After 23+ hrs travelling from Australia via Abu Dhabi, then Nairobi and enjoying brief sights of the famous mountain, we finally landed into Kilimanjaro International Airport on 27th Jan, 2015.
Yep... the maps are back!
We were met enthusiastically by Raymond with his beaming smile and words heard much over the next 14 days, “karibu sana!”, which in Tanzanian means ‘welcome very much’. Raymond, a local from the nearby city Arusha, and our guide for the next 14 days, had taken only just a few seconds to start trying to teach us the local lingo. After mutual introductions, we promptly headed off to Dibuti Lodge for much needed sleep.
Next morning, Raymond met us with his ever constant smile and enthusiasm to commence our first game drive through nearby Arusha National Park. Raymond works for Bramwel Adventure Safaris, a local company we had booked directly with, to avoid all the middle people and used by our son and daughter in-law during their honeymoon a year ago.
Before going any further, as a reminder, you can click on an image within the blog to get a larger version then just look for the 'X' to close it again.
For the next 2 weeks, there would be just our guide Raymond, ourselves and his stretched 8 seater Landcruiser with its pop-up roof, to safely view wildlife, scenery and to capture the photos we may be after.
We were therefore hoping to quickly establish a personal and trusting relationship with Raymond.
As we headed to the park, Raymond advised us we had come at a very good time because there were still very large zebra and wildebeest herds still migrating, a lot of young animals being born and as a consequence, quite a few predators around.
Unfortunately due to the scare caused by Ebola, the number of visitors into East Africa had dropped very sharply despite the countries affected by it being 8,000 kms from where we were. The good news with this though was that there would be significantly less other tourists in all the parks were going to visit.
The routine during our 2 weeks in mainland Tanzania was to do either a full days game drive or 2 game drives every day. Most days had us in the car at 6:30am, returning to wherever our accommodation was by 6:30pm every night. If doing a full days game drive, we would usually take lunch boxes with us prepared by the accommodation places, and if having a very early start, we would depart with both breaky and lunch boxes.
As part of our routine, every night we would wash the days clothes, load onto the laptop our photos from the day, delete any we didn’t want as a first review, re-charge camera batteries, create a separate back-up of photos on a portable hard drive and clean the dust from our camera gear.
If you are ever contemplating coming to Africa, be prepared for a LOT of dust, especially whilst doing game drives. We had to constantly fully cover our cameras for protection, mind you, there was also plenty of dust in noses, ears, eyes, hair and on clothes, which also needed removing daily.
What will follow in a number of blog posts is a highlights summary of each of the parks we visited in terms of wildlife, accommodation and other interesting experiences, along with some photos… naturally, and the maps of where we actually went!
When it comes to any wildlife photos, they will be grouped by type eg. lions, hippos etc and accessed by links at the end of each blog post with a few inserted within the blog itself. The simple reason for this is to enable you to only look at the animals you’re most interested in, so hope it works for you all.
So ‘twende’ or let’s go!
Arushu National Park
This was a great way to start, considering some slight jet lag we were dealing with. It’s a small park in comparison to most others, but hasn’t any of the main predators in it like lions, leopard and hyena and this meant any animals we did see were quite relaxed.
Wildlife highlights here included the very beautiful black & white but shy Colobus monkeys with their long fluffy white tails. Around one of the lakes in the park was an abundance of Lesser Pink Flamingoes constantly feeding and also some of my favourite birds, the African Fish Eagle. There were numerous large and very confident ‘tribes’ of baboons, which would happily sit very close to our vehicle and the baby baboons kept us very amused with their playful antics. There are also quite shy Blue Monkeys and plenty of zebra, giraffe and buffalo.
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| Colobus monkey |
So we were off to a relaxed start for a full days drive in this small, almost ‘boutique’ park and it provided us with plenty of time for Raymond and us to get to know each other better.
Tarangire National Park
After leaving the lovely Dibuti Lodge, we stopped briefly in the frenetic city of Arusha (pop: 1.3M) to get some local currency before settling in to a 2.5 hour drive south west from Arusha to Tarangire Nat. Park. We learned about Raymond’s wife and daughter Lisa, how he had become a guide, how he has been doing it for 9 years and more about Tanzania, its tribes and culture.
