Africa 1987 III

We reached Arusha in the dark (from Kigoma & Mwenza) and found accommodation at the Twiga Guesthouse  for$2/night. At that hour, restaurant choices were limited, but we found a stand-up snack bar next to the Metropole Theatre. We started on our egg burgers when a short, well dressed Asian fellow appeared; “change money, need fake bank receipts?.” He introduced himself as Joe Ali, and we suggested he come by our room 21 at the Twiga after we had eaten. Tanzania unofficial (a.k.a. Black market) current rates were three time the official rate, however bank receipts were required for organized safari trips. Joe Ali proudly told us “I run an organized racket”. Joe got our needed paperwork for a US$20 fee. Everywhere we turned, it seemed that we came across his gang of money changers. 

We spent two days in Arusha talking with other travellers and searching the town for “best, cheapest” safari company. In the process, we met Australians Mick & Wendy and Chinese American John to form a group. We all decided to go with “Arumeru Safaris”, that operated out of the East Indian run Arumeru Auto Parts. The safari would be for 5 days, 4 nights at a cost of TSH 30,000 (C$300 at unofficial rate, $900 at bank rate)  for the vehicle & driver and park admission. We needed to exchange money and Wendy said the waiters at the upmarket Chinese restaurant gave a good rate. While we sipped green tea, we passed slips of paper back and forth, negotiating a good exchange rate. And, a few tables away, sat Joe Ali, who gave us a wink. Yes, he did run a well organized racket.

We were responsible for our own food, and we provisioned for breakfasts, lunches and a couple of dinners. We filled 6  boxes of food including mangoes,  pineapples, bananas, grapefruits, vegetables, avocados, peanut butter & jam, bread, fruit juice cordial purchased mostly at the Arusha Market. We pulled out of Arusha at 11:00am in a well worn Landrover with John, the driver, and our group of five. The back seating area was packed to capacity with two large drums of gasoline, all our backpacks and food boxes. We were all quite excited to be going out on safari as we raced along a paved road, swerving around potholes, with the jagged Mt Meru in the distance.

We drove through countryside inhabited by the Maasai. We saw small clusters of dome shaped huts and the odd acacia tree with hollowed out 1 metre long logs hanging from branches; bee hives. We saw Maasai men standing by the road, wearing plaid material tied at the shoulder. Their mud covered hair was arranged in long braids and some wore beaded triangles pierced to their ears and horseshoe shaped rings from elongated earlobes. Sandals were made from old tires and they would carry 2 metre walking sticks, often draping their hands at either end behind the head. Their traditional diet was goat meat and a yogurt mixture of fermented milk and cattle blood. Apparently, the Maasai had been evicted from within the Ngorogoro Crater  in 1975, and the government wished to move them from other additional parts of their ancestral lands to increase wildlife habitat.

The potholed asphalt road turned into a potholed dirt road and after four hours we climbed the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. Lake Manyara shimmered below and we made our way through cool mountain forests to reach the crest of the Ngorogoro Crater at 2,300m.  The world's largest unbroken crater was breathtaking; it's almost 20km across, over 600m deep. From above, we could see cloud shadows, forests and the giant soda lake. With the aid of binoculars, we could see herds of buffalo and wildebeest. Our group stayed at the "Guest House" and I prepared a spaghetti dinner for our group. John, our driver, stayed at the nearby "Crater Rim Safari Lodge", where they had special accommodation for drivers.

The Ngorogoro Crater boasts 25-30,000 large mammals, including 13,000 wildebeest, 3,500 zebra 3,000 buffalo and five lion prides and we couldn't wait to visit it. Our group was quite excited the next morning. At 6:00am, we all had breakfast; coffee, peanut butter & jam sandwiches, papaya and grapefruit. The morning mist slowly burnt off. Our driver & vehicle appeared at 8:00am. We passed a number of Maasai along the road in hopes of having their photos taken, for a fee. Our vehicle crawled down the steep rocky road into the crater, leaving the clouds behind that clustered around the rim. As we descended, the vegetation changed dramatically into shrub and finally to an open grassy plain. When we sighted our first animal, a Thompson's gazelle, standing by the road, we yelled to John to stop. He must have wondered what the fuss was about, but we were easily impressed. Over the next few days, we would see thousands of these graceful creatures.

