TIME TO LEAVE PARADISE

WEATHER: Lucky it is still a little overcast 24C as we leave today

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting to sleep in till 8am

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Leaving paradise

BUYS OF THE DAY: Didn’t buy a single thing today

WORD OF THE DAY: It is awesome here

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Daithi - David

MOARI WORD OF THE DAY: Moana - Sea

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Back to the same campsite in Dar – just based on location it would be 5 out of 5 stars

Wakey wakey – it’s time to leave my massive canopy bed, our awesome room, beautiful beach and crystal blue waters.  At least I know that I will be seeing it all again next month – so I can take comfort in that.

We got up for the measly breakfast, our one egg scrambled and 2 pieces of toast and then we went for a last walk on the beach.  The shells on the beach we just beautiful, so we all decided to collect some, I was getting some for the god-daughters and Lisa was getting ones that had a hole in them, so she could thread them onto some string and make a present for Ben and the truck. 

We left the resort at 10.30am.  Jo and the crew are due in at the same resort tomorrow, so we have left them notes to be given to them when they arrive!  Geez we are good friends!  They are now on the last 3 nights of their trip, which is hard to comprehend as we still have over 30 days still to go, but I guess our time will eventually come as well, and I have to say this could be the hardest good-bye to date.  When you are nearly spending 17 hours a day with people, you make some awesome friendships and times that by 2 months, 60 days, 17 hours a day – I am really going to miss this crew.  You guys know who you are, Lisa, Jimbob, Sean and Dave.  It is a long time to be spending with people and I am so glad I have you guys to do it with. Awwwwwwwwwwwww

So after the hours’ drive back, we headed straight to the port, where we had a 12.30pm departure back to Dar es Salaam.  Em, Christina, Dave and I headed straight back up to the top deck and we were lucky enough to get a beanbag this time, so we made ourselves at home and enjoyed the 2 hour ride back to the mainland.  We were pretty much in the sun the whole way, so we made up for some lost sun time that we missed on Zanzibar.  The tan is coming along quite nicely; it is giving my Greek one a run for its money that is for sure.  My nose is copping a lot of it though, so I have been putting some sunscreen on it to try and look after it a little bit.

Once we got back to Dar, we caught taxis to transfer from one ferry terminal to the other, to get us back to our camp site for the night.  Even though we haven’t done much today, we have certainly done a lot of travelling, an hour’s drive in the coach, a ferry, another ferry, a taxi and lastly our truck to collect us from the other side.

Our tents were cleaned and moved while we were away, but I think this maybe the last time that our tents are going to be put up for us.  This group has had it so easy so far with tents and chores.  This portion of the trip isn’t as hard core as the last one, but totally different countries and different trips so it isn’t really fair to compare.

We are all off to bed early tonight as we have a MASSIVE, travel day tomorrow departing at 5am, so that is a 4.15am get up to have the tent and all of us on board by the departure time.  You know the earlier we leave the longer the day will be – it’s not a good sign.

I was able to get onto Wi-Fi at the camp site and I received a blow of bad news.  I found out that a family friend had passed away.  Aunty Gayle and her family were a massive part of my life when I was a kid growing up in Darwin.  They helped mum lot by looking after me when she had to work one of her 3 jobs.  They were the best days of my childhood, swimming in the pool 24-7, bouncing on the trampoline, playing marco polo; late night gossip sessions and Aunty Gayle coming in with a thong in her hand telling us to be quiet or we would cop a flogging!  After mum passing away, we were back in touch again with her and the 3 gals.  So my thoughts are with the Caire family in their time of sorrow and you are all in my thoughts at this time.  It is when things like this happen that I am still glad I have made the decision I have with my hiatus for 16 months.  Life is too short; live it to the fullest people, as you just never know what is around the corner.

SNORKELLING IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

WEATHER: Cloudy and a little cool

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The weather was shite

BUYS OF THE DAY: Getting my washing done for 8AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: We wish the weather was better

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Bad - boat

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Fish, fish, fish, water snake, fish, fish, fish, star fish

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same hotel still 5 out of 5 stars – even though it seems we don’t have hot water – small price to pay I think.

Even though we were back at the room just after 1am, Leese and I stayed up till just after 2am talking about what drunken people love to talk about sex, relationships and men.  The good thing is we even remembered the conversations we had this morning.  It was great to have a great drunken night, remember what happened and not be a burden on people – awesome…..

Breakfast was served between 7.30 and 10.30am.  We had booked a ½ day snorkeling tour that left at 8.30am, so we headed down at 8am for what hoped to be a great hangover feed.  We were a little disappointed when we got ‘an’ egg and 2 pieces of the crunchiest toast I have ever eaten, served with a bit of dodgy fruit, it was eaten, food is food and then we set off to the water to board our boat for the snorkeling.

I am not sure what I expected with what sort of boat we would be travelling on, but it literally was just a tinny with roof on it.  It was big enough for the 9 of us, but I guess I was sort of comparing it with the pirate ship in Greece.  So once we were all aboard, we had to motor to another resort to get fitted up for our snorkel gear and then we hit the sea for another hour to get us out to the atoll where we were to snorkel.  This is a pretty big deal for me; I am not an ocean swimmer AT ALL.  Sean said he would be my snorkel buddy if I needed one, so I popped on my fins and jumped into the water.  It was so cool and since I am not a snorkeler I was pretty impressed with what I saw, but for those that have done it before said it was a little boring.  I didn’t need Sean, which is really cool and I was able to swim all on my own some.  The coral wasn’t that great, but the fish were amazing and we saw all sorts of colours.  We even saw a sea snake, which freaked me out a little, but he was moving in the opposite direction.  I may have been the only one that had snorkel gear that worked; the rest had leaky masks or snorkels that didn’t work.  We were in the sea for around 90 minutes, when we noticed how far we had drifted from the boat, so we decided to start making our way back.  The current was quite strong but all of us except Killian made it back okay.  He got a cramp and had to be picked up by another boat and bought back to ours!  Too funny!!!  The island that we were swimming in front of we found out was private property, Sarah went to have a rest on the beach and this man with a stick came over and told her to back off.  Okay a little protective, but then another guy went to do the same thing and these 2 European guys came over and told him off, he gave some lip back and then the guy jumped on the phone.  Talk about over re-acting, but I guess if I owned an island I wouldn’t want people walking around on it either I suppose.

So after getting back on the boat and having a drink we decided to head back.  The weather was starting to close in and the sun was now gone.  Of all days for the weather to be shitty, just like we had in Ibiza and in San Sebastian, beach day’s equals bad weather.  Oh well, we are still in paradise, so I won’t complain too much.  It started to rain the last 10 minutes of the journey, with the waves really starting to roll, so we made the right decision in coming back when we did.  I am glad I went snorkeling; it was a massive achievement for me, as I really am paranoid of getting eaten by something in the ocean, so it was a big deal for me.  The fish were amazing and to have them swimming right near your face, so close you could touch them was pretty cool.

So with the weather all shitty, there really wasn’t that much to do except sit under the restaurant area where I blogged, people went for a sleep and also interneted.  It was nice to be able to do nothing, so bad weather or not, just to be off the truck and free time was amazing.

