Africa – Page 2 – Where is Phil now?

Sick

Days 319 and 320, Sunday and Monday 18/19 November 2012 – Kempu Camp, Nakuru, Kenya

I had a much better sleep last night, even though it was a very early night. It must have been the movie that helped put me to sleep. It was a quiet night in the camp site as well and very little noise from neighbouring dogs and birds either. I was up at 6:00, showered and sorted ready for coffee and breakfast in the camp, bacon, eggs and beans on toast washed down with really good coffee – wonderful. It was a great start to day one of the third and final leg of this African odyssey. Nairobi in Kenya, via Uganda to Kigali in Rwanda over two weeks.

At 8:00 we were on the road back into downtown Nairobi to pick up the eight other customers on this trip, a nice small group.

I have moved myself back to the front seat I started in back in Cape Town. Though it has less leg room than the others I get less wind in my face and a better view. As I have a double seat to myself the leg room is less of an issue.

I spent the thirty minute trip to the pick up point sitting in the back of the truck discussing the coming tour with the tour leader Brett. We were wondering on what it and the new group would be like. As a tour guide this must be the worst part of each trip – waiting to meet the people you have to look after in the near future. I would hate it!

We picked up the newbies from the same place the last trip ended, by the Israeli embassy, and were on the road for 9:00. There is a young Kiwi couple, five English people and a German woman – I am possibly the oldest this time round. Five of them have done trips with Africa-in-Focus before, which will certainly make things simpler!

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The weather was a bit drizzly as we made our way of out of Nairobi, I was starting to think my gumboot purchase was a one, though as we hit the rift valley later in the morning the weather was considerably better. We have taken a different route to the one I was on the other day and the view point we stopped at did not have the sweeping views over the valley that we had last week, I didn’t bother taking a photo of it in the end. We were warned to be careful on the floor boards of the lookout – and you can see why…

The rest of the trip to Kempu camp, just outside of Nakaru National Park, was uneventful and it was quite fine when we got there. I managed to keep my old tent, warts and all, at least I knew where the fault in the zip was.

Brett (tour leader) gave his tour briefing after lunch, as I had already heard two of them Will and I took a walk out in to the farm land that the camp is part of. Will had stayed here for a few months some time back as he was doing some work in one of the local orphanages, so knew his way around – and he was keen to stretch his legs, as was I. Stupidly I did not take my camera with me and missed some fantastic photo opportunities as dark, angry clouds scudded across the skies -damnit. We had been walking for a couple of hours when things started to stir badly in bowels, if only I had my camera bag, I was prepared for that as well. It was a hurried walk back to the camp and I only just made it in time.

It was the beginning of the end ! I was Ok for another hour and was just settling in to a late afternoon group chat over a beer when I had to rush off again and that was it for the rest of the day and I had to lie down. The night was pretty awful, I was freezing cold, it was a cold night, nd I had quite a temperature. I did take a couple of my anti-malerials – doxicyclin as it includes a broad spectrum anti-biotic, along with panadol and a lot of water.

The following day, Monday was game drive day and I managed to stagger out bed at breakfast time and tell Brett I wasn’t going to be able to make it. I was gutted as this was the main activity for the first week of the trip and I was really looking forward to it. I love game drives, and this was an all day one ! I didn’t even see people off, I just crawled back into my tent. Will dropped by the tent a couple of hours later and I moved to a spare bed in the crew room, it was a lot quieter and a lot more comfortable and I finally managed to get some sleep.

I was feeling a heck of a lot better when I got up mid-afternoon, I had a couple more pills, drank some water and then vomited for the first time in over 30 years, I barely made it to some bushes before what little was left inside came out. Remarkably after I recovered from the physical exertion I actually felt quite a lot better, my temperature was back to normal and the cramps and nausea were soon gone.

The others arrived back from their game drive at 6:30, it sounded like they had an amazing time with some really good rhino sitings – one crossed the road in front of one of the 4wds, so unfair !! I had a ginger and a small amount of dinner and feeling a lot better I went to bed at 8:00. Though no sleep as the bar was really noisy.

So ended the first two days, not a very good start!

This post was written over a month later, taken from some hand written notes I made at the time. I did not take many photos during this week unfortunately.

A five day relax.

Days 314-318, Tuesday – Saturday 13 – 17 November 2012 – Lake Naivasha and Karen Camp, Nairobi, Kenya

My dad died five years ago on the 13th November so after an early breakfast I Skyped my mum and family back in New Zealand to just briefly share the day and dad’s memory.

