I spent the rest of last week tying up all the loose ends with the field work, and had many more interviews with various people. There was one particular woman who has benefited enormously from the HIV impact mitigation scheme that I told you about last time, and so many people had mentioned her to me, that we arranged to meet her. She has been living with HIV for ten years, and has lost her husband and many other family members in this time. She was lovely, and extremely open about her experiences and her gratitude to Vetaid and the programme for helping her - her small business has done so well that she now provides maize to the majority of her community! I also went to speak to a few people at Pingos Forum - an organization that stands for the rights of indigenous people - about the wildlife-human conflict that is currently a major problem in the Loliondo area near the Ngorongoro Crater. One of the lawyers working for them explained the current situation to me, I was shocked to learn that a group of tourists can be harmlessly photographing an animal, and a hunter can shoot it dead; and walking safaris may cross areas covered in live land mines - it's just such an unbelievable situation.
After an extremely busy day, Paul and I spent the evening in the office, finishing up the audio, chatting and creating various podcasts. Hamidu left at the end of the working day, so it was down to Paul to drive us around in the Vetaid 4x4. He has not driven a manual before, and it was quite a terrifying experience driving round Arusha - where the driving is pretty shocking at the best of times, with Paul struggling to start and stop the car at the appropriate moments! Eventually though, the work was done, and I was able to start getting ready for my safari tour.
I was picked up from my hotel at 7am the following morning by Mike. The funny thing was, I had booked my safari tour with a completely different tour company, and had actually decided not to go with a tour that Mike quoted me for, as it seemed like a bit of a dodgy company when I was dragged to the office by numerous 'fly catcher' touts on the street. Anyway - this is the way with the safari tour companies in Arusha, and we were soon to find out that it is a very incestuous market. I went to meet Thijmen, the Dutch guy, and Amanda, an American girl, and we were all transferred -at great speed - to the camp site near Lake Manyara to meet Cecilie and Lasse, the Danish couple. We joined them for a very impressive breakfast of pancakes, fruit, eggs, sausages and toast, prepared by Paul, the chef, and then were introduced to Hugo, our driver guide. After breakfast, we set out in the safari jeep to Lake Manyara. The five of us got on immediately, and all later admitted that we were very relieved not to have ended up with any old couples or strange people - we were all young and on a similar wavelength, and having such a great group really made the trip.
Our first park was Lake Manyara national park, which is famed for its hoards of pink flamingoes and its tree climbing lions. As we entered the park, we removed the roof from the vehicle and all stood up on the jeep's seats, looking out of the top. It is an amazing feeling, just speeding along, looking at the scenery, keeping an eye out for wildlife with the wind in your face! Unfortunately, it didn't last for long, as the heavens opened, and we had to close the roof very quickly to avoid soaking the entire car. It rained on and off for most of the morning, by the end of which we had all perfected the art of opening and closing the roof in record time!
We stopped by hippo pools, where we had been told you can often see the hippo's eyes and ears, but not much more. Luckily though, the rain had done us a favour, and there were about 40 hippos lounging about on the banks of the pool enjoying the weather. It was incredible to see them, especially so many of them in the wild, and we stood there for ages, watching them, and waiting for them to yawn! Not long afterwards, the sun came out, and the rest of the day was blisteringly hot. We drove around the national park trying to spot the elusive lions, but unfortunately, the closest we came was a very exciting sighting of a leopard up a tree...that turned out to be nothing more than a monkey. The scenery was beautiful, with surprisingly diverse landscapes for such a small park - we drove through forests, and plains, swamps and savannah. The animals were few and far between, but it made it all the more exciting trying to spot them! We watched a huge troop of baboons for a very long time, they were all fighting and playing and are really fun to watch, and saw gazelles, and elephants and giraffes - and thousands of small white butterflies, all fluttering in one direction across the tracks - the great butterfly migration!
Although we didn't see a huge number of animals, it was a great day; we all had fun getting to know one another, and got into the swing of the game drive. We headed back to the camp site at about 6pm, and spent the whole evening just sat under the permanent shelter chatting; discussing our different countries and putting the world to rights. We had an early start the next day, so we retired to our tents at about 9 o clock, and settled in for a long night of howling dogs, roosters with no concept of time, and snoring from my tent mate!