Dinner and drinks was pretty low key and we were tucked up and in bed by 11pm.  I guess it is always the way after a big night and the whole resort was a lot quieter as well.  Weird that a busy night was a Tuesday? 

It is sad that we have to leave tomorrow, but all good things must come to an end.  I have really enjoyed Zanzibar and it would be a place that I would come back to again definitely.  It really is paradise here and I am now getting excited for the Seychelles and Reunion Island next month based on what I have seen here!

HEADING TO THE SUN, SURF AND BOOZE

WEATHER: Warm and 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally getting to the beautiful beaches of Zanzibar

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Only getting 2 nights here

BUYS OF THE DAY: Beer for 1.80 for 500ml

WORD OF THE DAY: Asante Sana – Thank-you

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Spare - sky

CAMP SITE RANKING: Hotel for the next 2 nights, Wi-Fi, flushing toilets and ensuite showers has to be  

5 out of 5 stars

We got to have a sleep in this morning of 7am, that is massive for us and quite surprising we slept right through to the alarm this morning.  We must have needed the sleep in.  I can tell you that you don’t come on an African safari to have a leisurely holiday!

We had to have all our gear packed and ready to go by 8.30am, shouldn’t be a problem as there are no tents right?  We checked out of the hotel to head on our spice tour before driving the hour to get to the beach and 2 whole nights in one spot, and no tents!!!  Our guide was called Ali T and he was a real character.  He would combine his English translation into an American, British and Australian accent.  He was a real laugh.  We walked around the spice plantation for a few hours with Ali T and his side kick showing us the raw spices like lemon grass, avocado, cocoa beans, all spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc… It was pretty cool to see all the plants that we only see in a bottle or in the supermarket already processed.  We also got to taste some fresh coconuts that were picked fresh from the tree.  Side kick climbed up and cut around 10 of them and opened some for us to have a drink from and eat some fresh coconut flesh.  The way he wielded his knife was pretty amazing and scary all at the same time, as when he sliced the coconut the blade was facing towards him, all it would take would be a slip and he would cut his foot off or a wrist.  Oh well I am sure he has done it a million times before.  We then got a chance to sit down and taste some fresh tea.  All in all, it was a great morning and but I was so looking forward to just getting to the beach.

After an hour’s drive we arrived at what was going to be home for the next 3 days aka PARADISE!!!  Our HOTEL (yes this will make 2 in a row) was right on the beach, literally, we walked in sand to the room and it was amazing.  The beds were canopy beds so high off the floor that we had to do a little jump to be able to even sit on them, and with the mosquito next hanging from all 4 posts, it felt fit for a princess aka Bernie!!!  I think I am really going to like it here.  After dropping off our bags to our rooms we met at the beach bar aka Bikini’s Bar and ordered the first frosty beer for the day.  For those of you who know me I am not a big swimmer.  I can sit next to a pool or at the beach with the best of them, but get me into the water and it is near impossible.  Well I donned my bathers anyway on the off chance I may dip my foot in the water, and by the time I got to down to the water’s edge I couldn’t help but get in and swim.  I mean we are in the Indian Ocean after all right!  It is really hard to describe, but the water is crystal clear and when the sun is out is an amazing shade of blue.  The sun would come and go all afternoon, but we pretty much stayed in the water for around 3 hours.  I decided I better get out and have a nana nap before dinner; otherwise I would be drunk as a sailor and not remember the night.  With Lake Bunyonyi still fresh in my mind, I don’t want to piss off my new group or make a fool of myself too early in the piece, so I was quite proud of this decision.  So 6pm rocked around and I got ready for what hoped to be a bit of a party night.  The crew was already at the bar and we had secured a table on the beach for dinner, so we had a pretty good spot all round.  I have to mention the pizza I had for dinner was amazing!  Called a bacon pizza, it was pretty close to what we call an Aussie back home and I ate every last morsel, which after like 6 beers it was possibly also what I needed to put some food in the stomach.  The resort put on some Tanzanian dancing and a male troop of performers to entertain us, well other guests as well, but they were right next to our table and they were quite good.  A special mention has to go to ‘bendy man’ who happened to be the most flexible person I have ever seen, he literally would be able to fit into your suitcase and comfortably.  I kept asking Sean if he could get into those positions, all I got was a simple nod, which I take was a big fat no – this dude was pretty amazing. 

As we have 4 birthdays on this component of the tour, George had a surprise up his sleeve.  I had to get up on the microphone (once again people who know me know that the home Bernie would not do this ) mention Intrepid, mention the birthdays, sing happy birthday and then mention that there was a party on afterwards on behalf of the resort.  So yes to your question that I had a few beers under my belt to even contemplate all that!  Go me!!!!  As mentioned we have 4 birthdays on the trip, so George had organized a massive birthday cake to come out to celebrate and also a free cocktail to go with.  So after mutilating the cake, everyone was pretty much on the drinking wagon by this stage and Mr. DJ then started to rock some tunes.  We all danced and drank the night away, and the DJ kept playing great song after great song, so none of us really left the dance floor for like 2 hours.  It was damn hot under the hut though, and we were sweaty as, but this just made it all that more authentic!!!  A special mention has to go to our quiet Killian.  He literally became a different man on the dance floor, busting moves we hadn’t seen before.  It was all good until he ripped off his shirt and he unwittingly started to slap his sweaty arsed body against us as the night wore on!  Ugh, but he was having a good time, and we in turn had had enough to drink to be able to smile and put up with it.  Around 12.30am, some-one mentioned a swim in the ocean.  With 16 drunken people, this may sound like an unwise idea to the sober, but dang it was hot, we were sweaty and it sounded like a damn good idea.  The idea then started to evolve and it became a skinny dip as we walked to the water’s edge.  Now I am not sure if it was my voice of reason, my body self-conscience or just my damn age, but I decided to swim in my clothes when the other 15 crew all decided to go nude!  Either way it was an awesome swim with us all emerging out of the water (white arses and all) at 1am and then heading off to bed.  Another special mention has to go to ‘some-one’ in the group, who got a little Masai attention during the course of the night and happened to duck off down the beach to emerge 15 minutes later, and also happened to be the only one to stay up after we all went to bed, who in turn happened to miss the next morning’s dive due to ‘some reason’.  I am not sure if Intrepid would classify that a ‘real life experience’ but we are putting 2 and 2 together and assuming that is exactly what happened.  But as the saying goes what happen on tour stays on tour, so no more said on that matter.  Maybe we are just jealous that she got some action and we didn’t?  Who will ever know!?

So we had a great first day in Zanzibar.  A tropical island, some drinking, some sun, some swimming, some dancing, some nudity, and some great company-what else does one need? 

This is Zanzibar and this is heaven.

IT’S TIME FOR ZANZIBAR

WEATHER: Hot and 29C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the beautiful blue waters and stunning white sands of Zanzibar

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Finding an internet café and the power going out

BUYS OF THE DAY: Dinner at the night market was so cheap

WORD OF THE DAY: Poa Kachessey Kaman Deezy - cool crazy like a banana

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Illion - island

CAMP SITE RANKING: We are in a hotel tonight, so no tents – yee ha – does this get an automatic 5 out of 5 stars?