Leonie and I then took a cab to Karen Overlanding Camp on the outskirts of Nairobi where we met the tour guys and the truck and dumped a load of gear there. We had a quick trip to the supermarket to load up on provisions – beer, wine, cider and gin seemed to take the lions share of the space in the trolley !

We then made our way up to Carnelly’s Camp about a hundred kilometres from Nairobi on the side of Kenya’s lovely Lake Naivasha. On the way we stopped at a view point over the Rift Valley. There was a guy miming in front of a video camera to some awful Afro-pop – it was a wee bit amusing and Leonie got to swing hips with him for a wee dance segment. I just laughed on the sidelines.

The four of us arrived at the lake mid afternoon and decided to take a room, not the cheapest in the world, but the room was cool and the view was stunning – and to top if off we were almost the only people at the campground.

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The idea was to spend three nights doing nothing here and well, we pretty much achieved it. We drank beer and wine and gin in the evenings, ate massive breakfasts late in the morning and only cooked once – a BBQ, so hardly stressful.

There is a bit to do in the area but I didn’t do any of it, I managed to walk around the campsite at appropriate times and took a few photos.

I blogged a bit and caught up on days worth of blogging – and had my awesome Safari.com sim and data plan so I could actually up load posts as well as write them. I watched episodes of Archer and talked a lot of crap with the others. All in all it was a great few days!

I loved the massive fever trees in the camp ground, they were all bunched too close together to get the photos I wanted, however I managed to get a few I liked. They were named fever trees by the early settlers here. After camping under the trees people would often get sick and die and the trees were blamed. Turns out that fever trees grow near water and provide great shade, being near water also means mosquitoes. The people were bitten, got malaria and died.

The trees also attracted the attention of some large, more mammalian animals, especially the ubiquitous vervet monkey.

And the far more elusive colobus monkey. We spent a couple of days looking for them and Leonie finally found them on the last afternoon, she came and got me and we went back to find them but o luck. We tried again later and I spotted one up in a tree ahead, just a black lump way up in a tree, unphotographable. I signalled Leonie to come over and as she approached, she told me to look up – there was one right above my head ! They are a large monkey with the most magnificent tail – a prized possession in some head dresses.

The lake is very nice, it was still for most of the time we were there, and these local fisherman braved the waters all day netting the small fish. There are a lot of hippos in the waters and I imagine it is quite unsafe in the dawn and dusk hours, we could hear them roaring at night time.

Sadly our time at Lake Naivasha was only short, the camp site was lovely, but not particularly cheap, it was very nice to not move for a couple of days and not have to drop a tent at 5:00 AM, but Leonie had to go back to NZ and I had my third and final tour to head off on so it was back to Nairobi on Friday 16th. I did have a three week shave though – thankfully I managed to borrow some clippers to get rid of the worst of it – way too hairy!

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Mt something or other, an extinct volcano on the far side of the Rift Valley.

We met up with the guys and the truck at the supermarket in Karen and Leonie took a cab to the airport and we went shopping again! It was great fun travelling with Leonie, she is a great travel buddy and we shared quite a few laughs. I did not envy her the long flight back to NZ and going straight back to work.

I had two nights at Karen Camp with Brett, Will and Ebron, it was another pretty chilled couple of days, we took a couple of trips in to the shops and I bought myself a new pair of expensive sun glasses to replace the cheap pair I stood on that replaced the pair I lost on Zanzibar. Hopefully now that I have spent decent money I will look after these ones!

A trip into the Kenyan countryside.

Day 313, Monday 12 November 2012 – Nairobi, Kenya

It was another early start to the day, considering it was the first day off between trips – my gorilla tour does not start for a week, so there is plenty of time to kill. Breakfast in the hotel was pretty good, though I did not eat much. I am not entirely sure how long the day will be and what facilities will be available – my stomach is only feeling about fifty percent normal, so caution it is. Plus I can do without eating like a pig three times a day!

Leonie has been sponsoring Mutoni a twelve year old Kenyan girl for a number of years through World Vision. As the village is only a hundred or so kilometres from Nairobi – and in an area not subject to tribal violence or the kidnapping of westerners by Somali gangs we are going to pay a visit.

We were collected in a World Vision (WV) Toyota Landcruiser by our host for the day Solomon.

