...and sure I did!!
This is the greeting Africans generally say to people who are about to set off on a trip, journey or abroad. A kind of 'bon voyage'! Well, all in all I must say I had a good 6-day safari!!!
I joined another couple from the states and together with the cook and the guide/driver we set off in a large 4WD. All our things packed up and tied tightly on top of it.
We started our safari at Lake Manyara which is less than an hour's drive away from Arusha. The campsite was quite lavish and Luther (the guide) warned us that this was the only one so, the rest were far more rudamental.
We spent the day driving around in the large park. At first we only saw loads of baboons which seem to have fun picking on each others lice right in the middle of the road.
The elegant impalas embellished the wild countryside. As we got closer to the Lake we caught sight of some action through the binoculars; three lionesses chasing some warthogs disappeared behind a bush then reappeared with chunks of their lunch dangling from their mouths.
In no time we saw all sorts of wild life; flamingos & pelicans, more warthogs, giraffes and elephants. The latter ain't that friendly. Some of them seemed to be charged and at one point a couple viciously and teasingly stood within a few metres of one another blocking our way. We had to wait for their nerves to calm down and shove off to proceed. But hey, we're the ones to invade their space not vice versa. Towards the end of the day we saw our first zebras and hippos swimming in their lucious muddy pool.
That night a bunch of bush babies decided to turn my tent into a trampolin, so you can imagine how much sleep I managed to get.
Next day we set off to our next desination; Ngorongoro Crater. A massive Crater of 8,288km squared - which is about the size of Crete! To get into it we drove upwards to the edge of its rim which stands at about 2250m in height. Dense vegitation and low clouds paved our way to the campsite.
The imense expanse of flat land which makes the Crater was rich with lakes and wild inhabitants. We had the honour to see a couple of black rhinos (these are nearly extint and only a few of the few live in the Crator). A line of jeeps had to stop to let the two large-than-life celebrities!
Back on top of the Crater, at our campsite, the air grew colder as dusk fell upon us. I slept well that night unaware of the fact that we had quite a few visitors roaming around our tents; hyenas, jackals and wildebeest. Pity I missed the party!
Next day we headed for the Maasai village. Their guide came out to greet us. He was probably the only English-speaker in the whole tribe and therefore making him the official tourist guide. Dressed in the traditional purple and red blanket, sandals, decked with ornaments and long 'shepard' stick, he took $50 from us then asked us to wait just outside the wooden round fence which surrounded the village. The tribe came out to greet us with their welcome song and dance.
On entering the village the 45 families, 85 people in all, made us jump and chant with them while the guide took endless photos with our cameras. It was quite funny couldn't help laughing.
Cermonies over we were invited to step into one of the houses or rather huts. These huts are made of cows' dung and branches and generally took two weeks to build. A narrow opening led into a tiny unique room in which the whole family lived. The room which was barely high enough for a 5.5 foot person to stand in. It contained 2 'beds' in either corner. These were made of stretched cow skin. The guide explained that the children would sleep with the parents till a certain age afterwhich they would leave the house to start up a new life. A fire was lit in-between the two beds which served to warm the hut as well as cooking. The Maasai ate and drank cow's milk, meat and blood.
Out of the hut we were made to choose some hand-made jewellry from the open-market in the centre of the village. The locals hassled the guide who negotiated prices on our behalf. Well, kind of!
We then visited the village school; a one-room building made out of branches and straw. We could hear tiny voices chant as we came close to it. Inside the teacher directed the little kids with her stick pointing at a broken blackboard displaying Swahili and Maasai words. They sat on wooden benches and none of them had any desk, pens or copybooks. Our guide explained that each village had it's own school which taught children till the age of seven years. After that, if the family afforded, they'd go to public schools in one of the towns around Arusha.
And so we left the Maasai to their staple life and drove onwards to the Sergenti National Park. There are no boundaries which enclose this massive park and the only way to tell that you got there is a large monument of round rocks, known as 'kopje' and a signpost across two trees. It took us another half an hour of non-stop driving in the dust to get to the park's main headquarters. Once there Luther sorted out our camping permits and settled the park fees.
The Serengeti is a vast space of mainly dry land with accacia trees adorning it, other than wildlife, of course. We came across loads of gazelles, wildebeest, zebras. Met the odd ostriches here and there and even a lioness or two.
It was sunset when we got to Ikoma bush camp that evening. Having had a good dinner we headed off to our sleeping beds only to wake up at about 5am the next morning. According to Luther it's the best time of the day to watch game grazing and possibly hunt prey.
