safariing us around, and prosper took a quick liking to us to, which was reflected in his particularly amazing meals that got better and better each day.

ok, back to lunch, box lunch, it’s the standard: banana, orange, boiled egg, two vegetable samosas (mmm delish), a bread and bread sandwich, as avy called it, not sure what was on it, great for feeding to the huge birds that look like crows on steroids with white chests. they’re a bit aggressive, I have a great story about that for the third day. lunch also included a muffin, some crisps, and maybe something else im forgetting – oh, pineapple juice in a juice box that’s a triangle shape so I think it should be called a juice triangle enough about the food, I get too hung up on the food, I think I will be able to make an entire album of pictures of food slash me putting food in my mouth. what? eating is a huge part of the travel experience!!

our safari started for real post-lunch when we hit the serengeti. the roof of the car went up, my shoes came off, and I don’t think my butt was in my seat for the rest of the day. I stood in my socked feet on the seat, sitting atop the headrest, hanging on to the bars around the edge as we flew down the rocky roads. I was still rocking as I wrote about the day by headlamp in my tent that night. it is such a bumpy ride, so noisy and dusty and you’re hanging on for dear life as mohammed speeds around the corners - awesome on every level! here’s an idea of the animals we saw on day one:

thomson’s gazelle – this one is funny because the first one you see you want to take like 40 photos of it, even if it’s really far away and all of your pictures are blurry, then as you safari on you realize they’re everywhere :)

simba!! - not a few kilometers down the road after entering the park we came upon a stopped safari car. on our safari we quickly learned that the more safari cars stopped in a given area, the cooler the animal. We knew that a crowd of safari cars meant we were about to see something very rare and awesome :) here we came upon a mama lion with three babies!! It was funny because mohammed was like ‘simba!’ and we’re all eagerly scanning the horizon, im looking off into the distance grass, trying to pick out some irregularity and I can’t see anything. ‘where, mohammed, where?’ I ask. ‘there!’ he points, a little exasperated, and there, maybe 20 ft from the road, I can see the mama lion and babies laying the shade of a small bush. I had to laugh, here im desperately searching the distant grass for a speck of a lion and there are four right in front of my face. we watched them for a while, snapped many photos, and reluctantly moved on. I could watch the animals all day. stick me in front of a big cat and im endlessly entertained. they’re so beautiful!!

plains zebra – same thing, first zebra you see from wayyy in the distance and you snap endless low-quality photos and then you realize zebras are everywhere and you’ll get pics of them directly next to the car. I like zebras a lot!

hartebeest – which I think of more as heart beast, since the horns look like they’re in the shape of a heart. This guy was big and we saw quite a few of them, I like them a lot, they’re easy to mistake for the topi, except the topi have more interesting color markings on their legs.

pumba – the warthogs are so freakin’ ugly! We saw two near a muddy water hole, seemed appropriate. They have these gross mohawks of course hair and knarly horns from the noses and they kneel on their front legs and sniff through the dirt and grass for food. And they totally waddle when they scurry along, but apparently they’re pretty fast and mean. I wasn’t a fan, though we did eat pumba early on in our trip (yes, the vegetarian tried a piece), and it was delicious, so I dunno… don’t judge a book by it’s cover? :)

duma – mohammed definitely had a radio in the car, and there was muffled talking in the background for most of the safari. we had heard this was a good thing, because it meant that he was in touch with the other drivers and could get a head’s up if someone found something good. soon it became apparent that he had a destination in mind. we had been driving along more slowly for the start of the safari, stopping periodically for each of the more common animals we saw. suddenly he sped up, was on the radio speaking quickly in swahili, and it got to point where we were flying down the road faster than I thought possible on such rough terrain. that’s the best by the way, it’s an african roller coaster!! we loved it, amy and I had smiles ear to ear when he’d take off at top speed, both of us up on our seats hanging on for dear life! what a ride!! and get this, he suddenly turns completely offroad, just up and over the rock pile on the edge of the road, and we’re cruising in a random direction through the tall grass. this cannot be wildlife preserve kosher :) but he was on a mission and we didn’t question his decision, just held on extra tight as we couldn’t see the bumps and holes the terrain threw our way beneath the tall grass. soon we spotted a car in the distance (we were infinitely amazed that he could find his way around these parks, I mean, what do the other guides tell him, hey I found a cool animal near a gazelle by a tree in some grass? mohammed is awesome). as we drove closer mohammed slowed respectably and asked us ‘what will we see here?’ – he obviously already knew, but we were amateurs to this safari business (unlike the pros we are now ;) and we all had no idea. it looked to me like a dead thorn bush of hell in the middle of a bunch of grass. as we got closer the other safari car pulled away and made room for him to pull up close next to the bush – cheetah!! She was laying there in the shade, protected by the huge spines of the thorny bush of hell (same plant that almost took my arm off had it not been for my maasai warrior). She was soooo beautiful! I was in awe! And we were ridiculously close. Duma was just laying there, her head up watching us curiously, or more likely annoyed, that we were disturbing her. got some great photos of those red eyes staring directly into the camera. It was incredible to see such a beautiful animal so close. I need to hunt down one of my favorite childhood movies about a cheetah, the reason I named my favorite stuffed animal duma, which I didn’t realize at the time means cheetah (it’s a snow leopard – oops :) ok, that’s definitely an over-share in this blog…anyway, we were very lucky to see duma so close, and even luckier when we got to see another duma tomorrow!! cheetahs are impressive animals.