We woke up to more rain the next morning, and after another fantastic breakfast, we packed up the car, (with all of our backpacks, tents, food, cooking equipment and about 197 bottles of water on the roof) and headed off towards the famous Serengeti. It was a long drive, but we passed by the rim of the Ngorongoro crater on the way. It is absolutely stunning - I can't even describe how beautiful it is, and the photos certainly don't do it justice. The whole floor of the crater is green, with a huge lake in the centre, and streams running off it, and even from 800 meters up, we could see hundreds and hundreds of animals. After stopping to take in the view, we continued the rest of the way to the Serengeti. The green of the Ngorongoro area gradually gave way to the famous sandy plains, and soon, the only plants around were scrubby bushes. Even before we reached the park gate, we saw a huge herd of giraffes, and so many wildebeest, zebras and gazelles. Not long after entering the park, we came across a very large herd of zebras, grazing by the road. There was another safari jeep watching them, and a brief conversation between the guides informed us that there were two lions hunting in the grasses. We couldn't see a thing, but very excitedly all jumped up onto the roof to try and spot them. Eventually we did; two lionesses, stalking silently towards the zebras. It was amazing to watch them sneaking up on their prey, and the two of them working together. Unfortunately, a pair of selfish tourists (who were to annoy us many times over the next few days with their thoughtlessness) decided to go offroad with their vehicle, and sped up to right where the lions were. Of course the lions sat up out of the grass, ready to run off, the zebras noticed the lions, and the hunt was off. We were all pretty irritated, as it would have been a once in a lifetime chance to see a kill, but it was still great to have seen them hunting. In all the excitement, we hadn't really looked around us, but when we did, we were delighted to find three lion cubs peering out from the top of a very high 'pride rock' style outcropping. They were obviously watching their mums hunting, and they were sooooo cute! I was very excited to have seen my first lions, and as we went on our way, we all keenly kept an eye out for more - getting very excited by rhino, lion and cheetah shaped termite mounds along the way. After about two hours of driving through the park, we arrived at our campsite. I say camp site - it was basically an area demarcated by some small stones (which we soon found out were our only protection from the wild animals !!) and a large sheltered kitchen area. The toilet block was a 5 minute walk away in the bush - and we went there once in a big group before deciding that it was far too dangerous. Reassuringly, the huge buffaloes that were lounging about under the trees nearby, were too hot to consider rampaging the campsite, but it was unnerving to be dependent purely on the good nature of these characteristically aggressive animals.
We dumped all the stuff off the roof, and headed straight out on a game drive. It was bizarre to think that we were in the world famous Serengeti - but it really lives up to its reputation - it's so beautiful, and there are animals absolutely everywhere. The plains just stretch as far as the eye can see, dotted with acacia trees, and various elephants, giraffes and hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebras. We are just about at the tail end of the migration, and I can't even imagine how many animals there are at the peak of it, because even now, we were left speechless by the sheer numbers of wildebeest and zebras. After about half an hour, spotting giraffes right next to the car, huge elephants in the track (that was a little scary) warthog families, ostriches, secretary birds, crested cranes and hippos a plenty, we had our first real excitement of the drive. We approached a pair of Acacia trees just next to the road, and underneath one of them were two large lionesses, sunning themselves. On a nearby grassy mound were two more; another female, and a cub - but a large cub. We were about ten feet from them! We stopped and took hundreds of photos, and watched them lazing about, swatting flies, and keeping an eye on us, and then, the cub from under the tree got bored. It went up to the pair of lionesses nearest the car, trying to get some attention, but when it was shunned by them both, it turned to the next best thing for a game....us! She was only a cub, but she was a big cub, and as she approached the car, intent on getting a playmate, we all got a little nervous. We had the roof wide open, and even a small lion could easily jump up onto the car. She came right up to the car, and then started chewing it, and sharpening her claws on the spare tyre at the back. My heart was pounding - it was incredible to have a wild lion so close, but also pretty terrifying. All of us girls cowered down a bit, whilst still trying to see what she was doing, hearts pounding; Amanda was the most terrified; demanding that we drive off immediately, and closing her window, but all the while, Hugo was just laughing at us! Eventually, after circling the car, and looking in every window, she decided that none of us were worthy playmates and went back to her mum. We were all on a massive high as we drove off, laughing and breathing rather large sighs of relief, wondering what on earth could beat that! But within five minutes, we came upon a sausage tree - a large wide tree, with huge sausage like fruits hanging down from it. But the 'sausages' weren't the only meat on display at this tree - there was a gazelle carcass hanging down from one of the low branches. We couldn't believe our luck when, as we looked closer, we spotted a beautiful leopard stretched out in the branch above it. The tree was right next to the road, and the leopard was in clear view. As we watched, I spotted a movement in the fork of the tree. It looked like a monkey at first, but this time the missighting was an exciting one....we had found a tiny leopard cub! It went down to grab a bit of the meat from the carcass, and then climbed high up into the trees, jumping from branch to branch. Apparently leopards are the hardest spot of the big 5, and to see a cub is almost unheard of, so we were extremely happy with ourselves! After spending a very long time watching the two of them, we headed off, across the plains into the most colourful sunset I have ever seen. There wasn't much that could top the two big cat sightings, but we still kept our eyes peeled for rhinos to complete our big 5 for the day! More than satisfied with just our big 4, we headed back to camp, where Paul had put up our tents, and had dinner waiting for us. After dinner, we all decided to get a very early night, and crept about the campsite nervously in the dark - listening out for hyenas, or lions that may try to grab us on our way to the tents. Hugo didn't do a very good job of reassuring us. When we asked him if it was safe to camp with no fence, he told us, in all seriousness, that hyenas and elephants often pass through the camp, and sometimes the lions will come and tear through the tents - yeah...thanks!