But all we saw were loads of African buffaloes grazing away in the early morning mist.
That night only a wildebeest paid our camp a visit. While I slept like a log poor George couldn't shut an eyelid wondering what beast was pacing up and down our campsite. The park rangers assured us they were wildebeest as they had spotted them over the past few days however, they wouldn't be staying for long given migration season.
Lobo, the place we stopped to have our packed breakfast turned out to be more interesting as we were surrounded by mingus and hyrax nibbling at our crumbs.
Just when we got back into our game-viewing for the day our jeep decided not to start up again, right beside a family of lions! For obvious saftey reasons, no one, NO ONE was allowed out of the cars at any point in the Serengeti with the exception of certain areas which were campsites and a few hippo pools.
Luther had to call for one of the nearby drivers to bump into our jeep to kick start it up. We had to remind him not to turn the engine off everytime we slowed to observe some game. Around lunch time he decided to head back to the camp and call a mechanic thus ending our day short. We lay beneath the eating open-air tent that afternoon bored having nothing to do. Failing to having it fixed, Luther arranged for us to have a walking safari, insteaed. Interesting, but the thought of walking out there in the open wild (not that we weren't already!) was a bit daunting. Anyways, couldn't miss on that opportunity :) The two park rangers led the way, armed with none other than a one-foot dagger at the waist. Great, it felt kind of safe.
Walking in the wild felt like live bait ready to be picked up for some appetising dinner. Apart from that our park rangers made quite an interesting, educational and cultural tour out of it. We learnt more about the various types of accacia, some of which was elephant and giraffe's favourite food. Other long thorny type ones is used by the Maasai to pierce their earlobes with. We also came across a 2-holed nest, batlike foxes, aleo vera plants (yes, growing out there in the wild!!) and last but not least a carcass of a wildebeest. The latter was only a few days old, according to one of our guides. We could not help but just stare at the skin and bones sculpture infront of us. It was almost as if it was dead for ages. It must have been hunted down by a cheetah, eaten by hyenas, then left to be finished off (to the marrow) by vultures, continued our life guard in factual tone.
Back at the camp, new arrivals joined us for the night. The couple and the guy accompaning them definitely made good company that evening. At least we weren't all alone in that bush campsite. I ended up having quite an intensive philosphical and psychological conversation about all-sorts with Rene, a Canadian who loved safaris and worked as a photographer with the NGO. He had recently spend some time in the prison camps in North Uganda, which I thought was very gutsy.
Next day we pushed the jeep to get it started. Having failed we had to yell, wave, shout, and Luther even turned his shirt into an SOS flag to attract attention to us. Finally, a jeep of locals stopped and two guys helped us start the jeep again.
That day turned out to be an all-cats day. We even had close, very close encounter with a lovely lion couple; the male flirting with his mistress while she calmly disregarded him. Oh, I was praying the jeep's engine wouldn't die on us right in the middle of these two. Fortunately, it did not, so we had had a great viewing day in the end.
As if the half-dead engine wasn't enough we had two punctures. Well, luckily they occurred out of the Serengeti while we were on our way back. Our last sighting was that of the Oldupai Gorge, the birthplace of our ancestors. I must say the view is very impressive and definitely makes you think how we came to being.
Well, hope you enjoyed the safari too!!
ta
nicky
X X
Once landed at Stone Town I was driven for about an hour to Pongwe Beach, which is at the North East of the Island. Couldn't help thinking and comparing notes with what I had seen in Arusha. Buildings were whiter to begin with while the locals seemed to live a better life. Local girls wore long head-scarves as part of their school uniform while men wore taftas. Muslim influence was everywhere here not just in the Islamic architecture in Town. Another big difference was that no one cried out 'muzungu' on passing by. Locals were used to having loads of Westerners wondering about (or should I say honeymooners!) 
I must say the main attraction there are the huge old tortoises. They're amazing! The ones in the photos are about a hundred years old! That's me trying to feed them some lettuce. Had to be very cautious otherwise they'll bite into your hand...not very nice!!! Here's my guide, Musatafa holding one of the younger ones. 
Having gathered some guts I then decided to brave the weather and cold and snorkell in the third most beautifull coral reefs in Zanzibar, which is just off Prison Island. The multi-coloured coral garden spotted with huge starfish, just mind blowing. I lost track of time and forgot all about the cold not to mention the stings from a particular sea fauna (natural habitat in coral seazones, apparently). 
