Monday morning a representative from our safari company rescued us from our hotel and whisked us away from Moshi in his white minivan. The clouds impeding our view of Mt. Kilimanjaro the day before had dissolved, rewarding us with majestic views of the tallest mountain in Africa for much of our drive to Arusha.
Joey's cousin, Angela, and her husband, Steve, flew over 30 hours and almost 10,000 miles from Seattle to meet us in Arusha. We couldn't decide whether we were more excited to see Angela and Steve or to begin our long-awaited safari. Luckily we didn't have to, because no sooner were we reunited than we were loaded into the Toyota Landcruiser in which the four of us would have many, many hours over the next week to reconnect.
About two hours through the Tanzanian countryside and a snack of red bananas later, we reached our first safari destination: Lake Manyara National Park, where we were greeted by a blue monkey before even passing the gate. Once inside, our driver and guide, Ibrahim, popped the vehicle's roof hatch so we were able to stand while he drove through the park.
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| Standing in the back of the car. See the giraffes in the background? |
As we made our way through the forest, we saw baboons, more blue monkeys, black-faced velvet monkeys and impalas before lunch. We stopped in a clearing with several picnic tables and Ibrahim doled out our lunch boxes. Lunch was fairly meager, but fortunately for always-hungry Joey we still had some of the bananas purchased along the way from the women on the side of the road.
After lunch we headed into the bush and over the next several hours spotted wildebeest (which Ibrahim pronounced as "wild beast"), giraffes, elephants, teeny tiny little impalas called Kirk's Dik-Dik, an Egyptian lizard, warthogs, zebras, hippos, and numerous species of birds! With the aid of Ibrahim and my journal, we counted 23 different animals and we still had four more days to go!
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| Pink flamingos, giraffes and wildebeest |
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| This giant turkey vulture looking thing is called a Southern Ground Hornbill |
We left the park and about an hour later arrived at the Bougainvillea Safari Lodge, a welcome respite from our accommodations the previous night. We had our own cottage, with a four-poster bed draped in mosquito netting, a fireplace and large walk-in shower, which I employed immediately.
Feeling much fresher, Joey and I met Angela and Steve for dinner in the lodge. Many glasses of really bad boxed wine (actually, the first glass was the only really bad one; Angela said she saw them tipping the box to get all the wine out) and many good laughs later, we finally retired to our romantic little cottage.
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| Click here for the rest of my pictures from our first day of safari |
Tuesday morning we began the second day of our safari with a drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. None of Tanzania's reserves are gated; however, an entrance fee is required and you do have to check in and check out of each reserve. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the gate of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, we did so with many other safari-goers, and it took almost an hour before we were cleared for entry. Fortunately, Ibrahim was in charge of this check-in process, so all we had to do was try to stay out of the strong sun and away from the nasty tsetse flies.
With the hatch of our Landcruiser popped and the hot sun streaming in, we bumped along the dirt road toward Lake Masek, where we discovered a wildebeest graveyard. The tires crunched on the bones of the fallen prey as we made our way deeper into the bush and encountered a large family of elephants. We got so close we could count the wrinkles of their crackled gray skin, and laughed at the posturing of the baby elephant. He stomped his foot, flared his ears and snorted his trunk, only to be gently led away by his mother who didn't find our vehicle as threatening as he.
We passed flocks of pelicans and pink flamingos, pausing to photograph a herd of hippos taking a mud bath in Lake Ndutu. They smelled almost as bad as the blunt and bloody limb toted by the very hungry and very pregnant hyena we saw next. Dark clouds rolled in with the dusk, but we drove deeper into the bush before arriving at camp. Though a waiter met us at the car with delightfully cold towels and deliciously fresh passion fruit juice, our experience that night would be far more rustic than any other night on our trip.