Solomon lives in the town of Yatta, where we are heading but had to come down and stay the night in Nairobi to be able to pick us up as the traffic here is notoriously bad. However, we were fairly lucky, the ride through down town to the “super highway” was slow but not too terrible. For safety, we were seat belted, bags on the floor with doors locked and windows up. It is not called “Nairobbery” for nothing and carjacking is not unheard of – though we did not see anything that raised any suspicion.

The super highway is a fifty kilometre section of new motorway from the centre of Nairobi and is a surprisingly good piece of road, they are still building pedestrian bridges across the highway so every few kilometres there is a section of speed bumps preceding a crossing. The only highway I have ever been on with speed bumps – amusing ! Nairobi is a big city, with the exception of Cape Town way back at the start of this journey it is the most western city I have experienced, there is a lot more apparent infrastructure here, a lot more permanent looking housing (well as permanent as Africa gets) and a lot more schools and universities surrounding the highway. Parts of it could easily be in New Zealand.

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It is still Africa though and unlike New Zealand they just LOVE football – and by this I mean the game you play with your foot, not the one you play with your hands ! Manchester United is the most popular team in the world and it is easy to see why, there are posters, banners and stickers everywhere.

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The highway ended at the town of Thika and we stopped at the local mall to do some shopping, part of the deal with WV is Leonie provides some supermarket basics for the family as a gift. I also needed to get some Kenyan cash and do some shopping for myself. The rain yesterday morning turned the Snake Park campsite into a bog and as we had heard that there had been heavy rain up in Uganda I wanted to get some cheap gumboots just in case, I had not replaced the jandals (flip flops) that disappeared in Malawi. I also wanted to get a Kenyan sim card for my phone, apparently the cell network in Kenya is very good. The sim card, 50 minutes of talking, 500 texts and 500mb of data cost me just over $9NZ, WOW – how can it be so expensive in New Zealand. They also had a very good range of Kiwi shoe products : )

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From Thika we made our way to the town of Yatta where the WV office for the area is located. The road has a vast number of police checkpoints that we pass through without being stopped. They are mainly stopping the local buses coming from the opposite direction. According to Solomon they are looking for members of Al Shabaab a Somali terror group. I asked him how far away the border was and he said very close – about 800kms. I guess the perception of close in Africa is different to the one in NZ.

I think this mini-bus was a bit off course – Manurewa is an Auckland suburb!

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At the WV office in Yatta we were introduced to all the staff and were given a morning tea. It is clear (and good) to see that the offices are not flash, there are no fancy trimmings or luxury here. The staff have different areas of expertise with the main being in food management and water and sanitation. WV provide some resource, such as wells, but focus on education and training, the old “teach a man to fish” scenario. I am not sure how hard they actually work though.

After morning tea we took a ride out to Nialani school to meet Mutoni. The school was about ten minutes from Yatta, and once off the main road we were on a rough dirt track, I now know why WV drive Toyota land cruisers!

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The school had obviously been prepared for our arrival, and it was fairly obvious that WV have spent a lot of time working with the school. There were a few WV signs around the place. There was also a fair amount of Christian messages, though the state schools are agnostic.

When we got out of the vehicle the children in the nearby classrooms came charging to the windows, laughing and calling “muzungu, muzungu”. Muzungu is Swahili and basically means a white person who wanders around aimlessly – which pretty much sums me up ! In most cases, like here, it is meant in good spirits. They very rarely get muzungus in Nialani and we were the highlight of many children’s day. I just loved the look of joy on their faces and the huge huge smiles. I don’t think all the teachers were amused by the distraction as we walked past the open windows of the classrooms.

After visiting the deputy head teacher we were introduced to Mutoni and her class, she is twelve and was incredibly shy and embarrassed about the whole thing, I really felt for her ! We had to introduce ourselves to the class and the Mutoni had to introduce her best friend. I was kind of glad when we left and took the poor girl with us.

On the way out we walked past the new entrant class and they were very keen to see us and say hello, I am not sure if the youngsters in the last photo had seen a muzungu before, they look a bit wary.

We drove out through the village to where Mutoni lives with her mother and grandmother, there are no adult males alive. Mutoni’s mother showed us around their small holding, the two houses and the separate kitchen. There is no electricity here so everything is done on a wood fire. This is the kitchen.

We presented the family with the food that was purchased in the supermarket, it was all fully documented by the people from WV, not entirely sure why and I didn’t ask.

We then all piled into the car and drove back to the WV office for a very large lunch – that was paid for by Leonie. Mutoni and her mother and grandmother obviously do not eat like this very often – they had a lot. We all posed for photos afterwards, Mutoni and her family had obviously dressed up in their finest while embarrassingly we were in our normal scruffy travelling clothes.