What a treat to go to sleep last night to the sound of the waves.  It doesn’t feel like we are in Africa anymore, it makes a nice change from animal searching and dust.  We also get a treat this morning where we don’t have to pack up the tents; they are going to be cleaned while we are on Zanzibar – yee ha.  Not that it is much of a big deal anymore anyways, we have pretty much got the whole ‘fit the tent in the bag’ thing down pat now, and it only takes about 8 minutes to pull the thing down.  Look at me, sounding like a professional camper now!  Who would have thought?

Wake up was at 7am, we are going to start getting used to these sleep in’s.  We were leaving camp at 7.45am to hitch a lift with Ben to the ferry terminal to take us back to the city side of Dar es Salaam.  The ferry left at 8am, with just a 10 minute ride, we walked off with the mass exodus with all the locals, bikes, cars, tuk tuks and all the goods they were carrying and then we got a mini bus transfer to take us the 10 minutes to take us to another ferry terminal for the ride to the island of Zanzibar.

Our ferry to Zanzibar left at 9.30am.  Like any passenger ferry with people carrying luggage, it is a bit of a shit fight to get it all on the boat, but getting the bags on didn’t seem too bad, once you had shown your ticket to get onto the gangway, they would take your backpacks from you and were loading them all on the front of the boat. So it was one less thing to have to worry about when people were getting on.  It was pretty busy and a lot of people were travelling, I guess with it being Sunday, there would be a lot of people on the move.  We managed to find a spot on the floor on the very top deck, where we were able to share a beanbag with one of the locals and had a great view over the back, still under cover, but a nice breeze and were pretty comfy, so we were happy with our spot.  George had managed to wangle the group into the VIP section on the second deck, it was air-conditioned, tinted windows and they also got a movie played which was Mr. Bean’s Holiday.  We decided to have the wind in our hair, some sun on the skin and enjoy the 2 hour journey outside on deck.  So with Christina, Emily, Dave, Manu and I, it was amazing to watch the crystal blue water, passing the local fishing boats and having a chat.

We got to Zanzibar at 11.50am.  Now as mentioned, getting the bags on the boat was a great system, but getting them off was a little more chaotic, you had to keep your eyes on the bags and boxes that got passed off and when you saw it come off, you had to push through a throng of around 20 people to try and get to your bag to claim it.  With the throng not willing to move and waiting for their bags, I don’t think they realize if they let people through, it would make the whole system lot more effective.  Anyway after fighting our way through, we then left the boat to head for customs and immigration process.  Even though Zanzibar is considered part of Tanzania, you have to do this process.  It didn’t take too long as George did all the passports for us –this is the upside of being with a group I guess.  My main worry was that you also needed your yellow fever card for Zanzibar.  Wellbeing the boofhead that I am, I sent my home by accident from Morocco.  So I contacted my travel doctor and got an email version, but haven’t had a chance to print it, so George had a cunning plan up his sleeve of showing 18 people for customs but only 17 people for the immigration.  Does that make me an illegal immigrant?  Ohhhhhhh living on the edge!!  Well we all passed through with no problems, so once out we met our guide for the afternoon called Mike.  George cannot guide here, we have to have a local guide, so enter Mike, and we changed George’s name to Big Mike, so that he wouldn’t get into trouble if he got caught showing us some sights. 

Our HOTEL, yes HOTEL, we get to sleep in a bed to night, was only an 8 minute walk from the wharf.  Our room has an en suite, air-con and a fan.  Ahhh total luxury!  We were given 30 minutes to freshen up and then were going for a walk in search of some lunch.  Zanzibar is renowned for losing its power, and as to queue it went off the second we made it to our room.  We have been told to always carry a torch with us as it can go out any minute any time.  As it is Ramadan, there are only 2 restaurants open for lunch, the other restaurants only open after 5pm for dinner only during this time.  Stone Town reminds me of Havana in Cuba.  They have some once beautiful buildings, that have been run down and now look a little dodgy, which is a shame as you can picture what they used to look like in their heyday. So we walked through to one of the restaurants that were still open during Ramadan.  The food was amazing, and for African standards was expensive, but in saying that it still only cost us 8AUD, which is still a bonus for such a nice place.

Half the group signed up for a walking tour of Stone Town after lunch.  I couldn’t be bothered to be honest, it was 3pm, it was hot, and so I decided to chill for the afternoon, take a walk around myself, jump on to some internet if I found a place and then go back to the hotel to freshen up before meeting for a few drinks with the tour people.  Em, Christina and I found a few souvenir shops that we were able to take our time in, found an internet café that we had literally spent 3 minutes on and again the power went out.  They weren’t joking about the cut age.  We waited 10 minutes in case it came back, which it didn’t, so we headed back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.  The beaches in Stone Town are amazing, the sand is white and fine and the water is a beautiful blue colour, if this is a sign of what is to come tomorrow at our resort, then I think we are going to have an awesome couple of days.  Back to the hotel and the power was back on, but only for 10 minutes and then it went out again for the remaining hour we had there before we left.  I think it would drive me mad if it kept going out all the time.  How do they keep businesses running, that need power all the time.  Frustration.  We were going to the local markets for dinner tonight, and we saw them setting up as we walked through.  So we met Rashid the Fisherman on our way through with the promise that we would come and see his stall on our way back.  The thing with these promises is that they do actually remember you, but I guess being white oh and good looking, we are easy to remember right!

We walked to the hotel called Africa House.  I’m not sure if it is the poshiest hotel on the island, but it was certainly nice, and an old building that has been renovated.  It looked beautiful.  We met everybody else here for a drink before heading to the waterfront and the local markets where we were to have dinner.  The markets were set up in around 3 rows, in a massive square, all selling different sorts of food.  Once you had done one row, the food was pretty much repeated again, so it came down to the sellers and if they charmed you enough.  So needless to say that Rashid remembered us, so I bought a prawn skewer from him, which all the food was precooked, they just re-heated it, wacked on some lemon and salt and away you went on a paper plate.  I have to say it was delicious and I really enjoyed it, but with a niggle in the back of the head hoping that it would agree with me at the end of the night.  The stalls had a lot of seafood, lobsters, fish, crabs, king fish etc…..  all pre-cooked and pre made ready to go.  It was dark at this stage, so they all had their gas lanterns all hooked up and the light from each stall gave it a little ambience.  We stopped for a sugar cane, ginger and lemon drink, that you watched them squeezed the sugar cane fresh to fill your glass.  It was delicious!  My last stop was a pizza, which they use this term loosely.  It was more a pancake that they cooked fresh on a hot plate, and I got a chicken one and it was awesome!  The guys got a banana and chocolate one and Lisa got a vegetarian one.  It was at this point Pam was with us and she just said, some-one has stolen my camera!  Holy Schmokes!  It was a fancy SLR camera and all.  She just remembered a man in a stripy shirt sitting next to her and that was all.  So we all cut a lap of the market to see if we could see anyone the bugger, but he was long gone…  Luckily she had backed up her photos that morning, so she only lost that day, but to lose a massive camera is a real bugger….  George spoke to some of the stall sellers to keep their eyes open while we are in Zanzibar, but there really wasn’t a lot more we could do.

