Off To See The World

We actually got to sleep in a little today (finally!) so we were all ready for our first day of trekking. A vehicle took our big bags to the first stop so we only had to carry day packs for this hike. The Usumbara Mountains are lush, dense, beautiful mountains… it made for a pretty awesome scenery during the hike.

The trek was wicked… tromping through dense rainforest. It had rained recently so the path was pretty soggy and slippery but John and I seemed to manage pretty good. I can’t say the same for our American friends though… they were slipping and sliding everywhere! At the top of on of the ridges, we stopped for lunch. Our guide had actually packed up an amazing lunch: brown bread, fresh fruits of the area, herbed quark, cheese, veggies… it was super healthy and tasty. The rain kind of interrupted our lunch… so we ate really fast and got on our way.

We slipped and slided our way to our first stop which was actually a women’s convent tucked into the woods. It was a really nice convent; you could hear the choir practicing in the church. At dinner, they prepared a huge feast for us to enjoy… however, John wasn’t feeling well. He was pretty sick and didn’t eat too much for dinner. We think it was maybe from all the fruit at lunch (he ate a lot of plums). He was fine the next day but he was in pretty rough shape this evening.

Everyone was too tired to really do anything tonight so we all just went to bed after dinner to prepare for the next day of hiking.

Ok, sorry for keeping y’all waiting… Internet access is not as easy to find here as it is at home.

So… December 2nd was day 7 of our African Adventure. Today, we made our way to Lushoto, a town in the Usumbara Mountains. The thing I like about this tour is that we get a semi-real feel of the country because we use public transport to some of the places and some of the places are more remote than a lot of the touristy destinations that we go to.

Today was one of those “real deal” days… we took a public bus to Lushoto from Arusha. This bus was bigger than the one that we took to Arusha, it was actually a coach bus but it definitely wasn’t more comfortable. John and I had the front row, and I was in the aisle. Now normally, this wouldn’t be bad because coach busses generally don’t make a lot of stops but this coach bus stopped many times picking up people off the side of the street everywhere! So, as all the seats filled up, the aisle started to get fuller and fuller… Oh, busses here also have an enterage (sp?) of people who collect money, count people, or just sit and look cool so this bus had an enterage of about 4 people who sat in the space by the door of the bus. Now, being in the front row was not so comfortable… the enterage blocks the whole view in front of us… and being in the aisle of the front row is even worse. I pretty much spent the whole ride with either someone’s ass or crotch in my face… and these asses and crotches needed to be showered… shudder… I like my space but I guess when the population is as dense as it is here, that becomes a luxury.

Finally, we reached Lushoto. At first glance, it looked like a dusty, semi-run down, small town… well, at any glance, that what it looks like. The roads are not paved, some of the shops still have tin roofs, there are people sitting doing nothing around the shops… I love these little towns. Our hostel was actually reallly nice and there was an internet place nearby (this is where I made the previous posts). The afternoon was spent relaxing and packing for our 4 day trek through the Usumbara Mountains.

Day 6… geez, it doesn’t even feel like that long. Today we went to Ngorogoro Crater. Oh my oh my… today was exciting.

We left for the crater at 6am… the drive was incredible… I will be putting up a post about driving around Africa later. As we entered the park, we had a view from the top of the crater… I can’t really describe the view other than saying it was spectacular! There were a couple small clear lakes visible from the top… and just amazing greenery… but who am I kidding, we were here to see the animals!

Actually before we went to see the animals, we went to a Maasai village… well, it wasn’t really a authentic Maasai village but the houses in it and the people in it were really Maasai.. they just rotate which families get to live in this village to show the tourists what Maasai life is like. We got to see them dance and everything… it was awesome. However, we did get conned into buying a little something… oh well.

Anyway, the ride around the park was…. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! That’s how I remember it… it was super intense… it had been raining so everything was really slippery and some of the roads had turned into small lakes. Either way, our driver… somewhat crazy… drove us through this park… at one point, he got OUT of the vehicle to walk through a lake sized puddle to make sure it wasn’t too deep… it was only up to his knees so it was ok… he drove through it while we sat in the back screaming with the other 2 american girls. I think the driver thought we were having a blast so he drove a little like a maniac! There were a few times when I thought we were going to get stuck and then eaten by lions over night or something….

Speaking of lions… we did see lions! We actually got reallllly close to them… like a meter away. It was incredible! They are magnificent animals. We took like a million pictures of them. I would bring you through a play by play of the safari but I think it’s really boring from a reading point of view so I’ll just tell you what else we saw… We saw:
Spotted Hyenas, Baboons, Warthogs, Water Buffalo, Jackals, Ostriches, Many different birds, Hippos, An Elephant, Wildabeasts, gazelles, Rhinos, and… I dunno… we saw a lot! We had a picnic in the park halfway too… and John got dive bombed by an eagle… haha. Damnit, these posts sound so dry to me… I wish I could just bring you all here to join me. Siiigh…

God, there’s so much I want to write and show! Thanks for keeping in touch, everyone… and I hope these posts weren’t too dry.