It was mid-afternoon now and time to head back into Nairobi, the drive was not too bad, a lot of traffic once we hit the centre of town. There are a lot of half finished buildings on the way, a lot just have a single storey completed with room for a second to be added. In many cases families will start to build a house as soon as they have money, if they have enough for one wall, they will build one wall. If they don’t use it then there is a chance the money will just get wasted on booze by the men, saving for a future is not common here, for many there is not much of a future to save for.

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Once back in the hotel we had a quick dinner and then I sat in my bed and blogged for a while.

It was an interesting day, it was good to travel into a part of Kenya where not many westerners go.

I am using a new version of Blogdesk to put together the posts before I upload them. They have changed the way adding photos works, the sizing is different to how it used to be, I liked the old version better – grrrr, sometimes change is not good!

The end of tour two in Nairobi

Day 312, Sunday 11 November 2012 – Nairobi, Kenya

I was not that hung over considering we did have a bit of a night last night, there were a few long faces and sore heads around though. I was up at 7:30 and took a quick cold shower (sadly) before breakfasting by the truck in the pouring rain. It is official – this is the most rain I have had since arriving in Africa forty three days ago.

We waited until the worst of the rain had gone away before hurriedly dropping the tents and throwing in the truck. For the rest of the group their life in tents was over for a while, I have a few days off and then will be back in the tent again when the gorillas trip starts in one weeks time.

We left the campsite at 9:00 and farewelled Tanzania for Kenya at 11:00, it took an hour to get through the border, which was not too bad I guess. There is a huge amount of work going into the road and the border area, it will be totally different in a years time.

We stopped at Namanga just over the border for a final lunch – and a final curio shop for some before heading into the centre of Nairobi where we arrived around 4:00. I had another of my new favourite drink – Stoney Tangawizi (Ginger Beer).

The Fairview Hotel is the end point for the trip, it is over the road from the Israeli embassy and it is impossible to take the truck down the road so we stopped in a side street nearby. We said farewell to some of the group in the street and then Leonie and I walked to the neighbouring Country House Hotel where we had a twin room for two nights.

At 5:30 we went back to the Fairview for dinner and drinks with Dave and Nancy and Simon and Ewa who were on the same flight. Dave and Nancy have been on the trip since the start and Simon and Ewa became good drinking buddies in the past couple of weeks. I have really enjoyed their company and look forward to seeing them again.

We said good bye to them at 7:00 and went back to the hotel, I was asleep by 9:00

The end of the second tour.

I have yet to do the tour evaluation form, and I will do it one day! I can say I have LOVED the tours, the crew Will – driver, Brett – tour leader and Ebron – cook were fantastic guys, very good at their jobs, but great company and good fun as well. I could not find fault over the past six or so weeks.

I have been to some amazing places and seen some amazing things, Africa is stunningly beautiful and full of lovely people. I have also met some great people on the tour, and look forward to seeing some of them again.

Gallery – Gorillas !!

I am about three weeks behind in photo editing, writing and posting again and aim to catch up completely over the next week. It is the last full day of my Africa tours today so I will have some time soon – before reality, and hopefully a job, finally catch up with me.

I couldn’t wait to look at my gorilla photos from the walk yesterday and after a quick scan here are the best of them. I will do a proper blog on the trip in a few days time. needless to say it was very very cool!

These were all shot using the Canon 5d mk1 with the 50mm lens. Only the second and last photos have been cropped, we were that close!

Snake Park

Day 310 and 311, Friday / Saturday 09/10 November 2012 – Snake Park, Arusha, Tanzania

I had been looking forward to this day for a wee while. It was the day when everyone on the tour but me left for an overnight trip to the Serengeti. I had elected to not take the trip for a number of reasons, one of which was the cost, almost 600 NZD to stay in a tent overnight in the national park. Yes, I could afford it – sort of, and if I had a job to go to I probably would had done it. However two days of relaxing almost on my own was something I was really looking forward to. I have been used to being solo for so much of 2012. Forty one days of sharing my space with a group was draining me and I was starting to get a bit tetchy – and I was not the only one. Myself and the rest of the curmudgeon club were starting to get restless.

It was another restless night, very noisy again and it rained briefly but heavily around 2:30 am, fortunately Leonie heard it before me and got up to close the rain flaps on the tent while I stayed dry in my sleeping bag – yes it has been sleeping bag weather. I was really surprised that I have been using my sleeping bag so much, I am very glad I bought it.