Half the group went back to the hotel and the rest of us went to a pretty cool bar on the beach, literally, on the beach, and had a few beers before heading back ourselves.  It was great to have the sand in our toes, as we listened to the sound of the sea, with a cold beer in my hand.  Ahhh this is the life and I think I am loving Zanzibar already.

12 HOURS TO DAR = TIRED CAMPERS

WEATHER: Bus today – but hot outside, I’m on a window so get to work on the truckers tan

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally making it to camp

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting in Dar traffic – it was the pits and a snail could move faster

BUYS OF THE DAY: Popcorn from a shopping centre stop for 1.50AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Are we there yet?

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Spare - sky

CAMP SITE RANKING: Awesome – located right on the beach, Wi-Fi, cold showers and flushing toilets   

5 out of 5 stars

Okay so today is one of the longer drives we have on this leg.  We have 560km to travel which is expected to take us 10-12 hours.  That does include the lunch stop and a few other random stops, so actual truck time will probably be around the 8-10 hours.  It’s still a long time to be sitting on the truck.  You could fly from Brisbane to Singapore in that time or to New Zealand nearly 3 times!!!  But it is an overland journey, so these days are expected and you just need to make sure that all the gadgets are charged and that you have plenty of schnacks.

With a long drive comes an early morning.  Wake up was at 5.15am, for a 6am breakfast and a 6.30am departure.  It rained for most of the night, so the tents were packed up wet and a little muddy this morning. The landscape was pretty amazing this morning with lots of hills and palm trees and with sunrise fast approaching we were able to get some great photos as Ben hurtled through the countryside.  After stopping on the side of the road to make some local calls we pretty much just headed straight to our lunch stop at 12.30pm at a local restaurant where we were served a buffet meal for lunch.  It looked like what a road house looks like back home with a lot of the tour companies stopping here.  Lunch was pretty much a mirror image from yesterday and I think I am becoming a fan of the pilaf.  Nom nom nom……  We saw a Gap Adventures truck parked out front, and it look similar to ours, with the exception of their windows are pretty crap compared to ours.  Theirs open on the side, and not all the way, giving them about a 40cm open window per seat.  Our windows open from the top and slide down half way, so we get a good 1m wide by .5m high of a gap.  It’s good to know this when selling the differences between the 2 companies. 

So a lot more driving ahead of us.  The windows are down, as the day has warmed up, which I love having them down, besides getting air into the truck, it gives you a chance to stick your head out the window, literally, and watch the world pass you by.  It is a great way to people watch and I just love the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair.  It feels liberating for some reason.  I am sure it isn’t good for the hair, as it always finishes in a mass knot fluff ball and dirty as hell from the dust, but my care factor is zero and I just love it.  I find that we aren’t seeing as many kids on this section, so the waving to children has been kept to a minimum, but we are getting a lot of waves from adult males and if they are too cool for the wave you will either get a kind of salute gesture or a secret nod.  I’m not one to instigate a wave, I need to see a wave first for me to respond, so I am glad, even if they aren’t children, that I still get to wave, as I love to do it and I hope that they get a buzz out of it like I do.

We stopped at a shopping center while Simon got some things done.  It was a poshy one this time, with cinema’s, electrical shop, and clothes shops etc……..  We went in search of a USB stick for Lisa, which we found, but they were way too expensive, so I bought some popcorn from a cafe and we hit the internet for 15 minutes before having to be back at the truck.  The downside was the guys could get on and I couldn’t for the whole time, so my .50c I paid for half an hour was wasted, but when it is only that much I couldn’t really complain.

Back on the road again at 4.30pm for our final stretch to Dar es Salaam aka Dar.  It was only another 89km, but it is the traffic that will be the time consuming thing, as apparently George said it is quite busy and congested. Well he wasn’t kidding.  Once we got into the city, it took us like 1 hour to move 400m.  It was crazy.  Where we got stuck was right next to the fish market, so besides the smell, it was a pretty good place to be stuck as we got to people watch and they in turn watch us.  We are still getting a lot of stares, but the truck is massive, so it is pretty hard to not have a gawk at it.  We had sellers following us trying to sell us sunglasses, tissues and ice-cream.  There was a few funny instances where people were taking pictures of us, we were in their defence hanging out the windows, so I shook my fingers at them and said no pictures, no pictures unless you have money money, just like they do to us, and you could see in their faces they didn’t know what to do, I guess it is just a reflection back of the way we look when it is done to us.  But then I would smile and we would strike a pose and we all got a good laugh.  It helped kill some time as well.  So we crawled along here in the truck for another 40 minutes till we got to the port where we caught the ferry to take us the 10 minute ride across the bay.  You can drive, but based on the traffic and how long it takes to move 100m, Intrepid use the ferry to get us to the same point in a quarter of the time.  We only had to wait 15 minutes and we boarded the car/passenger ferry with all the locals, cars, trucks and bikes.  It is like a mass movement of people on and then after arriving at the other side a mass movement off.  Ben didn’t get the truck onto our ferry; he was to come on the next one, so we sidled into a local bar to have a cold beer while we waited.  George has never done that with a group before, but it was pretty cool to pay a local price for the beer firstly, but to hear African tunes playing and to see people chillaxing was pretty awesome.  We ended up sitting on the beach watching some young children drive a boat and the sun set over Dar.  The sand is amazing here and would rival the beaches back home; it is so fine and really white.  I guess it gives me a good insight into what the Seychelles beaches will look like and I am excited!

So one last time in the truck for the day.  By this time the sun has gone, so we put the tents up in the dark again.  But we are directly on the beach, well with a picket fence between us and the water, but the tents are literally on the sand, so we can’t complain.  While we waited for Simon and the choppers to get food ready, it was time for a beer and to try out the free Wi-Fi at the camp.  There were 2 other Intrepid trucks in at the same time and 2 Safari Co trucks so it was a busy little camp.  They had a great big bar area and outside restaurant, which is where you could get on the Wi-Fi, but every man and it’s dog was on the bloody thing, so I couldn’t even get on, so I had my beer and then we headed back for dinner.

So a massive 12.5 hour day.  We have a few more like that coming up, and I believe in 3 day’s time we have a 5am departure from camp.  Maybe it won’t be worth even going to bed that night? 

So off to Zanzibar tomorrow for a bit of sun, surf and relaxation.  Going from what the beach looks like here in Dar, I think it is going to be just beautiful when we get to the island.  

It was nice to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean tonight. 