clouds – im including this in the list of cool things we saw because the clouds in the Serengeti on this day were the most amazingly epic clouds I have ever seen in my entire life and there was a moment when I thought I might actually end up with more photos of the sky than photos of animals :) (am I overdoing it with the smiley faces or what? but really, this safari was perfect, I can’t stop smiling when I think about it, we got soooo lucky!!)

simba- yup, we stumbled upon more simbas, a few females this time, very VERY close and out in the open. one walked over and laid down and mohammed drove us right up next to it for photos. I was having sensory overload because nearby was the first herd of elephants we had seen and there were many and they were so beautiful and I love elephants, especially after getting to ride them in Thailand, and I was so excited to see African elephants. Anyway, my photos are all over the place – lion, elephant, lion, elephant, lion and elephant, elephant, lion… you get the idea. SO COOL! ok, quick story… so our safari car was awesome, and the fact that we survive the trip without a trip was pretty remarkable (you see the safari cars changing flats alllll the time), but it was older and a little bit falling apart. The first day, if he idled for too long looking at an animal (so pretty much everything we stopped for) it would die. Mohammed would patiently get out, fix the loose connection, get back in and start the car. the thing is, when we stopped next to the lion to watch it and take photos and remark on it’s blood stained legs and paws, the car definitely died. So it came time for us to leave the lion and peace and mohammed’s all ‘so guys, who wants to get out and fix the engine?’ just casual and sarcastic. And we all laugh because it was funny but the thing is it was only so funny because we were actually stuck. You can’t get out of the car, pop the hood, and fiddle with the engine when you’re parked 5 feet from a huge female simba, with blood stained fur nonetheless!! So we’re all just twiddling our fingers wondering what the next move is… waiting it seemed. Fortunately, another safari vehicle had gotten wind of the lazy lions and pulled up behind us. mohammed yelled something in Swahili out the window and yup, you guessed it, the safari car, with a rev of the engine, moved forward and nuged us about 20 feet past the lion, giving us enough speed to get the car started. We’ve had a lot of fun with the ‘hey guys, remember that time the safari truck died when we were parked next to a huge lion?’ ‘oh yeah, good times’ :)

black kite eagle – saw lots of cool eagles and hawks and vultures. Actually the bird life is so diverse and they’re all really beautiful. The crazy birds might have been one of my favorite parts of the safari.

secretary bird – HUGE and very odd looking. We saw a lot of these, I liked them beaucoup :)

love birds – these really pretty little green birds that we would occasionally see in flocks.

Ostrich – possibly the ugliest bird ever created. The first time we saw an ostrich we actually saw two males outside of the park, near one of the maasai boma tourist traps. Mohammed joked because the one male was doing a mating dance and he said he must be confused because the other bird was male too. at this point we didn’t realize how different the males and females look. We thought maybe the one male was just practicing. Later we realized that the males are the typical black and white that you think of when someone says ostrich. The females are a neutral brown color that makes them even more ugly. Their wings hang down at their sides, seemingly weighed down by all of the feathers that cover their body, making them look quite disheveled. Their featherless pink necks are gross, and when they’re eating lizards or whatever you can see the lump get swallowed down their long throat. They are HUGE birds and we saw a lot of them throughout the safari. the feathers really do sway and fluff like a massive, thick boa or something. ok fine, ostrich is a cool bird, just soooo absurdly unusual looking!