It is the last full day with the truck for most people so Ebron cooked up bacon and eggs for breakfast. I was planning on not eating as I so badly over indulged the night before, but meh – bacon and eggs, they have to be eaten 🙂

Everyone was packed and off on the new adventure for 8:30

I helped clean up the site and pack the truck for our planned departure at 10:00. However, the truck battery was dead flat so it was another two hours of hanging around Kudu camp waiting for the battery to charge enough to start the truck. The battery final had enough charge just as the kettle boiled.

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We were finally on the way back to Arusha and Snake Park just before 1:00. I rode up in the cab with Will and Ebron and I very much enjoyed the journey. Sitting up front does give you a whole new perspective on the roads and how to drive them – I got to experience first hand what all the honking was for. We arrived in Snake Park at 3:00 and had couple of their delicious home made burgers for lunch. I put up my tent and spent the rest of the day doing very little. With only having one mattress in the tent it was not configured normally – so the first time I went into it after setting it up I stood on my new Riy Don sun glasses and broke the arm off them. Damnit, The last pair lasted two years, this pair has lasted three days, lucky they were cheap.

I had a beer in the bar with Will and then went and watched a movie – Machete in the truck and then went to bed early, didn’t feel like eating after that late lunch and a night off was a good idea. Sadly the rest of the camp ground did not subscribe to that at all and made noise all night.

So I was a little grumpy when I woke on Saturday morning, the last full day of the tour. I had breakfast with Will and Ebron and they spent the rest of the day working on their part of the truck.

I mooched around for a bit, walked around and saw the snakes in their glass enclosures. Even behind glass they scare me !

I still had some data left on the plan I bought from Vodafone NZ so had a play and set my phone up as a wifi hotspot and managed to connect to the internet, reception was hopeless sadly so I didn’t get to post any blog entries but I did get a whole lot written. Once everyone had left the campsite I enjoyed a few hours of peace and quiet, with only my tent in sight.

The others all arrived back in camp a couple of hours earlier than expected and just before the rain set in. There was a quick rush to get all their tents up before the rain came down. We have been so lucky with the weather, this was really only the third shower we have had and the first one that eventually turned into quite a bit of rain.

Soon after they arrived back we cracked a cask of red wine and had a couple of pre-dinner drinks. It was our final meal together, a large spread catered by Snake Park. Post dinner turned into a bit of a drunken mess, most of us stayed up way past our bedtimes, spending the remains of the Tanzanian money in the Snake Park bar. I was wise and stuck to whisky and coke, no mixing drinks this time, except for the few rounds of Jagermeister shots that appeared throughout the evening. Even Bill and Dave, my fellow curmudgeons were up past their bedtimes. It was a good night and a nice way to end the tour.

Lovin’ (in) the Ngorongoro Crater

Day 309, Thursday 08 November 2012 – Kudu Camp,
As seems to the tradition on this leg of the trip I was up far too early again, but today was all worth it, a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater, something I have been looking forward to for days. The crater is a long extinct volcano that did not explode, it collapsed, creating a large natural bowl that is full of wildlife. A lot of the animals can get in, but cannot get out again. it is also one of the few parks where there are no giraffe – they cannot make the steep climb.

We were warned to take warm clothes as the drive up can get quite cold and while it was hardly freezing it did get a wee bit chill as we made our way up the side of the crater. On the way into the park we saw the only elephants of the day, and I have no photos as I wasn’t ready. The road in the crater is pretty bad so we have hired four wheel drives and guides to take us through. Our guide was Dave.

We stopped at a view point above the crater for a look down inside. Gorgeous !

At the view point we met a large group of Maasai men herding cattle and goats into the park, as I said in yesterdays post the Maasai are allowed to feed their live stock where ever they like. Naturally we were not allowed to take photos – though there was a funny moment when a bunch of goats made a run for it and the Maasai and half our group were trying to herd them back – ever seen a New Yorker in his sixties herding goats – I have…

If you look carefully you can see a Maasai wandering under the trees.

Wilderbeast

Ostrich.

Not long into the game drive we found one of the things we were looking for – Cheetah ! and so did everyone else 🙂

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This was shot at almost the full extent of 200mm lens plus the 2* extender, so it was a way off. The closer shots have been cropped – a lot, so not the sharpest.

Awesome, we watched her (we think) for a while, but she didn’t seem to be that interested in doing much at all so moved on further into the crater.