A VILLAGE WALK

WEATHER: Overcast and 24C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Stretching the legs and getting to walk and have a look around

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not being able to do my blog on the truck – too bumpy and not enough room

BUYS OF THE DAY: BIG shopping day today – some original paintings, wooded statues and some more bangles

WORD OF THE DAY: Hakuna Matata

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY: Sarsta - happy

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Goats, dogs and cats

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flush toilets and hot showers – got in late, so didn’t see anything else 3 out of 5 stars

Another sleep in today! We had to have our tents all packed up and ready by 7am for breakfast and our village walk was at 8am directly from the camp ground.  The money that is paid for the village walk goes back to the village, to help with the local community projects.  So we had 4 people that work for the organization come along with us to explain all about their village.  There are 65,000 people that live here and 120 tribes that live in the surrounding area.   Their main source of food and income is rice, maize and banana crops.  Our first stop was a rice paddy that families work in.  There are 3 ways that families get to work their plots, one is that it is inherited, two is that they can buy and the third is that they can hire a plot to grow on and in this case it can only be used for crops and not for building.  A plot of the size of 20mx40m will generate 5 bags of rice at 100kg each and it takes 6 months to grow a crop of rice.  Each plot is separated by walls made from grass, straw and mud and this is what we walked on to get us from one end of the paddy to the other.  I have to say the middle section got quite slim at one stage and you could only walk with one foot in front of each other, like walking on a balance beam, it was quite scary and I had to put my camera in my bag and use my arms to balance.  I had Dave encouraging me at one stage, so my face must have had some sort of ‘scared shitless of falling in’ look about it.  But I made it without falling into some-ones muddy rice field, but what a way to literally kick start your morning!

We then got to walk off the main road and further into the village.  They have 3 different types of buildings that they live in.  The most basic is the mud and stick houses, as they are the cheapest to make and most simple.  When they get some more money from their crops they generally then have a baked brick house and the third and most expensive is the concrete block house.  So we walked through a section to get to the local kindergarten where we stopped in to meet some of the local kids.  The children learn English for 2 hours each day and are aged between 3-6 years old.  They sang us some songs and we in turn sung a song back.  We had to pick one that everyone knew, I suggested the Brisbane Lions song, but there were no takers so we did Old Macdonald instead.  They seemed to like it.

Our next stop was a ‘local’ bar.  This was pretty much a thatched hut with long benches running down both sides.  Here we tried banana beer, which I was all in for, but they served it out of one small bucket that we all had to drink from, so being in the middle of the group there had been 11 pairs of lips that had already been on the rim. Oh well I guess we are all one big family now – suck it up.  We also tried some banana wine, yes all drinking from one bottle, and it actually tasted okay.  I bought a bottle to go, just a 330ml one, I think it would go great once it is chilled and it only cost 2000 (1.50 AUD) so you really can’t go wrong.

Our last stop before lunch was a local art gallery.  It was outside and all the paintings are painted by locals in the village.  There were awesome pictures and I bought 2 tinga tinga paintings.  I wanted to get something that wasn’t Masai, with everything that I have bought so far, my house, when I get one that is, will look very African, so I bought these two paintings of fishes, it sounds boring but they are so cool and will be a great reminder of my trip.  I love them.  I have actually taken a photo of these, so I can remember what I am sending home.  It will be like Christmas when I do get to open all the boxes that have been sent while I am on my trip.  I have sent 11 boxes home to date, so I am racking up a nice personal worldwide souvenir shop of my own!

Lunch was served at a local home, under a thatched roof in the front garden.  The project pays the local ladies to cook us some of the local fare.  It was delicious with pilaf, beans, rice, eggplant, stew, salad and sweet potatoes it was an amazing lunch with fruit served for dessert.  They had red bananas on the platter which I didn’t try but they tasted just like their yellow brothers apparently.  The truck was too big to fit down the road where we had walked to, so we walked back the way we had come to pop out at some local markets before getting back in the truck we hadn’t been in for 3 days.  The market was pretty cool and I bought some wooden animal heads, beaded bracelets for the girls and a few more bangles for myself.  It was quite a shopping day for me today and hell it felt good to finally spend some money!

So back on the road again.  We had a fair bit of ground to cover this afternoon.  We had to fill up at a gas station on the way and Ben put in 205L which costs total of 406,000TZD.  It looks a lot right! So after 5 hours of driving we finally get to camp at 7pm.  The guys have had a few days off putting up the tents, as they had been done for us the last few times, so it was a bit tricky for them to start with, let alone having to put them up in the dark.  We helped out a few people again, but I think they are all now getting the hang of it!  It was nice to have dinner at tables tonight rather than sitting the food on your lap.  It was a lot cooler here, so a lot of us were wrapped up tight in our Masai rugs.  They have been a blessing and worth every penny of the 8 bucks we spent on them.  I have slept like a baby ever since buying mine, it just gives you that extra bit of warmth at night and I’m now not waking up to re-adjust the sleeping bag. 

We fell asleep to the sound of rain on the tents with the promise of an early start tomorrow as we have 560km to cover – a massive travel day ahead of us.   

WE ARE THE PRIDE OF SERENGETI TOWN

WEATHER: Hot and 28C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing 17 lions in total within 3 hours

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Our 4x4 breaking down = longer drive home

BUYS OF THE DAY: Hakuna Matata sticker for 1AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: This is the best day so far

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: 17 lions, cheetah, leopard, giraffes, elephants, gazelles, wilderbeest, donkeys and goats

CAMP SITE RANKING: Back to Mwa To Mbo - 5 out of 5 stars

Well after 2 nights and 2 days in the Serengeti it was time to leave.  As George is switched on, he has decided to switch around our itinerary and we are now able to do a game drive this morning and the village walk will now be done tomorrow.  And with the way things panned out today, it was a wide move in the end for 2 reasons which will be explained later.

We were able to have a sleep in this morning till 6.30am, which was super cool.  The other group left at 7am, so we were able to say a 4^th goodbye to them on the chance that we may see them in Dar Es Salaam, probably in passing, but it all counts in my book.  So good-bye again guys and it was awesome to see you all again.  Lisa and I decided to leave little notes in their tents, but after unzipping all 11 tents, I only recognized Jo’s pillow, so I had to leave all 3 notes in their tent, but it is the tough that counts and I guess that makes the 5^th good-bye and it was good to get the last word in.

So after packing up camp, we hit the road for our last drive around the park before hitting the dust bowl road and back to some paved roads.  We were asking what could possibly top off the day we had yesterday?  We had pretty much seen everything we had wanted to see, short of a rhino to say we saw the Big Five all in the one park.  But high on the list was more cats.  We really hadn’t see a proper male close up, so this was a high on the list, more cheetahs and a leopard would also be awesome.  Well we had only driven 15 minutes when we saw around 20 trucks all looking at something.  We only had to drive a little further on and we saw what they were looking at.  It was a pride of 11 female lions, walking across the road, and then down the plain.  It really did look like they were on the hunt for some breakfast, so we stopped and turned off the engine and just watched them advance.  They stopped at a big rock that all 11 lions sat on, which we waited for another 15 minutes and they didn’t move from there, so we decided to move on and see what else we could find, but I think that will be very hard to beat to 11 lions prancing down the plains.  I got some great photos, so it was an awesome way to start the morning.  We had headed off when Freddie got a call to come back past the lions as there was a leopard spotted.  So we turned arund, screamed past the lions (old news now) and we headed for the leopard sighting.  I tell you we were in luck, as there was a leopard clear as day sitting in the tree.  It was amazing to finally see this elusive animal, you could see his spots quite clearly and he sat for us for about 15 minutes, then he jumped to the other side of the tree for a few more minutes and then he jumped off the tree.  AWESOME!!!  We kept an eye out for him for a while, in case he was heading to the road, the grass was quite long, so he was hard to spot, but we did eventually see him through the binoculars and it looked like he was moving away from us.  What a great find.  We are now starting to make out way out of the park, slowly as the gates are still an hour away, but Sean saw some trucks in the distance,so we went to check it out and we found ourselves, finally, a male lion, with the big mane and a female lion.  They were probably 150m away, but with nockies and a good zoom you could see them okay.  As there was just the 2 of them Freddie called them the honeymooners and they were to shortly live up to that as we saw the male mount the female and have his way with her, if only for 10 seconds.  Well what ever tickles your fancy I suppose.  A further 20 minutes got us to the find of the day, after the 11 lions and the leopard, was another male lion and female, but this time they were only 10m away from the truck in a rocky outcrop.  The male had a bit of attitude and Sean upset him by lifting his arms, accidently on purpose, and he started forward slightly and gave off a bit of a growl!  It was absolutely terrifying for a few seconds, and all Freddie was doing was still sitting there with the car switched off!  I also need to mention that we had been push started by 3 trucks in the last 2 days as out engine wasn’t kicking over, so the scenario of the lion pouncing and us not being able to start the truck crossed our minds briefly, just as we thought he would also have no problems jumping high enough to get in the top of the truck and eating us all alive.   Well we didn’t need to worry about any of those senarios, but the male lion was certainly keeping a beady eye on the truck and Sean.  We got some absolutely wonderful photos of him and his beautiful female companion.  There was one more wow moment and that was when the female crossed right in front of our truck, she was like 2m from the truck and then walked behind some rocks on the other side.  We were waiting from grumpy guts to follow, but he had moved behind the rock, so it was time to move on.  But what a way to end a fabulous morning. 

