April 21 Entry - Part I

Simba, Twiga, Tembo….Oh, my!

Since the arrival of my parents on March 30, our life here in Tanzania has been a whirl wind of adventure. Safari and lazy days on the white sand beaches of Zanzibar have dominated our time. And sadly, now my parents are leaving in just a couple of days, and life will return to “normal” around House A-6 in Moshi.

I’ll begin this blog by telling about our safari, and then follow with an entry about Zanzibar. Christian is ascending Mt. Kilimanjaro this morning, and I’m sure you’ll soon receive his exciting or harrowing account. I got up this morning at sunrise to take a photo of Kili - but alas, it was very overcast and all I could see were clouds.

After taking about a week to find a good safari company, pay for it in shillings (which took a daily trip to the ATM for about 5 days), and pack up, we left for the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti on the morning of April 6. Michael, our driver, picked us up promptly at 11 am, and we swung by the hospital to pick up Christian after his rounds. It took us about 6 hours in total to drive to the crater, which involved several stops along the way. We arrived in the late afternoon and enjoyed the scenes from our lodge that was situated right on the edge of the crater rim. From the observatory deck outside we could see gray spots that upon closer examination with binoculars revealed elephants – our first wildlife spotting! After dinner and a good night’s sleep in the cool temperatures of the high altitude, we descended early the next morning into the crater, down a bumpy and rocky road (thank goodness for our 4X4 Land Cruiser and Michael’s driving expertise!) into the beautiful green and lush crater. The moment we reached the bottom, there in the near distance was a group of zebra and gazelle, and it brought tears to my eyes! They were stunning and beautiful, and nothing like what I have ever seen in the San Diego Zoo! Our drive continued throughout the day as we explored the floor of the vast crater, and in total we saw so much wildlife it boggles my mind: elephants, lions, a lone cheetah, herds and herds of buffalo, at least 6 black rhinoceros (these are rare!), zebra, hippopotamus, warthog, black-faced vervet monkeys, Grant’s gazelle, Thompson’s gazelle, and wildebeest. Everyone has their favorite animal, but Diego’s favorite story is of the monkeys jumping into the car. We were taking a restroom break and some monkeys in the area decided to jump into the car next to us. Diego thought this was the greatest thing ever, and still tells the story to whomever will listen! My favorite part of the day was driving alongside a mama lion and her three young male sons. They were just right there, next to our Land Cruiser, meandering along the road as we drove slowly with them. We also saw several full-grown male lions hanging out by some big water pipes, and then when we peered inside the pipes, we saw several females and another male, taking an afternoon snooze. We were easily 3 meters from these kings of the jungle. It was crazy. Elephants crossed our path in the road and rhinos were visible by eye in the near distance. There were a thousand birds, but we’re not real bird-watchers, so we didn’t spend time identifying them. Our driver named them all for us, but we didn’t keep a list.
At the end of the day, we climbed slowly out of the crater on a very difficult road, and arrived back to our lodge for a feast of a dinner and some more sleep. The next morning we got up early again to drive to the Serengeti. Leaving the crater we saw our first giraffe (many more to come!), which was amazing. They are so very tall and elegant, and they look much bigger in the wild than in the zoo. This was a very long, hard drive. The Serengeti is incredibly vast with little to see if all you’re doing is driving through it. In this land of never-ending tall grass, we drove for so many hours on very bumpy roads that my whole insides were shaken when we arrived somewhere in the middle of the Serengeti – the Seronera Valley – and found our lodge situated in the middle of no where. It was a beautiful lodge, and there were monkeys and hyrax and mongoose running freely over the grounds. (Supposedly, a Boa Constrictor lived in the rocks, but we did not get a chance to see him – thank goodness!) Diego thought this was the greatest, and we followed monkeys around for quite a while, at least until our first sunset wildlife drive. He played with them through the windows of our lodge room, jumping back from the window in excitement as the monkey approached with his hands and face on the glass. This lasted a good half an hour, with delightful screams from both child and animal.

On our sunset drive, we toured the river, which during the dry season (the rains still had not arrived) is where the animals are concentrated. We saw hippos and lions and all sorts of other animals, including a tree full of baboons. The next day we spent driving around all of Serengeti, beginning with a 6 am drive and a long rest in the afternoon. The most exciting adventure in the Serengeti was seeing a hippo out of the water cross our road as it foraged in the early morning for food (it is rare to see hippos out of the water!), and seeing probably around 50 hippos in the famed “Hippo Pool,” along with a crocodile sunning on a rock. The least exciting part of that trip was getting bit by annoying flies – their bites seriously hurt! We also saw in the Serengeti more giraffe, hyena, a jackal, hartebeast, water bucks, impala, eland, topi, and the tiniest dik-dik (the smallest gazelle in the family). As we left the Serengeti the next day for a VERY long 10 hour drive home, we did not anticipate seeing many animals at all. Our driver, Michael, was intent on getting us home as quickly as possible. Somewhere along the way a car flagged us down to tell us that a cheetah was not far off the road. Now, Michael is a rule follower. In fact throughout the trip, he was not only enforcing all of the rules of the park for us, but scolding other drivers who were breaking rules (we appreciated this as some of the safari companies really do agitate the animals and cause destruction to the land). Seeing the cheetah up close and personal would mean that Michael would need to break the rules and go off-road. He did so without hesitating so that we could see our beloved cheetah (the only other cheetah we saw was in the distance and our photo of her was not very good). We found her resting comfortably under a tree about 500 meters from the road, and we were the only car there looking at her. She was just 3 meters from our view, and one of the most beautiful, amazing animals we have ever seen. She was calm but cautious in our presence. As soon as another jeep pulled up, she got up and began walking gracefully to another tree, and then she wandered away from us all in search of peace and quiet. She was truly an amazing sight to see. We felt so lucky to have this up close interaction with her as our last wildlife sighting before leaving the Serengeti. The only animal that eluded us was the leopard – one hadn’t been observed in four days. It seems that most people who see a leopard don’t see a cheetah and vice versa. While I had hoped to see the beautiful leopard (more powerfully built than the cheetah), seeing the graceful presence of the fastest animal on earth was pretty amazing.

We arrived home around 5 PM after one of the longest days of travel in my life. Thankful to be home, we spent the next several hours downloading photos and remembering all of our wonderful safari adventures. Definitely worth every penny we spent, and quite frankly the long journey to Africa, we all agreed that a safari trip is not for the light-hearted, and that no matter how “luxury” you get (and some of the places you can stay on safari are seriously luxury) the roads you drive to see the animals are all the same, and they are rough and difficult to endure hour after hour in a 4X4. This is also the kind of trip that one may only do once or twice in a lifetime – it is a concentrated vacation, and not altogether relaxing, but one filled with much excitement and adventure. For those of you who were feeling sorry for me….don’t….I’ve had quite an amazing month of travel and adventure – getting outside of Moshi to the surrounding areas has been very good for my soul.