A zebra crossing!

A closer view of a hyena, though this one appeared injured as it was limping when it finally got up and moved.

We stopped for lunch by the hippo pool. We were all advised to eat in the vehicle as the kites will take food out of your hand. We followed the advice and then watched as a small group arrived and sat down by the pool side to eat. The kites were soon hovering over head – not that they noticed. We all got out to await some action, but sadly one of the other guides told them to get into the vehicle. We, and the kite, left disappointed.

We watched the hippos for a while – I have never seen hippos roll over before – something new. The pool was quite shallow and there was a lot in it, so I guess this is how they stay wet and cool.

We saw Buffalo – but not vast herds.

A kory busterd

Wart hogs (I still love them)

Wart hogs and jackals

And the real highlight of the day – a lion at a fresh kill.

We soon found a lion couple resting in the wind. They took the opportunity of us all watching to have a quick shag on the road side.

On the way out we spotted a white rhino – there are six in the park, it was a long way off and we waited for it to come closer but it refused, so this long distance shot is as good as it gets !

On the way out we passed the Maasai cattle herd, well more like we had to negotiate the cows on the way out, as they weren’t that interested in getting out of the way.

Once back at the campsite and getting chores out the way Will, Brett, Leonie, Nancy and I went into the village of Karatu and visited one of the local bars for a couple of beers in the sun. As dinner time approached we hired a motorcycle each to take us the kilometre back to camp, it was a load of fun, but the battery died in my phone before the bikes and it was the only camera.

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(sorry, if you hate the photo, it is the only one of the five of us!)

I ate a huge meal, drank a couple of whiskies and went to bed. Another awesome day !

Kili, Kili, Kili !!

Day 308, Wednesday 07 November 2012 – Kudu Camp, Karatu, Tanzania

I slept well until a pre-dawn chorus from about 4:00. Starting with dogs, then roosters, bells and the morning call to prayer. Oh well, at least it was an early night. The good news was the sky was almost clear and we had some great views of Mt Kilimanjaro to enjoy over coffee.

There were also some fabulous viewing to be had from the roadside once we were through the town of Moshi.

Mt Meru was not so cloud free this morning.

The countryside around this part of northern Tanzania is the lushest I have seen in Africa. There are small patches of quite dense native forest scattered amongst the small crop farms – it is all quite green. As we approach the city of Arusha it is obvious that there is more money around here than in the south, more and larger houses and far more private vehicles.

Arusha seems pleasant enough. Everyone on the truck, bar me, is going to do an overnight Serengeti tour in a couple of days. I have elected not to do it as it is close to 600NZD and in my mind not worth it. While they were all off getting frustrated with organising their park entry and accommodation I went and had fish and chopati at a local cafe with Will and Ebron, nice.

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We all went to the mall in Arusha for coffee, cake, internet and shopping – I bought a six pack of beer and a bottle of whisky. There is still a long way to go on this trip 🙂 Security is obviously an issue here!

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We stopped at the cultural centre for those that were interested in buying Tanzanite (a precious stone). I went for a walk around and looked at some of the carvings.

Lunch was had at Snake Park camp just outside Arusha. We will stay here in a couple of nights time and were here to do a Maasai village tour. While the countryside entering Arusha was lush and green it was the complete opposite on the way out, dry and arid plain lands. The land where the nomadic Maasai people tend their herds.

The Maasai village tour started with a walk through a cultural museum (and associated retail opportunities) followed by the local clinic – which specialises in snake bites. Snake bite is very common within the Maasai community with admittances daily. The clinic is not funded by government and nor do they charge their patients. The village tours help to fund the anti-venom and other medications. There were two children in with burns as well as a woman bitten by a spitting cobra as we visited.

The village was a fifteen minute walk away, it was really the compound of one man, his ten wives and sixty five children and grand children. Each wife has her own house hence the large compound!

We were mobbed by the younger children when we arrived. I am not normally a small child magnet, it’s not that they run in fear, they just normally select someone else over me. Inexplicably today was totally different and I spent some time swinging the smaller children around – until I was too dizzy to do it anymore.

These photos courtesy of Leonie (though she doesn’t know it yet – thanks :))

The village visit was interesting, we learnt a bit about Maasai life, this holding was one of the permanent camps an had been in this location for thirty five years. They also build small temporary camps as they move their herds around the area. The Tanzanian government have allowed the Maasai to roam where they like so they can move into areas restricted to other people – where ever there is food for the cattle, goats and sheep. They still practise male circumcision, though female circumcision is illegal. It was unclear if that was in reality still done. Our Maasia guide Olly, and his recycled tyre shoes.