Well little did we know, we saw another convoy of trucks and we happened to stumble across a cheetah and her 2 cubs.  We think it was probably the same ones from yesterday, but she was sitting right next to a small tree and the silohette photo of her is just amazing!  This day just keeps getting better!  We have now hit the plains, the trees are all gone now and it was flat as the eye coiuld see, so we just enjoyed Freddie driving like a wild man on the dusty Seregeti roads, missing pot holes and fish tailing at 90km an hour!  What a rush.  We did one last surprise and it was a herd of 9 elephants crossing th road in front of us, it was amazing to see the whole family that had 3 babies in tow, and with the beautiful blue sky, the yellow plains and the grey elephants, the photos were AWESOME!!!  Besides the Gorilla’s on Rwanda this would have to be the second best highlight of the trip so far.  All of this was seen within 3 hours of game driving before we drove for another 50 minutes to get us to the gates of the national park.  The last 10 minutes Freddie was driving like Miss Daisy, so we asked what the problem was and he said he had no power – Hmmmmm he said he’d fix it when we arrived at the gates to check out.

We got a 45 minute stop at the park gates at 11.30am, while we got permits to go back the other way and let them know that we were leaving.  We are travelling in a convoy of 4, so the other 3 drivers were also looking under the hood of the car for the 45 minutes we were there.  We got the nod we were ready to leave at 12.15pm and the car had apparently been all fixed.  Well we travelled for 50 minutes and then we lost power again, so we got roadside assistance again.  It seems there was some air in the something and the dooby wasn’t working, okay so I don’t know exactly what was wrong, but they were temperoli fixing it in the hope it would hold out.  So we set off again and 10 minutes later, we were off the road again for another 40 minutes, when they decided we would just have to limp home and drive the 30km we could manage.  I guess the most frustrating thing for the other 3 vehicles was there was nothing wrong with their cars and they also had to travel at 30km!  We travelled like this for another 1.5 hours, before George decided to split the 5 of us into the other 3 trucks, Freddie was going to limp home on his own, and there was a new truck waiting for us as we left Ngorororo Crater National Park.  So we got delayed in the end by probably 2 hours, but we still made it back to camp in daylight and the nice surprise that was waiting for is were our tents were set up again for us!!  WOO HOO!!!!!

We were all so dusty and our clothes and bags were covered in the stuff.  My hair felt so good after having it washed, the birds nest was quite surprisingly easy to get out with the shampoo. 

With a few drinks after dinner it was off to bed after a massive day.  Good-bye Serengeti – you ROCKED

MY BALLOON IRDE OVER THE SERENGETI

WEATHER: Beautiful 29C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the old crew at camp

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Only getting 40 minutes in the balloon

BUYS OF THE DAY: My ballooning pin for 3AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: ‘Not a fan’

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Lions, gazelles, giraffes, elephants, hippos, a cheetah and her 2 babies, hyena’s, pumbas, wildebeest, zebras, secretary bird, serval cat, a mongoose, parrots, black back jackal, leopard, crocodiles, dic dic’s x 3, impala, Guiney fowl, baret monkeys, saddle billed stork and baboons.

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same one as last night – no change

IRISH WORD OF THE DAY:  Slanchar - cheers

Well last night we heard an animal eating out the back of the tent, as to what it actually was, we don’t know and we weren’t to keen to stick our head out and see.  The hyena’s made a visit to the food prep area trying to scavenge what they could, so it could have been one of those at our back window, either way there was a wild beast at the back of our tent! 

My alarm went off at 4.55am, as our pickup for the balloon ride was at 5.15am.  It was still dark and a little cold, but the balloon people wanted us to wear long pants, closed in shoes and clothes to keep us warm up in the sky anyways so we were wrapped up and ready to go.  We got picked up in a 4x4 that already had 4 other people in it and we drove 40 minutes to the launch site and where our balloon awaited us.  When we arrived there were 3 balloons and they were partially inflated already.  This is for the pilot to do his checks on the actual balloon and then it is deflated back to flat.

We then sat in the car for 40 minutes as we waited for the pilot to do his checks and then we got called over for the briefing.  If you have ballooned before once it is inflated you can then get in and up up and away.  But the basket on this is massive, as it holds 16 people, 8 on each side, which is broken up into 4 compartments each side that takes 2 people per compartment.  So our pilot Mohammad explained to us that they preload you with the basket still on its side, as the balloon moves as it fills and it could possibly move and they don’t want us to get knocked over by this massive basket.  Mohammad ran through the rules, the obvious – no smoking and no jumping – yeah I think we have that covered, and went through the loading of the basket and allocating what compartments we were to go into.  Before we set off we were able to witness a beautiful sunrise, so we got some great photos before we had even left the ground!

Then the inflation began.  They had 2 massive fans that blow cold air into the balloon and it seriously didn’t take too long, it was around 40 minutes and then we got the thumbs up to pre-load as the last of the balloon was filled.  So we had to walk around the fans, and make sure that our scarfs didn’t get caught and jump into our positions.  Manu and I got the inside compartment next to the pilot, which in hindsight was a good thing as we were directly under the burner, so we were kept warm for the whole time we were in the air.  So we were lying on our backs in the baskets. With a couple from Coffs Harbour lying in the compartment on top of us.  We were in this position for about 10 minutes as Mohammad warmed the air in the balloon for it to fly, so Manu and I got a bit of dust in the face with the fans blowing but then the basket started to move and we took around 8 minutes to get is in the upright position and we were finally off the ground at 6.50am.