We saw herds of zebra, wildebeest, buffalo grazing. Jackals and warthogs ran through the grass. Hyenas lay in mud pools, sometimes in the middle of the road. Hyenas may look ungainly, but they can run at 40mph. We came up on two other Landrovers that had stopped for a pride of  14 lions stretched out in the grass. The lions looked bored and after a while we also became bored of watching them.  We had lunch by a hippo pool and a huge tree covered with kites, ready to swoop down. Yes, another tourist had a sandwich snatched right out of his hand by a kite. We carefully guarded our lunch of  bread, avocados, cucumber and peanut butter.

We continued the game drive in the afternoon, and saw a black rhino with her seven month old daughter. There were only 20 remaining rhinos in the crater, down from 120 ten years earlier. They have such terrible eyesight and they are creatures of habit, making poaching all too easy. We saw 7 rhinos in total over the day. Over at the soda lake and the flamingos feeding on algae, we spotted an African waving his shirt over his head, to get our attention. The driver had taken a short cut across the shallow lake and got bogged down. A second vehicle followed and bogged down as well. Eventually, enough vehicles stopped and managed to push them out of trouble. We then carried on to the little Lerai Forest just beyond the lake and saw our first elephant closeup, the grand finale to a fantastic day. We left the dreamworld and back up into the swirling mist and tropical rain forest at the rim. We saw a herd of 30-40 elephants in the distance, descending through lush vegetation near the rim. We all had reasonably priced dinner at the Crater Rim Safari Lodge and watched the soda lake turn a beautiful orange. It had been quite a day.

The next morning, we drove down the outer slopes of the crater past cattle country out to the plains where we entered giraffe territory; a stand of acacia trees.  We encountered a giraffe group towering above the trees, nibbling delicately on the tiny leaves from branches covered in sharp needle sized thorns. Their long eyelashes and little ears were apparent with binoculars. Beyond, was an immense sea of grass with  rock outcrops and a vaulting blue sky. The sense of boundless space and unspoiled wilderness was overpowering. Serengeti means extended place in Maasai. It holds immense concentrations of plains game; 2 million wildebeest, half a million Thompson's gazelles and a quarter million zebra. So as we drove towards what looked like shrubs that materialized into thousands of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles as far as the eye could see. We had timed our visit to see the wildebeest migration; there are so many, that they have to keep moving for food. We passed long columns of gnus crossing the road and it was great to watch them accelerate and disperse as we approached and then reform their formation once the vehicle had passed.

A small river was swollen with the previous night's rainfall.  John, the driver, waded out to find an appropriate route across. I waded out for a photo of the vehicle crossing. As I reached the other bank, two lost wildebeest (gnu) calves ran up to me, searching for their lost mothers, bleating in desperation. I could have touched one of them on the nose. Gnu calves are born in February to avoid all-year slaughter by predators. The little gnus can out run lions and hyenas within 2 or 3 days after birth. Cheetah are never a match.

Further down the road, we came across large concentrations of zebra. It is still hard to believe that nature has created the zebra paint job. The camo outfit works especially well in low light when they are at most risk of predation.  We found zebras to be surprisingly chunky, much broader than horses. Zebra family units are controlled by stallions. We were impressed by the thunder of hooves as the raced by in front of the vehicle.

We stopped at the Ndutu Lake Lodge for lunch and John, our driver, went in for his special meal. We got permission from the maitre d'  to eat our box lunches on the lawn; avocado and banana sandwiches. The Tanzanian red bananas deserve special mention, as perhaps the most delicious bananas we have ever eaten. After lunch, our drive was quiet except for our first sighting of a cheetah. The mother cheetah became separated from her cubs and we all agreed to leave the poor animals alone and we set off on our way. We saw many more giraffe in the Ndutu area, but we continued on. We first found a lion sleeping in the shade of an acacia tree and later in the day, we came across elephants. We approached them on foot, but they moved off. We convinced John, our driver, to allow us to camp  that night off in the bush, for a financial reward.  We had a corned beef and rice dinner as the night sky was bursting with stars. The sounds of wildebeest, roaring lions and giggling hyenas kept us on high alert. Driver John said it was perfectly safe to camp out, but he slept in the vehicle.