It was still rainy and miserable this morning… minding, we did wake up at 4 am to make our way to Arusha. We took our van to Nairobi and grabbed breakfast before jumping on a public shuttle for Arusha. Wow, public transportation in Kenya… I’m never complaining about Edmonton public transit again… ever. haha, the shuttle was actually ok… I guess I just kind of had a shitty seat. It was actually a fold down little chair that went in the aisle… hehe. and it was like a foot shorter than all the other seats so I might as well have been sitting in the aisle on the ground.

The journey was long too… and I almost peed my pants… haha. If we hadn’t had to stop at the border between Kenya and Tanzania, I would have definitely peed all over myself. Annnnyway, after we crossed the border, there was on interesting surprise… the rain had like washed out the main road between Nairobi and Arusha… but it looks like that was a common occurence because bus drivers, vans, semis… had all detoured over a little bit…

Seeing as I was a foot lower than everyone, I didn’t see it right away… but seeing that John’s eyes were as wide as toonies, I knew something was up ahead. That something was a small river with 2 or 3 tour vans already stuck in it, tourists with their pants rolled up walking across the river, and people trying to help the vehicles out! And yes, we were heading right towards it! God, it was scary… I held on to… well, I was in the aisle, there was nothing to hold on to! Luckily, our driver was the MAN and we were able to drive across this river… and it only took a couple years off my life. It’s funny when you get a whole bus load of people cheering for the driver though… haha.

A few bumpy hours later, we pulled into Arusha. We are staying at a small hotel here that is decent… and at least we know we’ll be dry. We basically just threw down our stuff and then headed to the snake park. I guess John isn’t the biggest fan of snakes but he was a good sport and held the snake too. It was just a little brown snake thingy… not dangerous… so don’t expect any pictures of us holding pythons or anything like that. The snake park was actually kind of cool… I mean, it’s not all that different than the aligator park in florida that my mom took me to but this is Africa… they had a poisonous one in the tree that wasn’t even in a cage! After some pics of us holding the small snake we headed back to Arusha.

The next thing we saw was a bonus because it’s not something that every tour group could go see. Our tour guide, Alphonce, is actually part of a production group called GrandMaster Records and he offered to show us his setup. Now, in North America, everything is over-the-top, bling-bling, and what not… here, they had a recording studio, video production room, and even an area to film music videos in this compound. Now, at first site, the brick walls, dirt paths, cement platform, etc. fit right in with the area around it… Arusha isn’t huge… when he showed us the finished product of some of the stuff they’ve done, if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it was produced there . Even in the farthest reaches of Africa, the combined creative juices of a few brothers have made a modern music production company. It was really neat to see how it’s done differently here but the end product is pretty much the same. I guess music is truely universal. I really like seeing these non-tourist things and just seeing how people are really not that different all over the world.

It rained again last night and again this morning but the tents held up… kind of… the Americans’ tents were wet and there was a tiny leak in mine but not too bad… hopefully it doesn’t rain tooo much more.

Anyway, today, we took a boat ride in the lake next to our campsite. This was a sketchy boat… hehe… but they gave us life jackets so its all good… I must look like a little kid or something because I got a little kids jacket that I couldn’t even zip up. Oh well, I figure if I fell in, the hippos would get me before I drowned. Yes, we saw hippos today!!! Apparently they are very dangerous so we couldn’t go too close. We saw a couple groups of hippos throughout our ride to the other side of the lake but they didn’t do anything really exciting. They actually just kind of hid when we got close.

The other side was a small conservation park… we were allowed to walk in here so I’m guessing there wasn’t anything too dangerous in there. On this walk, we got pretty close to some giraffe, zebras, gazelles… the usual friendly animals. I guess it was actually kind of uneventful… towards the end of the walk, we came to a little salt lake where there were tonnes of flamingos… from a distance, it was beautiful! But when we got closer to walk around it, there were so many dead flamingos everywhere, it was kind of gross… I guess a lot die due to pollution and eagles so its like a little graveyard down there.

We got back to the campsite early afternoon, grabbed lunch and then we were off to Elsamere conservation center. This is were Joy Adamson’s home was. If you don’t know who Joy Adamson is, look her up… her story is actually a very interesting and the conservation park was in such a beautiful setting…. man… these blog entries sound so dry but I really can’t put it into words… sorry.

Due to the rain and rain and more rain, our tents did not hold up well… John’s and the Americans were ok but the woman from the UK ended up going to a dorm and me and Alphonce camped out in the van (Kent, remember camping in my car in Alaska? hehe… good times)… so yeah, the night of day 4 was spent in the van.

We woke up pretty early to pack up the tents today… Alphonce had to take refugee status in our tent last night because his was so wet. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then were off to Naivasha.

The drive was pretty long and it was just after lunch when we got to our next campsite right next to lake Naivasha (There are hippos in this lake!). The campsite was huge and beautiful… lakeside view and everything! Unfortunately, a pole snapped on our tent so it was out of commission… so John moved to a little pup tent while I took refuge in one of the other traveler’s tents.

