Safari!

Interesting fact, safari is a Swahili word. Kusafari is the Swahili verb “to travel” meaning that a safari is a journey. Very appropriate for what we did.

I posted last time from the hotel we stayed at in Arusha the night before we left. We’re so far from this part of Tanzania that it’s a minimally 10 hour bus ride from Morogoro to Arusha. Arusha is a whole other world though. It is a strange mix of western influence and Tanzanian culture. Usually Tanzanian buildings are very simple structures, but we started seeing these great big beautiful buildings that were American, not Tanzanian. So many signs were in English, we even saw restaurants advertised that served pizza and Japanese food! Neither of us knew where we were anymore, and quite frankly, for the rest of the trip, we realized we were in wazungu Africa. The hotel we stayed at that night was actually the plainest of the entire trip, but coming from our situation, we found it amazing! I’m sure anyone coming from Europe or America would have found it a little rustic, but we were quite enthralled. But, as I said, that was just the beginning.

The next morning Damas, our guide, came to pick us up. We tried to join another group, but there weren’t options available for our dates and the sites we wanted so we had one guide for the two of us. The safari vehicles you see on TV are quite real too- I assumed that was just a stereotype. Nope, he pulled up in a huge safari truck, and we got in. That day we were going to Tarangire National Park, which is a smaller park on the way to NgoroNgoro crater and Serengeti National Park, which are two of three sites that Tanzania’s most famous for (Kilimanjaro being the other). On the way to the park we stopped to buy some Tanzanite. I had been told about this from a hospital patient last summer actually; I just knew it was a very pretty blue gem that could only be found in Tanzania. However, we learned that it will soon be entirely mined, so we got some very, very, very small gems because the prices were crazy! I’m glad I got some though, and it is very pretty.  We got to Tarangire around 11 that morning and started a game drive. The basic set up of the game drive portion of the safari is the guide drives around at a reasonably slow speed through the park/conservation area and you try to spot animals. Any time you want to stop to just watch or take pictures of the animals and scenery, you can. When you’re done, you keep going. It does mean that you basically sit all day in the vehicles. That got a little long, but the roofs actually open up so you can stand up. Also, because there were only two of us and we had a big vehicle, we could walk around inside it. You can even move around while they’re driving.

Tarangire is famous for its Baobab trees and elephants; they were everywhere! By the end of the day, when the guide was stopping a group elephants kind of far off in the distance, I was at the point of saying “Eh, whatever. We’ve already had better sightings.” We even got to see a lion! It was far off, but it was a surprise! The best part (other than multiple times being within a twenty foot radius of elephants) was our encounter with two cheetahs! It was at the end of the day, and we drove over to where they had sighted them, and there were two adults walking around. At first they were sort of far from our car; my camera was struggling to get good pictures of them, but then they started coming closer to car. At one point, one was about ten feet from my window! They crossed the road where we saw some cheetah cubs, which were so cute!

Every night we stayed in the parks which was quite the experience too. It’s amazing when you stop to think about it; these are national parks where animals are the number one priority, so they can’t run water or electricity to the sites. Despite this, they have managed to not only provide adequate housing, but beautiful lodging for the trips. Two nights we stayed in tents, but don’t think for a second we were roughing it or camping; the tents were nicer than our house in Morogoro. Since you were out in the middle of the wilderness more or less, each site had its own restaurant, and we were very curious as to what the food would be. We thought it would be a western/Tanzanian mix, and honestly, as long as it wasn’t straight ugali, it would probably be ok. We’ve adapted to Tanzanian food enough we could make that work. Quickly though we realized that they were catering to their European and American guests, so we got to have quite a treat in eating delicious Western food we hadn’t had in a while. The only potential hazard was because we were in the parks, we were sharing our night with the animals around us. The sites were not allowed to keep back the animals in any way, so we were thoroughly warned to stick to the prescribed paths and to not have food in our tents so we didn’t attract a midnight guest. No worries, the only guests I know of were some antelope the next morning in Tarangire and some giraffes in Serengeti.

After Tarangire, we drove over to Serengeti, which was about five hours away. However, the path goes by the NgoroNgoro crater, so we had a gorgeous view on the way. We also stopped by the Old Dupai Gorge, which is where some of the oldest human remains have been found. We made it to the Serengeti around mid afternoon; I think the Serengeti is what the Midwest looked like before settlement. The name actually drives from the Masai word “Siringit” which means “sea of grass.” That’s exactly what the Serengeti is; unlike the lush, green, and hilly Tarangire park, Serengeti is plains for miles and miles. Occasionally a tree or pile of rocks pops up. We did a game drive for the rest of Sunday afternoon, all of Monday, and we did a specifically early morning game drive Tuesday morning. We passed lots of grazing herds of wildebeest, zebras, antelope, and buffalo. We saw so many lions! Our guide estimated that we saw 100 lions throughout the safari. We drove by whole prides of them, and one afternoon we had a lion cross back and forth twice in front of our car! One day we also found a pride of lions by a fresh kill; we drove by the next day to see a hyena eating the last bit of the skull and spinal cord that was left. Nature at its finest : ) We got to see hippo pools, a couple crocodiles, ostriches, more elephants, giraffes, warthogs (which our guide called ‘pumbaas’, which means stupid, not warthog), so many birds, and two leopards. There’s a list of the big five with safaris: lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants, and rhinos. These are animals that at one point or still are in danger of extinction and are difficult to sometimes see on safaris. By the end of our time in the Serengeti, we had seen all of them except the rhinos which don’t live there, so we were very successful!

Our last night we stayed near the NgoroNgoro crater. Surprisingly, the crater formed from an ancient mountain that was bigger than Kilimanjaro but collapsed in on itself, creating the crater. Down in the crater, there’s a very unique ecosystem. There’s actually a small rainforest, a lake and plains, so there’s a great mix of animals. The crater is quite large, but I was still shocked when the guide told us that over 30,000 animals live in it. We did get to see some rhinos, which was really exciting! None of them were that close, but there are only 17 black rhinos left in the world. They all live in the NgoroNgoro crater, and we saw three of them! Also, there are other rhinos in the world, but they’re not black rhinos. We also got to see the flamingoes that live down in the crater, which was fun to watch. After checking out the crater, we headed back to Arusha town, said good bye to the guide, spent the night, and took an 11+ hour bus back to Morogoro the next day.

We definitely had quite the trip, and it was great! Seeing God’s handiwork so close and the landscapes was breathtaking and wonderful. I’m really glad I got to do this during my time here, especially now that I’m truly in the final stretch. I’ll post about that separately, since we got to have some good Easter fellowship, and these last few days have not and will not be boring. There’s a pleasant amount of activity happening, which is probably for the best. Without school, I am getting antsy, but at the same time, I’m getting a few more days to soak up my last memories of life here.

God bless,

Kjirstin

 

PS: I do promise to post pictures from the safari; when I return to the US and have more reliable internet, I shall make a few posts just of pictures from the end of school and the trip! : )