A blog of our trip to Tanzania in Dec 2010 and Jan 2011.

Our trip to Tanzania had its antecedents already several years ago. I have been interested in this part of the world for a long time and, as a hobby paleoanthropologist, have always wanted to take a trip to the rift valley and see the area known as the “cradle of mankind”. Also, Kilimanjaro has always […]

On Christmas Day, we got up at 04:00 to catch the taxi at 04:45. Nobody was too happy about having to get up at such an ungodly hour; and the entire family of travelers looked appropriately grim upon our arrival at Vienna International airport. We dropped off our bags and were happy that we had printed […]

During the winter, there is a two-hour time difference between Tanzania and Central Europe, which shrinks to one hour during the summer period. We agreed to meet Ray at 09:00 the next morning and proved we were adaptable by immediately shifting to African time and showing up fifteen minutes late. Our itinerary had us scheduled to […]

Ray asked us to meet him at 08:00 the next morning, because we had a full and busy day ahead of us and some unpredictable traffic to face. We started heading west and passed through the southern part of Arusha city, which upon first glance looked like a collection of low-slung stores, shops and buildings interspersed […]

We got up at 08:00 and had a rather pitiful breakfast in the restaurant: as we were late, there was not much on offer; and I had to ask our favorite waiter, Expedito, to bring us some bananas to round out the meager fare. We then checked out and proceeded to put together our box lunch […]

When we awoke this morning, the sun was just rising; and the temperature both in and outside the tent was decidedly chilly (around 13C or 58F). I poked my head out of the tent to see whether any wildlife was still milling around the campground and snapped a lovely sunrise picture, then retreated to the […]

Again, it was cold in the morning; and I was shivering as I waited for the hot water to be delivered and hoisted in the plastic bag that fed the shower. The sky was clear as we exited the tent and watched the sun rise over the Nogorongoro Conservation Area and the Ndutu Region. Unfortunately, […]

The birds woke me up again at sunrise. This was an ever-recurring phenomenon; and I have conjectured that, if I were ever to live in this part of Africa, I would morph into a morning person – something that I have never been before (except when jet-lagged). It gets dark at around 07:00 in the evening […]

We left the Mapito Tented Camp and drove toward the central Serengeti, where we would have to change cars with the Access2Tanzania team, as our Toyota Land Cruiser had incurred a busted drive shaft, which Ray had taken out the evening before. The damage did not completely cripple the vehicle, but had effectively rendered it […]

Since the hotel was so large, they had a special section of the grounds for the tour guides, so Ray was not in the hotel with us, nor was he allowed to have meals with us, which definitely subtracted from our experience. He met us at the hotel entrance at 08:00 for our descent to the […]

We left the crater rim on a beautiful, clear day and wound our way down to Karatu and back toward Arusha and the Arumeru Lodge. We stopped at the look-out point near Lake Manyara and were immediately ambushed by a trio of trinket-sellers waving chintzy necklaces in our faces. The price elasticity during our brief […]

On our last day in Tanzania, we agreed to meet Ray at 09:00 and drive into Arusha for some sightseeing. Arusha is a town of about 1.3M inhabitants, but does not appear that large upon first sight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arusha). The center is not imposing or impressive and consists primarily of hotels, restaurants, a few government buildings and the […]