Thoughts on safaris

   I’ve been on three safaris now, two tent and one luxury tent. Here are the pluses and minuses as I see them.

  If you can afford it, a lodge safari is the most comfortable. The food would be very good and the facilities are great and you stay in the park. A disadvantage is that they cost 5X a tenting safari. If you choose this option, make sure you will be in a car with no more than 4 people. If there is a lion on the left side, 6 people have to take turns watching. Very frustrating!

  Luxury tented camping is twice as expensive as tented camping but you get to sleep in mostly spacious places, eat six course meals and have hot showers The major disadvantage as I see it is that the camps are OUTSIDE the park so you have one to two extra hours of driving over bad, washboard roads. It’s very tiring!

  Tent camping is the cheapest and I’ve been told the restrooms are now much better. (They were horrible when I was there nine years ago) Some camp sites are not secure at night so you have to stay in your tent at night. NO peeing!

  If you can afford it , go lodge but ask for small 4X4’s. If you want cheap but not the cheapest, investigate several tenting companies. Some have bigger tents, a washing tent and better food. As always, you often get what you pay for.    My animal magnetism still works a little, I guess

Tanzania Safari Day 2

This is WAY out of order but deal with it! There are two glaciers in Tanzania, one on top of Kili and one controlling the Internet!    We left the lodge and went on another game drive where we saw many more elephants and Africa’s largest eagle. We ate lunch at the lodge, packed, and left for our lodge nearer the Serengeti. we stopped at a Maasai compound where for $25 each, we could enter the village life. OOPS, the pictures were on the previous blog, It’s a small village with only an extended family. (The chief and his 10 wives) They all greeted us and gave a welcoming dance and song. Marcia joined and the wives really seemed to like her. I thought I could get a great deal on her, maybe 20 cows . That would teach her to sacrifice me to the lion. (Marcia’s rebuttal)  Chuck was quite interested in the idea of having more than one wife, until he learned that the chief had 56 children he had to provide for and that each wife had her own house! The chief’s son told us  that all the women got along, helped care for each other’s children and developed close friendships.  Lots of good girlfriend time!  They were very friendly to me.  I think I could get quite attached to them!  So, it appears that Chuck will have to  make do with one woman!

Then drove to our next camp which was in a coffee plantation on the mountainside. The road there was VERY bad and it took about 30 minutes to get there. The people and food were great as usual and the view from our porch was amazing.

Arusha Day Hike

  We didn’t want to just hang around in Arusha, so we got a private guide on the cheap ($60)) We would take a local bus to the foot of a dirt road, then we would walk a few minutes to a village. After 40 minutes of steady climbing and asking how far to the village? (only 10 mins), we rebelled and asked for motorbikes. Marcia sat on one while the guide and I set on another ( along with the driver) After another 5 mins of riding, we arrived at village. The ladies were very friendly and were bottling banana beer along with a couple of guys. I remember it as tasting VERY bad so we passed on it. After walking a few hundred yards more we said “EnoWe said enough walking!) and we took the motorcycles back to the main road. The minivan bus had it’s usual twenty people in it so everyone is close and personal.

   We got back in twenty minutes and I fought with the local Wi-Fi until I got disgusted and went to find another spot. I found one at a Gelati shop and had to buy something

Tanzania Safari day 7

    Day 7 was Lake Manyara, the park famous for lions resting in the trees. They were all on strike and no one saw any! Our guide offered to climb a tree and roar but we didn’t ask him to do that. We saw the same old elephants, baboons, giraffes, various birds and a few hippos. We have been here too long if we are seeing the “same old, same old”

    We ate lunch in the park, then drove three hours back to Arusha

Tanzania Day 6

  We left our cabin at the east end of the Serengeti (I just found out that “Serengeti” is Maasai for “bad roads”!) We drove for three hours, then entered Ngorongnoro (NG) crater. It is what’s left of an ancient volcano and there is a large variety of the animals we saw earlier, just more concentrated. There was a newborn gnu calf and nothing killed recently that we saw. There are 14 rhinos in the park and we were lucky to see three! After lunch at a beautiful lake, we drove on to our lodge at Lake Manyara. It is the nicest one we have been in yet  

The grounds are beautiful and safe to walk around at night.

Tanzania Day 5 Life and Death

It was a normal breakfast start of bacon, eggs, toast, juice and fruit then off to the Serengeti After driving back into the park (30 mins), we came upon a herd of Cape Buffalo with an hours old calf. It was wobbly but could walk.Mom had some of the afterbirth hanging out but seemed OK New babies are cute! A half hour later we came upon the body of a young giraffe that had been killed by a small pride of lions during the night. It was partially eaten and the lions were resting under the trees, guarding the kill while digesting their meal. Life and death!

   Afterward we saw baboons, vultures, a kingfisher, more hippos and a tortoise! Many animals fear the mongoose because it will  jujum jumps up and bites the scrotum of the antelopes and buffalo so they give it a LOT of respect!

   We moved from our little prison cell of a room to an enormous room with a great porch.

Tanzania Day 3 and 4

We drove out from our mountain retreat and drove out 30 minutes of bad road to the main road. The entrance to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro NP was PACKED with tourists and it took an hour for our driver to get the necessary permit and even the Park screwed up and he had to waste another hour or Day 4 to get the permit for Day 5! He was very philosophic about but you could see it bothered him in that he had previously filled out all paperwork by computer and had the permit OK’ed.

   We finally got to the Serengeti where over the last two days we have seen four cheetahs, many lions (some sleeping in trees), elephants, hippos, various gazelles, warthogs, birds and other small animals.

   The roads in the park are dirt and gravel so there is dust everywhere! Each night I cough up concrete and pick pebbles from my nose!

   The place we are staying now and for the next day is the smallest we have been in. It is barely 9 ft X 9ft and with two beds, there is only 12” between the beds. the view off the porch is great though with our own stork in a tree. The food is simple but good