After the visit we were back in the track for the drive up to Karatu and Kudu Camp our home for two nights. The cloud formations as we were leaving Arusha were fantastic, I have been really enjoying the clouds here. I even stuck the Canon out the window, for the first time…

The road to Karatu is flat and new, even though there was no wildlife to see, Will said we could open the top hatches to give those on the second leg an opportunity to stand up while we were driving. I took a few photos from out the top and then the glare guard on my 70-200mm lens blew off the lens and was run over by the following truck – Shite!

The road soon starts to snake steeply up into the hills and we passed by Lake Manyara which looked very nice in the fading light. It surely is a beautiful piece of Africa here.

Malaika 🙂

We arrived in Kudu camp just on dark and popped tents up before settling in to dinner, and for me an early night. It was a great day, one of the best on the second leg, lots of different things to see and do, so much better than driving all day.

It seems that we are going to have another four years of President Obama, much to the relief of all on the truck !

The Kiwi in the rock

Day 307, Tuesday 06 November 2012 – Honey Badger Lodge, Moshi, Tanzania

Grrrrrrrr, an early start. Up at 4:20 and on the truck for a 5:00 departure. I had gotten used to sleeping till 7:00!

The journey through and out of Dar took close to two hours, about half that of the journey in a few days ago. My back was still quite tight and the pounding on the temporary lanes around the road works was quite painful at times. There was a large number of busses on the road, many of them are beyond packed, even at that early hour. With a population of about four million and few cars; buses are an essential means of travel. A lot of the inter-city/town buses have western names, Liverpool, God loves you, Spider etc, though my personal favourite was the bus named Facebook.

They are without a doubt the craziest drivers I have seen. It is fortunate that their buses are not that fast or we would have seen more overturned buses than the one we have seen so far. Having said that we are routinely passed by buses and were passed by one going through some road works, crazy!

We stopped for a late breakfast at a roadside cafe, it was so good to have that first (and second) coffee of the day – the Africa instant coffee is not too bad, better than the Nescafe anyway. I was dreaming of the latte I had yesterday in Stone Town as I took the first sips.

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I took the opportunity of being off the bus at the right time to ring my mum back in NZ, I was hoping to Skype but she was not online. Mum has been on a three week trip to north eastern USA, a fall trip to Maine and Vermont etc. She only just made it out of NY before it was all shut down due to Hurricane Sandy. It sounded like she had a great trip, though it was only a brief call. I am looking forward to seeing the photos and hearing more about it one day.

Back on the road we passed another rolled over truck, the first for the day. Unlike the fuel tanker from a few days ago, this one had a police presence at the accident site, so no one helping themselves to the product – and no photos.

Pineapple and sisal are the big export crops from these parts.

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I am finding it very hard to be photographically inspired at the moment. I loved Stone Town but took far less photos than I did in the similar streets of Barcelona. I have taken the guidance about not taken photos of the people seriously – and there are people everywhere! The views out of the truck are also just not that interesting with the landscape being nowhere near as diverse, or startling as Namibia.

I spent most of the drive reading, emailing and writing blog posts on my phone, not ideal for blog writing but at least I can email them to myself and get them on the laptop. I am learning to be productive on the truck when I can, good to get some work discipline in now, before I have to start working hard to find a job when I get back to London in December.

We stopped for lunch at the newly opened Rock Hill Rest. Clean loos, with paper – I cannot see it lasting ! The food was good and the cokes were cheap, I could see why it was a busy spot, I wish the owners well, it was a nice respite from the normal roadside rests.

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After lunch we started climb into a more mountainous area of Tanzania and I take back my earlier comment about the scenery being really boring, the hills are quite lovely in the late afternoon sun.

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I quite liked the Kiwi that Leonie spotted in the cliff face.

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We stopped for a “comfort stop” along a long straight section of road, there were some quite cool cactii around so I nipped out with the camera for a walkabout. Similarly to most of Asia I am constantly amazed at the amount of trash in the roadsides in Africa, particularly here in Tanzania. I think the manufacturers of plastic bags should take a long hard look at themselves and stop polluting the third world, it is a disgrace !

Train ride would be a cool way to travel here, – long and straight !