Reached the gate into Tarangire at 11:30am and typical of every day to follow, went straight into ‘game drive’ mode for the next 7 hours before reaching the lodge. ‘Game drive’ mode simply means we pop up the roof, then Rob and I stand up in the back of the vehicle, cameras ready and everyone’s eyes scanning everywhere.
Tarangire is known for its large population of elephants and as promised by Raymond, there were plenty of baby elephants also.
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| aaah... the babies |
We also had our first introduction to the infamous Tsetse flies, swarms of Tsetse flies of sleeping sickness fame, but thankfully though not that variety in this part of Africa. We learnt very quickly that they sting when they bite, usually when either one of us was concentrating on photographing something. What do you do, swat the fly or take the shot?
They are tough little buggers! When you hit them they usually fell on the floor of the car, shook themselves off then flew away to attack again! Some managed to find their way up my trouser leg which was a little disconcerting. This is when we learnt you shouldn’t squeeze them to death either because when they bite, they engorge blood. Hmmm… nice big blood stain on pants trouser leg to deal with later!
Raymond had warned us the day before to wear long trousers and use repellant but obviously we hadn’t used enough of the stuff.
We also learned over the next few days that Tsetse fly bites are like sand fly bites, they scream out to be itched and it took a few days for the bites to disappear. Don’t be deterred by this, you just need to be prepared with the right clothes and quality repellant. If using a Deet based one, be aware that Deet will melt plastic so be careful about hands and face when using cameras. Apparently Picaridin repellent has less impact on cameras and is pretty good for malaria carrying mosquitoes, well so the stories go anyway.
Our lodge in Tarangire Nat. Park sits on a hill overlooking the plains and the Tarangire River. It also had a very nice place to sit outdoors to admire the scenery below whilst enjoying a few ‘sundowners’ before dinner. Will let you work out what that means.
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| spot the giraffe... |
Whilst admiring the views and sundowners, the wildlife viewing continued with a giraffe less than 30 mtrs in front of us. Above us hundreds of swallows were flying trying to catch insects in the rapidly darkening sky before a harrier swooped in and grabbed a swallow out of the sky, very impressive indeed.
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| very unhappy |
Raymond met us at 6:00am with the ‘breaky boxes’ and a thermos already packed and we headed out just as the sun was starting to rise. Wasn’t long before our first wildlife encounter, a somewhat grumpy and very large bull elephant. He soon let us know his displeasure in interrupting him by throwing red dust up into the air with his trunk before lumbering towards our now stationary car.
Certainly got the adrenaline going as we stood there watching him through the pop up roof coming towards us, his huge tusks perfectly lined up with our stomachs. Raymond just sat in his seat watching, his hand on the ignition and the car in gear. The elephant casually changed direction passing closely behind us but when Raymond started the engine to leave, he rapidly swung around, ears out wide, trunk lifted and annoyed, moving again straight towards us.
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| passing just behind us |
We quickly ducked down and as we drove away, it took quite awhile for Raymond to stop his very hearty laughing as the sun rose rapidly into the sky.
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| Our first true bush sunrise |
Over the next 3 days we averaged about 11 hours of game driving each day and apart from seeing lots of elephants and birds, our most notable sightings were:
- our first sighting of 2 cheetahs lying resting in the shade on termite mounds.
- 4 lions also resting in the shade, but up in trees, their paws dangling back towards the ground. This got Raymond very excited to the point he got out his own camera and started taking photos.
- we spotted a very large leopard climb up into a tree, so we enjoyed sitting underneath the tree with the leopard casually looking back down at us from 4-5 mtrs away. We were told later at the lodge it was quite rare to see leopards in the daylight in Tanzania.
- a lone lioness who walked right past our car, constantly making a low growling sound until her two young sub adult cubs ran excitedly out of the scrub very near us to meet her.
- some bat eared foxes we had previously seen only at night, but these were very relaxed whilst watching us in daylight.
Ol Mesera Tented Camp
There are times during any trip when you meet fascinating people, as occurred during our overnight stay at Ol Mesera Tented Camp whilst transitioning from Tarangire Nat. Park to the next one.
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| our tented accommodation for the night |
Barbara is the owner of this tented camp and runs it with the help of local Masai villagers. She used to be an accountant in Slovenia, who met a Tanzanian studying medicine there, they fell in love, got married and she moved to Tanzania with him.