OMG we are ballooning over the Serengeti, Manu and I just looked at each other after we had lifted off and high fived each other!  This is something you will not experience anywhere else.  Straight away we saw hundreds of gazelles.  They are a flighty animal and were running all over the place as we floated over them.  I guess if I saw a big arse balloon coming my way making a whooshing noise I would also be a little scared myself.  We saw herds of Zebras and wildebeest, which was awesome to see them from the air, as we had seen similar herds the previous day from ground level.  The height of the balloon varied, if there was only floating to be done, Mohammad would lift us up high, if there were animals to see then he would drop us in to tree top height for us to get photos.  He was also really good in turning the balloon around every 8 minutes or so, so we all got a rotation facing the front.  We headed down to the river and got an awesome view of the hippos in the water.  There must have been like 40 of them all together, unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of one with its mouth open though.  It was quite windy as the balloon flies on the natural flow of currents, so with it being so windy we were travelling at 23km per hour, so we had to be quick with the picture taking as we were hooting along.  We also saw giraffes, elephants a male lion and the highlight was a cheetah with her 2 cubs, a cheetah!!!  So after 40 minutes we came into land.  We had to get back in the crouch position on the chance that the basket my tip when we land.  Well we didn’t have to worry about that as we landed upright next to the other 2 balloons and climbed out back onto terra firma!  There was sparkling wine waiting for us when we landed, where we all had a toast and then we were bundled back into the 4x4’s to take us to our breakfast location. 

The drive was only 15 minutes away and there were 3 tables all set up under a massive Acacia tree.  There was a gentleman when we arrived holding a large copper jug, where we were able to wash our hands followed by a fluffy green towel to dry our hands on and then we moved to the tables.  It looked amazing, so we pulled up some chairs and sat at the table and drank more sparkling wine, mango juice and a tea.  We got fresh fruit from the tree served for a starter and then we got a hot English breakfast followed, with potatoes, a sausage, baked beans and bacon.  All served on fine china, silver cutlery with a material napkin, the sun high in the sky and having just come off the balloon ride – does life get any better than this?  They also had toilets at breakfast that was wrapped 3 sides, with the 4^th side facing out to the plains.  They called it a toilet with a view, and it was really funny when the men went as their heads would be poking over the top as they did their business, it looked so funny. But what a way to start a day right!  It was an amazing experience.  Was it worth the 500USD? I think it was a little over priced for what we got, but it was an opportunity of a life time, and at the end of the day, I think sometimes it is a little hard to put a cost on that.  I ballooned the Serengeti and I will never forget it.

We were dropped back to the Visitors Center at 10am where we met back up with our 4x4’s to then head back out for some game viewing for a few hours before heading back to camp for lunch.  After talking to the guys, they pretty much saw everything we did from the balloon, but just from ground level.  They even saw the cheetah, which was good for Sean, as this is what he really wanted to see on this trip.  We headed back to camp at 1pm for lunch and a little rest.  I really needed this after consuming half a bottle of sparkling wine, add that with some sun and an early start, if I didn’t get a sleep I was going to be a little cranskter.  Well that was easier said than done, the tents were hot as an oven, so I tried to lay down, but flip it was hot, so we just sat under a canvas tent and chatted till 3pm where we were all back into the 4x4’s to go out and see us some more animals.  We drove around for another 3 hours, seeing more giraffes, elephants, zebras, jackals, hyenas, a walking hippo and a troop of cute baret monkeys that we stopped to take them in for a few minutes.  We also saw a group of 4x4’s congregated in the distance, so when this happens you pretty much know something is there, so Freddie gunned it and we got over there and there was a leopard in the tree.  I tell you, even with Freddie pointing it out, with binoculars in hand; I still couldn’t see the damn thing.  I have been looking for a leopard since our first game drive in Lake Nakuru, and after seeing the way this one was hidden, I rekon we probably drove right past them and not have even known!  They really do blend in so well.  Fred was talking to another 4x4 and they said there was another leopard down the way, so he floored it again and this time we could see him clearly, even though the sun was behind him, the photos were a little dodgy, but we got to see a leopard and it has now completed the Big Five list.  Leopard, lion, elephant, and rhino and …………….  AWESOME!!!!!  This is where we also saw the ‘old’ gang.  Jo, Lil, Emma s, Jools and Louise were in one truck and Mikey and Julia were in another.  They were at the leopard, and it was so cool to see them, especially in that environment!!!  DOUBLE AWESOME!!!  They didn’t know, but they are staying at our camp tonight, so they will get a nice surprise when they arrive in tonight!

We headed back to camp at 6.15pm and we are now covered in 2 day’s worth of Serengeti dust, or tan as we are now calling it.  The hair is crusty as and the feet are filthy, but by geeze we had a great day.  There was a queue 8 deep for the use of the shower, so bugger that, nothing that a baby wipe can’t temporarily fix, so straight to the esky and a vodka and blackcurrant juice (Dave’s Irish drink) in hand we caught up with the ‘old’ crew till dinner time.  It seems like a lifetime ago since we left them, not 3 days, and based on the above, with the birds nest hair and Serengeti tan, the first thing Mike said to me was Bern your looking great!  This is why I love these guys!  What a blind sweetie!

The nights rolled and as you can imagine both camps are dog tired, so we said our farewells again for the 3^rd time, in case we didn’t see them in the morning as they were leaving 30 minutes before us and we made some local calls and brushed our teeth and were in bed by 10.30pm. 

Man it is hard to fathom we are in Tanzania, in the Serengeti, camping in the wild with animals.

AMAZING!!!

TIME FOR SOME MORE WILDLIFE VIEWING

WEATHER: Cool this morning but heated up by 10am

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Watching a herd of Wildebeast running - twice

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not seeing a leopard yet

BUYS OF THE DAY: A ‘I Love Tanzania’ sticker for my diary for 1AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: How dusty is it?

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Ostrich, baboons, corey bastard (bird), buffaloes, wilerbeast by the hundreds, hyenas, lions, giselles, crown cranes, secretary birds, warthogs aka pumba’s, hippos, pelicans, zebras, donkeys, impala, giraffes, elephants, camels and goats.

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Wild camp site, one flushing toilet for the ladies and 2 showers a 3 out of 5 stars.

So with last night the first time for setting up tents, meant that this morning was the first time for taking them down.  I haven’t had an issue getting my tent back into it’s bag now.  I am a pro roller abd it fits in just fine.  We helped Si and Dave with theirs and then headed to the kitchen to get our lunches packed for the day.  There is plenty of salad items, bread, cold cut meats, banana’s, and poppers for us to choose from, as there will be no setting up of a kitchen today as we don’t have the truck.  So once this was done, breakfast was eaten and we picked and packed a 4x4 that would stay ours for the next 3 days.  Freddie was our driver and my road crew for the next 3 days was Sean, Lisa, Jimbob, Dave and myself.  George has out 5 to a truck, so that we could all have a window, which is super thoughtful and important when it comes to game viewing and driving to have your own window. 