Nothing happened overnight, we were not eaten by lions. Wendy was terrified and she said that she didn't sleep at all. A quick exploration of the kopje (rock mound) that we slept near revealed a striped mongoose, but no hyraxes.  A male lion lazed about in the shade of bushes. We headed towards Naabi Hill. We watched a herd of giraffe at close quarters nibble acacia leaves but we eventually pressed on, much to Sheila's dismay. During the short drive, we passed zebra herds, impala near woodlands, dikdik, mice, a group of ostriches, East African oryx, hyena, gazelle, warthogs and jackal. 

We continued in the direction of Ngorogoro and we spotted a lion eating his wildebeest kill. He left his half eaten meal and an army of vultures appeared quickly. Within seconds, the carcass was covered in frantic birds, with appalling table manners. More vultures flew in. Within 15 minutes, the carcass was picked clean. As we drove away, the bone crushing hyenas moved in.

Our next stop was Olduvai Gorge where the Leakey's had discovered our early ancestors, 1.7 million year old Australopithecus. Oldupai is the Maasai word for a sisal plant. The five layers of sediment were easy to pick out. It was a pleasant lunch spot. Maasai were hanging around for photos (TSH 20). We drove back up and past the Ngorogoro rim and down to Mto Wa Mbu village that borders Lake Manyara. We all showered, drank beer and had an excellent supper; everyone was in good spirits.

We entered the park and a good sized herd of buffalo were on hand to greet us. Baboons scampered about and we came quite close to an elephant herd. In many parts of Africa, elephants have been confined to parks and can no longer roam freely. Consequently, vegetation becomes over browsed and we could see many of the trees in Manyara had been stripped of bark. Lake Manyara National Park is 330sq km at an altitude of 950m. It offers a wide range of vegetation and habitat including baobab trees.

We passed through the wet zone of the park into the savannah where we came across giraffe, impala, zebra, wildebeest, wart hogs, eland, a family of ostriches and the hippo pool. At one point, we were almost ejected from the park by an official because we were caught sitting up on the Landrover roof. A couple of birds of note included the ground hornbill and a lovely hammerkop eating a frog. The southern section of the park became increasingly dry and uneventful. We were however rewarded by a close encounter with 2 ostriches. The are big birds and  as Aussie Mick said, "they are bigger than a Sheila". They are something to watch when running. The legs move but the body and neck remain steady at 40mph. 

Back in Arusha, we had dinner at the Sheesh Mahal and we bid our farewells to our travel partners. John was off to Kilimanjaro and Mick & Wendy were heading for Mwanza. It had been quite a safari, costing less than $20/day per person. It was too short and we vowed to return.

Our transfer from Arusha to Nairobi was as smooth as silk on nice paved roads, we rode in the back of a Peugeot shared taxi to the border, passed through formalities with ease and took another unpacked Peugeot shared taxi into central Nairobi. We covered the 250km distance in less than four hours. The Lee’s were occupied and we stayed at the comfortable Youth Hostel for two nights. We opted to visit Lake Turkana in NW Kenya near the borders of Sudan and Ethiopia.

We reached Nakuru via matatu (shared van) and tried hitchhiking north but ended up on the bus to Kitale. We stayed at the clean Executive Lodge. They only had a small single room available for KSH 50. The bus north drove up and down Main Street Kitale for 2.5 hours, looking for passengers. The highway was probably East Africa’s finest, built a few years earlier in 1984. The bus made its way through the green mountains and descended onto the hot northern plains. Then it sped along through the scrub, occasionally going up and down dips over dry river beds. In the rainy season, flash floods fill the rivers and vehicles must wait a few hours for the water to subside. 

We reached Kalekol, a desert town with a row of a few tin shacks. We stayed at a very basic, hot courtyard hotel and slept poorly the first night in the stuffy room. 

The temperature rose quickly with the morning sun. A young fellow offered to guide us on a short cut to Lake Turkana. He wore a tattered shirt with red flip flops that matched his underwear, visible through his threadbare shorts  His relative affluence was on display as he wore a cheap digital watch.The sky was cloudless and we wore handkerchiefs to protect ourselves from blowing sand. While flies rested on our backs and hats, we moved slowly through the heavy sands. Emaciated looking Turkana tribal people passed by dressed in black material. The women wore beaded necklaces, multiple earrings and studded pieces beneath the lower lips and the men carried long walking sticks and small stools that doubled as pillows by night.