It took us a while to get everything set up and then it was time to go for our bike ride! We rented some pretty sketchy mountain bikes but they got the job done. Jay, it’s a good thing we did all that biking because I was actually able to ride the whole 20 kms! It was amazing though… quietly pedalling through the park coming literally just meters from giraffes, zebras, warthogs, birds, gazelles, etc…. During our bike ride, we stopped in hell’s gate where natural hotsprings flow into the gorge… so it’s really hot and steamy down there.

Of course, we climbed like 20-30 meters into this gorge… and it wasn’t an easy feat. We literally had to like cross small streams while holding ourselves up on rocks and what not… it was pretty damn sweeeeeeet. Near the end of the gorge section, we climbed up to the top of the gorge to check out the view… and wow, what a view. Again, words cannot describe the view… even pictures will not do it justice. Just being up there was amazing!!! Siiiigh. John and I took like a million pictures and then climbed back to our bikes to ride out of the park.

Apparently we had to be out of the park by 6pm and it was already getting pretty late so we actually biked pretty fast back to the gate. I can’t believe that John and I were not more tired than we we were! Anyway, this probably doesn’t sound exciting at all to you but yeah, it was.

Hey Everyone,

We are in Arusha now… I don’t have enough time to do a full post… I have seen and done SOOOO much, we rode mountain bikes through a park and were literally only meters away from zebras, giraffe, etc… it’s the most amazing thing… and the views from the top of hills is absolutely amazing.

Today, we completed the big five… we have now seen Lions, A Leopard, Water Buffalo, An Elephant, and Rhinos… I think that’s the big five. Today’s safari was INTENSE. I can’t do it justice in this post so next chance I get, I will do an indepth one of the past days. I’ve been keeping track in my journal… it’s so exhilarating!!

Tomorrow we are heading to Loshoto to start a 4 day mountain trek. This is soooo amazing. Next post… I promise. You will hear about our visit to the Maasai village and all! Check back in a couple days!

Woooooooo..

Well, like I said, it rained last night but I might not have mentioned that we are camping right next to Nakuru National Park! Yeah, we are not that far from the wildlife… hehe, but it’s in a safe area. Our tent withstood the rain so all is good.
Wow, today…. just wow. We went on a game drive this morning in the park… and we saw soooo many things:
Gazelles (sp?), impala, cape (some sort of buffalo), baboons, black and white clobus monkeys, flamingos (there’s over a million in Lake Nakuru), zebras, … god… there’s too many to name… I’ll just name the one’s that everyone is thinking of right now… hehe… we DID get a chance to see:
Giraffes, Lions, Rhinos, and even a Leopard!! Going on a drive through the park is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done… man, I can’t even put it into words how exciting it was to see these animals. It’s surreal. So far I am LOVING Africa… It’s too much for words… you should really just come here and see it for yourselves.
We went back to camp for lunch where our wicked chef prepared us an absolutely delicious spagetti lunch… Mmmmm… we are in the town of Nakuru right now… I need to get more film.. hehe. I won’t be able to put pics up for a while… and a lot of them are on film since I brought my super zoom lens to get right up and personal with the animals. I can’t wait to be able to share the pics.
I hope I will get to post again soon because everyday is sooooooooo incredible!

Day 1 took us to Nakuru. We got off to an early start from the hotel and were in Nakuru by noon. We grabbed a quick lunch and took a nice stroll around the town of Nakuru. It was Sunday so many things were closed. It is a cute little town… people love to say helllo to us tourists.
We went to Nakuru Crater after our walk. The children along the way are adorable! haha… They love waving and trying to grab onto the back of the van. We went up an extremely bumpy road (actually many of the roads here in Kenya are extremely bumpy) and at the top… well, at the top is one of the reasons we came to Africa! It was the most amazing veiw I’ve ever seen… vast areas of undeveloped land… just beautiful scenery with mountains in the background and lush green everywhere else. Simply breath-taking!!! I still get goose bumps just picturing it again.. and to think, this was only day 1!!
It rained at night quite a bit but that’s ok… we’re in frickin’ Kenya!!

Well, John and I said our goodbyes to Cairo and our new found frends who showed us such egyptian hospitality. It was almost like saying goobye to old friends… bit it was time to move along.
The flight was smooth other than the fact that the “vegetarian” lasagna was made with ground beef… I took a bit without knowing it was beef… adn that bit ended up being barfed out later.. yuck. MMMMM…
When then plane landed, John and I were oddly silent as we got off the plane and made our way to the border control… funnily, we were both uncontrollably smiling ear to ear and we both knew why… we were in Kenya! As we walked past posters of elephants, giraffes, etc, our smiles took over our faces… we were both soooo excited for this safari!
We met with our guide, Alphonce, at the hotel and John, me, and 3 other travellers were debriefed about what we could expect for the next 15 days. Man, a 15 day safari… Woooo!