With quick photo stop at a point that had Lake Minyana in the valley we continued for another hour to get us to the entrance of Ngororor National Park and the crater.  I was able to cash my USD travellers cheques here for no fee so I was able to pay my next component of local payment of 1175USD to Vic Falls to George.  We had to wait there for the paper work and permits to be done which took a little over 45 minutes and then we climbed back into our jeeps to head down into the crater.  We started our desent at 10am and the game viewing/spotting begun.  Freddie had taken the top off the roof, so we had 3 separate sections where we could stand and have our heads poking out the top.  We were allowed to stand on the seats if we had a blanket under them, which is fair enough, as our feet are pretty dirty.  It is hard to believe that I am in Tanzania in the Ngorororo crater!  This is a wow / pinch me moment with our hair blowing in the wind, standing from the roof of a 4x4 and looking for elephants, giraffes and zebra’s!  This is amazing and what Africa is all about.  I am a lucky lady.

I expected the crater to have more trees, but it is quite barren.  You would expect that seeing animals then would be easy, but the grass can grow quite long, so some effort is still required to look for the animals.  We were going to have 4 hours in total in the crater, which mean by the time we finish we would have seen ¾ of the park, which is pretty awesome.  We drove around for the first 2 hours looking and spotting a whole bunch of animals including a lion, but she was in the distance, like 150m away, but with a zoom on the camera was able to get some good photos to the highlight of this first portion being a herd of wildebeest running and crossing the road just in frount of us.  There would have had to have been 300 of them and they all ran single file to the road, saw us and then they would all freak out with us in our jeeps and would then cross in pairs and 3’s.  They certainly are an U-G-L-Y creature, but to see them in mass numbers was amazing and a highlight of the morning.  We then stopped for lunch at 12.15 by a large watering hole that had resident hippos.  They were down the other end, so there was no issue of them disturbing us.  It seemed to be the major stop point for a lot of the tour companies, at one point I rekon there would have had to have been 50 jeeps all parked in there.  It was a great spot with grass to be able to sit on and stretch the legs.  You had to eat your lunch in the truck though, as the Kite birds have picked up that people are eating food, and they have no issues in swooping and trying to get your sandwich out of your hands.  So after eating in the truck it was safe to get out, enjoy some sun by the watering hole and just appreciate just where we were.  As we left the watering hole there were zebras drinking from the otherside where we had to drive out and they had to move out of our way for us to get through – they are such a cool looking animal!  I am sure Zoe would love them, even if they do have stripes!  

It is interesting to see all the jeeps driving around looking for the bsame things as us.  Even though there is so many trucks in the crater it never felt like it was crowded, even when there was a gathering to see the lions at one point, there would have been maximum 6 trucks.  It seems there is some unwritten rule asnd as trucks pull in others pull out and no-one ever pushes in front or hogs, so it is really nbice to know that everyone gets an equal chance.  The only bad thing is that it is so dusty when they drive past, you literally get coated in a puff of dust.  One of the guys was wearing sun glasses and at lunch had glass marks, not from the sun but from the dust.  We were using baby wipesd to get the dust at least off our faces and the wipe would nearly be black.  So George wasn’t lying when he said it would be dusty.  We would have to duck into the truck cab sometimes when a truck passed it kicked up so much dust.  We were and our clothes were covered from head to toe.  Welcome to Ngorororo Crater peeps.

We gor another 1.5 hours looking and finding hippos, elephants, more wilderbeast, baboons and zebras in the hundreds before heading out the other side of the crater and to our destination of the Seregheti at 2.40pm. I kid you not, we thought the roads were dusty in the crater, well we hadn’t seen anything yet till we hot the road to the gates to exit Ngorororo.  These roads, loosely called, were terrible.  They are not paved, it is loose gravel, stones and dust.  Dust dust dust everywhere.  It is so hard to explain just how flippin dusty and bumpy it was, butr to give you an idea, when a truck travelled in the opposite direstion you couldn’t see in front of you for a few seconds till the dust had settled down.  Freddie was doing an amazing job, by this point he hd been driving for nearly 7 hours and we still had another 3 hours ahead of us!!!  On ythe bumpy dusty road.  My ear plugs for my IPod wouldn’t even stay in my ears for long as they kept coming out it was that bumpy and the volume was maximum due to the noise.  All that aside it didn’t stop Freddie rom driving at 89km an hour, so we got some air time from our seats once in a while and there was a lot of fish tailing, which I wasn;t a big fan of, as I am sure that he has no control of the vehicle when the back wheels are slipping all over the shop.  But he does this for a living and he is used to it, so I have to leave my life in his hands.  We did establish that he currently has one wife and was looking for an Australian wife once he found out where I was from.  I am telling you Africa is definetly a good country for my ego!

We are now well and truly in Masai territory.  As we were driving through the country side, you know passing giraffes and impalasa, there were also Masai walking the plains.  It was a little surreal, as it was dry as a bone, not a building in sight and then you would spot a red Masai blanket just walking.  Where was he walking to?  Where did he come from?  We also saw some young Masai, the diffenece is they have their faces painted white, which looked a little scary.  When they are 13-15 years old they are circumcised and thgen they have their faces painted for 2 years before they are then allowed to waer the red Masai blankets.  They just look at you when you drive past, no smiles or waves from these guys.

So we had to check out of Ngorororo National Park and then we had to get permits and check into Serengheti National Park.  This process took about 45 minutes as there were so many trucks and jeeps all doing the same thing.  We are now in animal territory so keep your eyes peeled for animals.  Well we didn’t have to wait long, we saw lots of giraffes, which now is officially my favorite animal and also happens to be Freddies, so he was more than happy 5to stop at everything single giraffe for me!  It was so cute.  So we travelled for further hour and a half to check in for our balloon ride that we have booked fro tomorrow.  I am not sure if I have mentioned this before but Manu and I were keen to do the Seregeti Balloon flight.  It is normally fully booked and quite hard to get on, Jools couldn’t get us on it, so Manu got her boyfriend on to it and he booked it for us from Swisserland, which only came back confirmed 3 days ago.  It is not a cheap exercise, at 500USD, but I could justify it by knowing not many people get to do this amazing experience, whne will I come back to the Seregheti and I haven’t spent much money to date, so why not.  ThereThere are 4 of nus ballooning from our groupn tomorrow morning, so we all checked in, got some pre-flight nformation and then drove for another 30 minutes to where base camp was going to be for the next 2 nights – our wild base camp at that.

So we arrived into camp at 7pm making it a 12 hour day with the thought of setting up tents a little exhausting, so you can imagine our surprise when we got out and George surprised us, Simon and some of the staff had already set up our tents for us!  Oh thankj-you tent/camping god’s what a wonderful thing for them to have set up 10 tenst!  We were on the boundry of the camp sit, so if an animal wanted to take us, we would be at the top of ythe menu, but I guess that will just add to the excitement of our sleep tonight. 

The water truck had been, so there was water in the showers, but Lisa and I thought if tomorrow is ginbg to be as dusty as today then we aren’t  going to bothger having a shower.  By this time our hair is like straw, it has that much dust in it, it really feels disgusting, but no point washing it and our feet and chests and arms and kegs were all dusty as hell.  We are now calling it the Serehgeti tan.  This stuff should be bottled I rekon.  It was  alittle strange that there were only 2 showers and a toilet for the men and a toilet for the gals for the whole camp site, with about 70 people n camp tonight will make it a little busy down that end of the camp.  I guess it is better than  nothing considering it is supossed to be a bush camp after all.