We had a sleepless night, frequently interrupted by whispers from me and Amanda of " What was that?....Someone snoring....Are you sure?"..... and "Did you hear that?....Yeah....I think something's outside our tent". We heard lions roaring in the distance, and definitely something breathing next to our tent, but we'd been told to just stay still and silent if we heard anything, and not to try and frighten it away. The next morning, Hugo told us that there'd been a pack of hyenas on the camp - pretty scary!
We set off for our sunrise gamedrive at 6am, but the sunrise itself was about the best part of it. We drove for 6 hours, but the rains had been so heavy in the night, that the plains were flooded, and for hours, we didn't see a single animal. Despite being in a 4x4, Hugo was extremely cautious about driving through any wet ground, and we really had to coerce him! It was a very disappointing few hours, though we did see some rock hyraxes. After watching them for about five minutes, Lasse asked, with disgust - "are they rats?" !! On the way back to camp, we did see some lions, but nothing could top the lions from the day before. However, just before we got back, we were stopped in our tracks by thousands of wildebeest, all running. That was pretty amazing to watch, and made our game drive! We had only come across a few other vehicles on the whole drive, and everyone out here is surprisingly unfriendly. We always smiled and waved at people, but were lucky if we even got acknowledged. It's really strange - you'd think that when you're sharing an experience like finally coming across a leopard that you've all been searching for for days, that there might be a sense of camaraderie, but no, nothing from these people!
We headed back to the campsite, for a fantastic (if a little unusual) brunch of chips, sausage stew, pancakes, fruit, toast and eggs, and then packed up the vehicle to head to the Ngorongoro. It was about 3 hour's drive, and the campsite was right on the rim of the crater, at 3000 metres above sea level, so we had a fair height to climb. We arrived at the camp site, and this time put up our own tents. We selected a nice flat spot, but Hugo advised against it, as "the elephants often come to scratch against that tree". It's just insane - I really don't know how we survived our camping experiences with so many threats from the local wildlife! Once we were all set up, we lounged about outside the tents for a bit, chatting, and Amanda went for a shower. The next thing we knew, a German guy ran up to his tent, next to ours, speaking excitedly in German. I don't speak a work of German, but I recognized two words - 'toilet' and 'elephant'! It sounded like there was an elephant in the toilet! We all grabbed our cameras, and went to investigate. It didn't take much investigating - there, right next to our jeep was a huge female elephant, drinking from the water tank. Everyone gathered round - at a safe distance watching her drinking, whilst eyeing us suspiciously. There was a small Maasai puppy around the camp site, and he...bravely but stupidly went up to the elephant, barking his little head off. This aggravated the already nervous elephant, and at the moment that she started to charge forwards towards the dog, Thijmen and I were stood right in front of her. We were both filming, and the language that you can hear on the video as we darted behind the landrover for cover, is not pretty!! Even crouched behind the landrover we weren't safe. Certain people were (thoughtlessly!) screaming loudly, which only served to aggravate the elephant more, and she stamped and swayed restlessly. The puppy carried on barking, and the elephant charged again - this time she only took a couple of steps forward, but I didn't wait to see how far she was going to go, and flung myself into the kitchen, where all the chefs were laughing at us, from the safety of their cement hutt! Eventually she calmed down, and wandered slowly back into the forest. Thijmen and I were both pretty much clinging to each other by this point, hearts pounding and hands shaking, but also pretty hysterical from the experience! The whole thing was over in less than ten minutes, and Amanda emerged from the shower block, oblivious. We showed her the films we'd taken, and she couldn't believe what had happened in the short time that she'd been gone!
Once everyone had calmed down, and we'd stopped shaking, we went for dinner. It was our last night, so we all had a beer or two, and sat around for the night, in hysterics playing games and chatting. I can't believe how lucky we got with our group - we had such great banter, and spent the majority of the trip laughing, joking, singing and playing games! We went to bed, with a warning from Hugo to remove any food from our tents, as the wild pigs will come and get it! We heard elephants nearby in the night, but I slept surprisingly well, despite the seemingly real risk of being trampled in the night!