Our route took us near some dome shaped straw huts where a young girl tried to sell us a woven place mat. We passed a scraggly palm tree collection on a sandy road. Off in the distance, we made out a line of high bushes. As we got closer, it turned out to be hundreds of donkeys, facing our direction with their tails to the sun. We walked through them and as the sand softened, we could see the jade green lake with white caps. Eventually (6km from Kalekol), we reached the shores of Lake Turkana. A few young boys were standing knee deep in the lake fishing with hand lines. A dugout canoe went by. We sighted the Lake Turkana Fishing Lodge and spent much of the day on the veranda, sipping cold soft drinks. By mid-day, the air was breathless. A few people went swimming. Three hippos showed their heads. White ibis' and pelicans strolled along the shoreline. Figures walked across the hot sands carrying baskets on their heads. Why did we come here? Sometimes, awkward to get to places, off-the-beaten track are just that.

As the sun dropped at 5:00pm, we walked back into the sun and Kalekol. It was difficult to cool off. The water at the hotel was sun warmed and offered little relief. We moved the beds out of the room into the sandy courtyard to sleep under the stars and a warm night breeze.

We almost missed the 5:00am bus out of Kalekol the following morning. Lodwar was pleasant at 7:00 am, but it was heating up quickly. We reached Kitale and stayed overnight at the Executive Lodge once again, but in a bigger room. We caught a matatu for Eldoret early the next morning, however it seemed to take forever to leave town, searching for more passengers. We tried our luck hitchhiking in Eldoret and after three hours without success, we caught a bus to Nakuru. It was then 4:00pm and we hung around Nakuru, waiting for a matatu to leave for Nairobi. We had a number of false starts and got a special fare of KSH 40 (KSH10 less than other passengers) but the first van didn't leave till 7:30pm. Our van broke down as we approached Nairobi. Luckily, a passing bus stopped and everyone jumped in. Nairobi was in total darkness from a power cut when we arrived at the Youth Hostel at 11:00pm. We got the last two beds. 

It was early April and we weighed our options and opted to head south to visit Glenn's parents, in Swaziland, with a second visit to the Serengeti along the way. While we were staying at the Nairobi youth hostel, we met another Canadian traveller, Doug, from Portage Manitoba. We had met him before at the hostel in Alice Springs in July 1985. He couldn't believe that we were still on the same trip. We all moved onto Arusha where we met Nace (Ignatius) from Tennessee and the four of us arranged for a six day safari. We went through all the necessary steps, changing money, bought bank receipts, arranged transport and purchased food. On the eve of our departure from Arusha, we had serious doubts about the weather as it poured buckets that night. The rains had set in.

Our second tour was with Arumeru Safaris and we had the same driver, John. We had contingency plans with Arumeru in case we had to shorten the tour. We stayed at the Guesthouse on the Ngorogoro Crater rim on Day 1. I was walking back to the guesthouse at night and almost ran into a buffalo in the grass. Buffalo grazed below our bedroom window that night and ants swarmed all over the floor, likely driven indoors by the the rain,  and we mopped them up. It poured all night. 

Our second day was in the Ngorogoro Crater and what a day it was. A leopard leaped across the road as we left the guesthouse. We punched through dense cloud and emerged into bright sunshine on the crater floor. We came across three bat eared foxes sitting near their burrow; they are "rare" to see in Ngorogoro. Further along, we spotted both the black backed and golden jackals. There were plenty of zebras and wildebeest that don't migrate like those of the Serengeti. Next was a female rhino and daughter that we had seen on the previous visit to the crater. We approached quite close and we would see several other female rhinos on the road that afternoon. We were greeted by five spotted hyenas before breaking for lunch at the hippo pool. 

After the other five vehicles had departed, we ambled along and spotted a two cheetahs in the bushes. They appeared pregnant at first, but it turns out that they had just eaten. We jockeyed around and the cheetahs came out into the open in the light drizzle.  Further along, we watched a fair size group of Cokes' hartebeest  (Kongori). Their ears and horns seemed perfectly symmetrical. 