That all happened 45 years ago! They had 3 children, 2 older girls, one who now lives in the USA and the other in Hobart. The boy lives with the father after she asked for a divorce because he wanted more wives to give him more boys.
She shared with us what living in Tanzania over the last 45 years was like and it was simply fascinating and had us enthralled well into the night. We were her only guests after almost all her visitors had been cancelled due to the ebola influence over the previous 4 months.
The other reason we were staying at Ol Mesera was to enable us to visit a real Masai village and learn more about this very proud tribe of people. Our guide, a Masai who works for Barbara, was the son of the villages head man and our interpreter the grandson of Barbara.
As we made our 5 km walk across the barren plains in 37+C heat from Ol Mesera to the village, we learned via the grandson that the Masai:
- steadfastly are retaining their culture by maintaining their traditional lifestyles.
- can have multiple wives with the last wife making the house for the next wife.
- each wife lives in their own home with their children and the husband lives in his own home. He ‘visits’ each wife in turn.
- went inside a Masai hut which is very small and with small slit windows. It was pitch black as we entered and our eyes struggled to adjust, but our Masai guide could see perfectly.
- they cook on open fires inside the hut and it gets very smokey but the smoke doesn’t seem to affect them.
- boys get circumcised as part of their manhood ceremonies, but the age depends on the village elders and ability for family to pay the circumcisor.
- its illegal now for women to be circumcised but some women still do it to themselves because in the past they were not allowed to get married till this had happened. When they get married they receive a dowry.
- Masai judge their wealth by first, how many cattle and then goats they own. Masai kids from the age of 6 look after the herds during the day.
- We were wearing shorts during our visit and as we walked around being shown through the village and meeting people, suddenly the hairs on my legs were being constantly pulled by the kids. It was then we learned that the Masai have virtually no hair on their bodies. Was very funny!
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| the head man in the Masai village with some of the many children |
Also learned that the Masai no longer hunt wildlife, especially lions, something they are renowned for being very good at and was part of their coming of age traditions. Men however do model their lives on male lions, which means they sleep a lot and wait for the women to get the food!
Overall, our time in and around Ol Mesera was a fascinating way to learn about various elements of Tanzanian history and culture.
Lake Manyara National Park
After leaving Ol Mesera and heading north towards to a very famous destination we were looking forward to visiting, a day couldn’t go by without some game driving, so we went wandering for almost 6 hours through Lake Manyara National Park.
This park consists of stacks of real jungle instead of the open grass plains of say Tarangire. Also in the park is a large salty lake giraffes like to congregate around.
In the jungle there were again lots of baboons, vervet monkeys and blue monkeys. The baboons move through the jungle in very large groups and when they do, all the other monkeys soon disappear.
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| "heh... don't run away... I'm interested in you!" |
It was Sunday and after the game drive we pushed on, stopping at a large busy town to buy more supplies of bottled water. Whilst Raymond went off and collected the water, we watched all the beautifully dressed women and girls especially, almost parading around town. Being Sunday meant it was their day for church and the reason they were all dressed up.
BUT we still had some distance to cover before reaching the gate and the inevitable bureaucratic process Raymond had to go through before we gained entry to our next park. More importantly, we had to gain entry and reach another gate further inside the park on the side of the mountain by 6:00pm or risk being turned back.
As I said earlier, we have really been looking forward to visiting this very famous location but that will have to wait until the next post!
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| Overall context within Tanzania of game drives to date |
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| More game drive detail - Arusha Nat. Park is in blue |
We took a LOT of photos during our time in East Africa, especially since we had both the car and the guide just to ourselves.
To try and make it a little easier for you we hope, we have selected 10-15 photos (sometimes more!!) per 'category' which you can select by clicking on its link.
A 'category' might be say be Elephants or Lions or Scenery etc., so if you're not interested in a specific 'category'... just don't click on its link!
The links will be inserted throughout each post covering the entire trip, starting with this one as you will see below. A category will not be repeated in a later post!
We simply hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed taking them.
So if you want to see a few more photos, just click on any of the 'category' link(s) words below:
- CLICK HERE - Elephants - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - Giraffes - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - Wildebeest - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - Monkeys - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - BOGs (Birds on ground or water) - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - Other Wildlife - East Africa 2015
- CLICK HERE - Zebras - East Africa 2015