giraffes :) I love giraffes. I learned there are three types – masai giraffe and rothschild giraffe – both of which im pretty sure we saw and im hoping I can distinguish between in photos since I’ve educated myself. there’s also a reticulated giraffe that would be soooo cool to see but I don’t think it lives in east africa. ill have to review my photos just to be sure we didn’t see one. fun giraffe fact! – those loooonnnggg giraffe necks have the same number of cervical vertebrae that we do! yup, only seven in such a long neck. Really cool! it would’ve been kinda awesome to see a giraffe skeleton (in a messed up sort of way) – we did see what im pretty sure was an elephant skull. There was also a really big rib cage another day. you spot horns and random bones every so often on safari.

hyaena – asleep by the water. This is the animal avy wanted to see most and I have to admit I was pretty into the hyaenas as well. A very interesting creatures, so aggressive. Amy was reading about them and what the book said was that they’ll eat pretty much anything, including humans, and have been known to ‘tear the face off a human sleeping in the open’ – what?! and the canadians also passed on a story from their safari (thank goodness they told us once we returned) about a hyaena coming into a tent and killing a woman. They do just look like mean, grumpy animals capable of incredible violence. I think they were well portrayed in the lion king (oh, we saw pride rock by the way, er, several of them. when the volcano exploded creating ngorogoro crater the rocks landed in the Serengeti so there’s random huge boulders everywhere, and sometimes the piles make a perfect pride rock :)

sausage tree!! – ever since hearing about this when we went to arusha national park I’ve wanted to see a sausage tree – mostly because of the humor of the name. fear not, I took many photos. It’s a pretty funny tree… the fruit or whatever the ‘sausage’ is cannot be eaten by humans but a lot of the animals in the Serengeti eat it.

that’s about it for day one on safari. we were ridiculously dirty after only one day, with no intention of trying to shower at the campsite. We stick with the homeless showers using baby wipes we’d turn brown with a single swipe. My hair was caked with dirt and I had a neat outline of my sunglasses on my dirt smeared face. but let’s be honest, who doesn’t love being the dirty kid every now again? ;) we got to the campsite and set up our tents alongside several others from various safaris. They’ve really got the system figured out. prosper got straight to work in a kitchen crowded with all of the other cooks. I would pick him out at first by his shirt, which said ‘go commando’ and had a picture of a cartoon guy running with his underwear behind him. we helped set the table for dinner, and got everything put in our tents, as the sun set quickly on the horizon. It was possible one of the most epic sunset I have ever seen and again, the number of photos I took probably rivals my animals photos for the day. clouds and beams and glowing orange and red. I kept getting distracted as I helped set up the tents. Huge canvas tents plenty big enough for three people (though they usually only stick two in a tent, we opted to only set up two and save the time and effort). They provide sleeping mats, sleeping bags, and pillows. I was more than thankful for my sleeping bag liner – im guessing the sleeping bags get washed, oh, never!

dinner was incredible. we were served tea and popcorn (yes, a mt kilimarjaro of popcorn) as we watched the final sunset…

ok, pause, im typing this in the hostel, it’s the second to last day of our trip and thu and amy are both passed, I’m guessing it’s not ten p.m. yet, but we’re on a wayyyy early schedule after safari. anyway, point of this is that there’s something living in the attic of centre house hostel and it’s BIG! And it just went scurrying across our ceiling and I can hear the claws and it sounds huge enough to fall through the thin and poorly constructed ceilings and we only started hearing it two weeks ago but I hear it almost every night and it freaks me out that some huge, nocturnal, clawed beast is running around over our heads all the time. I just have to tell myself it’s our last night in a sleeping bag, mosquito net tucked neatly around us (that reminds me, I need to take my malaria meds), and soon I will be home in my soft amazing bed. creatures in the night on safari, ok… creatures in the night in your hostel, not so ok.

back to dinner, now I will describe in detail our delicious food: popcorn has never tasted better – and no microwave! How do they do it?! ;) amazing cucumber soup from scratch (I watched him make it), avocado noodles and vegetable medley and I think something else im forgetting and then all sorts of fruit for dessert, particularly the most delicious pineapple ever. we were all stuffed and happy and praising prosper for his amazing culinary skills.

we had to team it to the bathroom as it really isn’t safe to walk around alone or in small numbers. Mohammed emphasized again and again that if we had to pee in the night we were not to walk to the bathroom but inside, shine our flashlight out first, and then quickly take care of business right next to the tent, then get back inside asap. I made a mental note to stop my water intake and ensure I would not need to pee in the night. I slept like a rock. was expecting to hear the sounds of the serengeti, and so I fell asleep with my music in. it was funny because when I woke up in the night my music was still going and I was sure I heard all of the crazy loud noises of the animals over my music so I quickly removed my headphones and… and…. Silence. No animals? but we had heard there would for sure be crazy animal noises. I was back asleep in a snap and before I knew it amy’s alarm was going off…