Later in the afternoon, we came across two different lion prides. The first was of four males and two females and the other was a mixed pride of 14 including 2 males and 5 cubs. Wildebeest and zebra are their normal diet in the crater and on the Serengeti, though it varies by place and season.  There were increased numbers of flamingos at the soda lake as more had arrived from Kenya. Ostriches, gazelles, warthogs, helmeted guinea fowl, dikdiks, a 50lb ambassador bird, secretary birds, a solitary eland, distant elephants and a huge herd of buffalo rounded out the afternoon. It had been quite a day. We could hear lions roaring when we laying down to sleep.

Our third day of the tour was less productive as the game had moved further north since our first visit. On our drive to Lake Ndutu, there were a few giraffes and a few herd animals. It threatened with rain, and then it poured. On the drive to Seronera, for some reason, we drove quickly through the tail of the migration onto grassland without herds. We were a little annoyed with our driver for doing so. The hostel was open but we found the rates a little high, so we haggled and came to a compromise that involved tipping a warden TSH 300. Hyenas scampered around the hostel.

Animal viewing kicked into gear early on Day 4. We spotted 6 different animal species while we ate breakfast; giraffe, buffalo, zebra, impala, wildebeest and hartebeest. Sheila found rock hyraxes and later bush hyraxes behind the hostel. The grass around Seronera was higher than we wished. The Seronera river offered little game, yet we had a wonderful sighting of male and female stately waterbucks. We spotted several  lions. We were looking for leopards and managed to see just about every other animal type but no leopards. The closest we got to a leopard was a leopard tortoise. 

The scenery was enchanting with the tall grass, acacia trees, rocky outcrops and under a blue sky with billowing white clouds. Returning to Seronera, we watched a group of zebra and impala suddenly take flight. There were two cheetah on the hunt. We lost them in the tall grass and drove a little ways for a different angle and we came across two male impalas fighting each other. The impala stopped to look at us, and then carried on with hurtling themselves at each other. The existing stallion pushed off the contender and kept control of his herd of 40 for another day.

We stopped in at the Seronera Lodge for drinks. There were plenty of hyraxes, baboons and colourful agama lizards in the lodge grounds. Then we headed for Naabi Hill; it was to be an eventful drive. We stopped to watch a male and female lion play alongside the road. We watched grazing animals run in panic as something was stalking them. We moved into an area of migrating wildebeest and then a large circle of grassland empty except for two male lions. As we approached, one of them threatened to attack our vehicle. We pressed on to admire the amazing sight of the wildebeests. It was like a sea of animals, impossible to estimate their numbers, as far as the eye could see. There were certainly hundreds of thousands. 

We passed through Naabi Hill gate and camped at a designated camp site on what felt like an island above a sea of animals. After dinner, we sat around a campfire. Hyenas passed 5 metres from us, jackals scurried below, a lion passed 15 metres from us. All through the night, we could hear the incessant bleating of the wildebeest and lion roars.

We slept well, without incident. We had a slow start to the day and we all sat around eating scrambled eggs for breakfast. We packed up and drove out to survey the overnight damage inflicted by predators and in the early morning. A male cheetah looked up at us with fresh blood dripping all over its face before it moved on. We spotted several lions and we took in the immense population of grazing animals. We then headed back to the Ngorogoro Crater. We passed by large concentrations of gazelles, both Grants and the more common Thompson's. The smaller grazers generally follow behind the larger wildebeest and zebras. We also enjoyed the warthog families that scurry off with their tails held vertical. We watched a pair of secretary birds, with their feather crests that resemble quill pens. They feed on reptiles, particularly snakes. Finally, we had a good luck at the vultures, Ruppells and the White Backed varieties that are the first to tear the carcasses apart. The more specialized Hooded and Egyptian vultures wait for the sinewy bits. When we arrived at the Ngorogoro guesthouse, it felt a bit like home as we had stayed three times already.

We had the morning in the crater before heading back to Arusha. We saw the "usual" assortment of rhinos, zebras, gnus, hartebeest and spent some time with a family of helmeted guinea fowl. We picked up a hitchhiking Danish fellow part way to Arusha. He had been living with the Maasai for 6 weeks. Our group disbanded and we set our sights on Southern Africa.

More  to follow in 2024:

The long journey South

Apartheid South Africa

Botswana

Journey North & Kenya