We woke from our last night in tents, happy to be alive, sad that the trip was nearly over, and excited about our Ngorongoro game drive, and the possibility of completing our big 5! After breakfast, we set out on the crater descent, down through the clouds. It is a surprisingly steep and bumpy road, and it was quite exciting to be hanging out of the roof, while descending at such an angle! The crater itself is absolutely beautiful; the sun was shining brightly, reflecting off the huge crater lake in the centre, and the green crater floor was dotted with trees and animals. We could even see the pink haze on the edge of the lake from the thousands of flamingos. Eventually, we 'landed' on the crater floor, and were instantly in awe of the huge numbers of zebras, wildebeest, buffalo and birds. Because it is so flat, and there are very few trees or obstacles, you can see for miles around, watching the animals. We peered closely at every lonely looking dot in case it was a rhino, and before to long, I was very excited to spot a dot with a horn! We had completed our big 5! It was a long way off, but we stopped to watch it grazing for a while. We drove around the crater for about 6 hours, and in total we spotted 5 rhinos, and a baby rhino! Apparently this is an extremely lucky morning's drive in the crater, as some people stay for days looking for even one rhino! We were also surrounded by a pack of large hyenas at one point, and then watched them stalking some gazelles. They very rarely hunt, as they are scavengers by nature, but they looked very much to be closing in on one lone gazelle. We spotted a few distant lions, hippos and elephants, and at one point, got out of the jeep for photos by a large lake full of bellowing hippos. It seemed like a silly thing to do when hippos are the mammal that kill the most humans each year, but, as with the rest of our trip, we just had to put faith in our guide that he wouldn't risk our lives! It was a fantastic game drive, and we were sad when the time came to climb back up to the crater rim. The ascent was scarier than the descent had been, as the landrover seemed to struggle with the steepness, and there was nothing between us and the long fall to the crater floor.
We spent the rest of the day packing up camp, and driving back to Arusha. We all had very welcome showers (we all stayed in the same hotel which was nice) and then went for dinner to celebrate our survival. Cecilie and Lasse were heading to Nairobi the next day, so I arranged to meet them there, and then we all went to bed.
The next day, I joined Amanda and Thijmen for breakfast, and we went for a wander round the markets in Arusha. We went to a Masai market, but it was early, and we were the only customers, so got more hassle than usual and it became quite an unpleasant experience. We were looking for T-shirts, and the word got out, and we were dragged into many 'T-shirt' shops that appeared to have run out of T-shirts, and only had artwork and carvings left!
I then had to say sad goodbyes to Amanda and Thijemn, and head off for my flight back to Nairobi, in the 5 seater winged hairdryer. Unfortunately there were huge traffic jams in Arusha, and it took us nearly an hour to get out of the city - the result of which was me arriving at the airport ten mintues before take off. It was rather a stressful couple of hours, but if there's one thing you can depend on in Africa, it's that nothing runs on time, and so, somewhat predictably, my flight was equally delayed and no one batted an eyelid at my late arrival. Despite this time knowing what to expect, I was still surprised when the pilot turned round to offer me a mint as I boarded. I was picked up by Alex and George from Vetaid, and they were amazed when I told them I wanted to get the night bus to Mombasa that night - I have so little time left, I want to make the most of it! I went to the bus office to get a ticket, which took hours of standing in the heat, being pushed in front of by many Africans wanting bus tickets - they just don't know how to queue here!!!
I went back to the YMCA to organize myself a bit, and to meet Cecilie and Lasse, and then we went for dinner at the famous Carnivore restaurant. There is just one option there; the all you can eat meat buffet. They are famed for their exotic game meats, like zebra, gazelle and python; but recent changes to Kenyan Law prohibit eating many of them now. As you walk in, there is a huge fiery pit, with various joints of meat on skewers, roasting away. They bring you a tray of sauces, and a potato, and then for the rest of the night bring unlimited rounds of various different meats, carved on to your plate, until you can't manage any more! It was really fun, and the best meat I've tasted in Africa...with the exception of the crocodile kebab, there wasn't a chewy meat to be found.
After eating (more than) my fill of meat, I had to go to catch my bus. The bus was full, and hot and it certainly wasn't the comfortable night's sleep that they promised! I arrived, exhausted in Mombasa at 6 am, and got a tuktuk to the hotel where Madeleine and Matilda, the Swedish girls from Nairobi, were staying. It is extremely hot and sweaty here, but our hotel is fantastic - there is a swimming pool and a very nice restaurant. I'm here now, and we are going to the beach later.
I am very near the end of my trip now, so am trying to cram as much into my days as possible, hence the extremely long blog post! I will try to post again before I leave on Sunday, but internet is considerably harder to come by in Kenya than in Tanzania!
No comments:
Post a Comment