As we drew closer to our campsite in Moshi we started to get glimpses of a cloud shrouded Mt Kilimanjaro, we were of course hoping for an unobstructed view but it was not going to happen this day. We did get a good viewing of Mt Meru from just outside the Honey Badger campsite.

Once in the camp the usual routine unfolded, tents up, chores done, beer in the bar, dinner, a drink or two then sleep.

Fingers crossed for a cloudless morning!

He is not as disreputable as he looks

Day 306, Monday 05 November 2012 – Dar es Salaam

Damn, I knew as soon as I wrote that good sleep was habit forming I would sleep badly and I did. No reason for it, bed was comfy, it was warm but not overly so and the night market food was still comfortably sitting in my belly.
We had breakfast on the roof of the Safari Lodge, the view was not spectacular and it was overcast and already humid – it was looking to be a sticky day. We were serenaded throughout breakfast by the voices of chanting children from the school next door.

When we went to go out I couldn’t find my sunglasses in the room. I suspect I dropped them when the flash cards fell out of my bag last night – bugger ! I have managed to not lose those sunglasses for two years, they had some good memories, oh well.

Brett, Simon, Leonie and I went for a walk to the Zanzibar coffee shop.

Just after we left the hotel I spotted a door that looked like it was worth photographing and swung my bag off my back to get my camera out. I had a sudden pain right across my chest and back and my first thought was “shit, I am having a heart attack”. I checked for other symptoms, no shortness of breath, no numbness – so decided it wasn’t anything immediately critical. I was in real pain but kept my mouth shut until we sat down in the cafe. By then the pain was just in my back and it slowly worked its way out over the rest of the day – a wee nervous moment!

The coffee was excellent though. Possibly the best I have had in Africa 🙂

We reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the coffee shop and returned to the hotel to check out and store our bags in an empty room. Once sorted we were back out into the heat to see if we could find a working ATM that took Mastercard. It seems the one I found last night had been fixed, which was great news as I could then replace my nice expensive sun glasses with a pair of ten dollar Riy Dons, funnily enough the logo is quite similar to Ray Bans 🙂

We spent the next hour or so randomly walking the streets and alleys of Stone Town. It is a pretty cool place, old and run down, but still a living and breathing residential city. I did love the doorways – a lot !

There is a great blue here that I just love, I am going to add it to my favourite colours list, along with Vietnam yellow – they are colours that will remind me of places I have visited.

I loved the Girl Guide sign above this doorway into the old fort area.

Laughed at this !

We stopped for lunch at Green Garden Cafe, pizza and an avocado, ginger, mango and lime mocktail for me. Yum ! It started to rain while we were lunching so we hung around for a while waiting for it to stop as no-one had a jacket or umbrella or anything else remotely sensible.

The rain hadn’t stop before we left. The streets of Stone Town were ankle deep in some places, I would like to think it was mostly fresh rain water, but God alone knows what we waded through.

The eves from the shops on both sides of the narrow streets were not really built to allow anyone to walk under in the rain so there was a constant stream of runoff from the roofs pouring on heads and shoulders as well as the rain itself. It stopped when we were almost back to the hotel and we found others from our group wandering wetly around as we neared it.

I love this – they are football mad here, but not everyone has a TV, so this guy puts the results up, very cool, though obviously a Liverpool supporter.

Once back at the hotel we had some time to kill so I went on a quick stroll aroud the immediate area, I found a nice little graveyard in the middle of the houses.

And finally, another bicycle, right over the road from the hotel.

We had a 3:30 ferry back to Dar es Salaam to catch so we walked over to the port at 2:45. I had a wee “oh shit” moment when I could not find my ferry ticket, I could have sworn it was in my pocket, luckily it was in my bag.

The ferry was different to the one we came over on, it also appeared to be over sold and we were lucky to get seats on the top, uncovered deck. The ride was lovely though, mostly smooth for the whole journey, apart from a brief, light shower when we got on it was sunny all the way as well. The best news was it only took an hour and a half to get there, thirty minutes faster than the way out.

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Once disembarked, Brett hired a mini-van that was to take us to the harbour crossing ferry, come with us over the harbour and drop us at the campsite. The kilometre to the ferry took almost one and a half hours, but it was a quick ride over the harbour and back to our ever faithful truck. I think we all missed our home away from home.

It was after 7:00 and dark when we arrived. Fortunately the tents were still up from when we left three days ago and Ebron had dinner all prepared, so no chores pre-eating, yay!
It was the birthday of one of my fellow travellers so there was another Ebron special cake for dessert. Double yay !!