So what of the past few weeks? Well, although very busy they have also been a lot of fun. The travels kicked off at the start of the month with a visit to Nice to attend the Africa Energy Forum. Not much to report on that in this blog except to say that it was useful but also very wearing- when you spend two full days travelling to and from a two day conference it takes it out of you! Sorry for the very unoriginal pun but the conference and the venue were both very…. Nice.
Anyway, having spent a full day (left hotel at 4am, got through front door at 11pm) getting back to Dar, head had barely hit pillow when I was up again- seconds away round two of the travel saga, a four day trip to see some more animals!
The trip had come at the request of Soma’s father really. Having become aware that he was going to be coming to Tanzania, he wanted, understandably to see a bit of the country. The only bit he’d heard of, I think was “the Tarangatti” which we took to mean the Serengeti. This worked well for us too. After the rushed end to our time in Egypt, we are taking the attitude that our time here could end equally fast and want to make sure we see as many of the main attractions as possible. While I’d never be so arrogant as to presume that we could ever “do Tanzania”, I wanted to make sure that we could go away at least having ticked the main boxes. Well we’d visited Zanzibar and Ngorongoro so the only big one left was the Serengeti, so the trip was duly booked.
By 9am we were getting onto a Coastal Aviation Cessner, Kieran in floods of tears after an inadvertent boot to the face from his careless father getting onto the plane ahead of him (despite profuse apologies, he refused to talk with me for the entire flight up to Arusha). After an uneventful flight (sadly the cloud cover was too great this time for the usual fun of looking out at the land below), we landed at Arusha, spending lunch there before catching a connecting flight north to the small airstrip of Seronera.
After flying into places such as Manyara and Seronera, even Kieran has grasped the difference between airport and airstrip. This was a long strip of reasonably mowed (or perhaps “chewed”, judging by the herd of impala we narrowly missed crashing into at the end of the runway) with a small café and about four safari vehicles close by. It was clearly well into the category of “airstrip”!
Once out of the plane and with luggage in hand we climbed into the jeep and began our safari. As we began, I had a few worries going through my head- would my parents in law see the animals they had been hoping for? Would the boys finally get bored at their third safari and play up the whole time? Would my father in law’s famously atomic sized bladder result in his getting eaten by a lion? Only time would tell.
Well the first worry had vanished within a few minutes as we drove up to a hippo pool with more hippos in a single place than any of us had seen before. We must have counted at least 20 hippos- the next day we’d find another 65, but this first lot was impressive enough.
Some hippos doing very little
Now I’m not going to go into detail about the various animals we’ve seen- I did that on our trip to Mikumi then again after Ngorongoro- you’re bored of reading about it and I’m bored of writing about them. However, what was different about the Serengeti? What was it that kept us so interested the whole time? Well actually for me it was only partly to do with the animals.
Serengeti derives from the Maasai word “siringitu”, meaning to extend. It translates approximately to “endless plain”. Looking out of the jeep it was clear where the name came from. Stretching out in all directions were miles and miles of open grassland. As we drove around you just had this fantastic sense of open space- although there were crowded areas, especially around certain pools, there was at least one period of about four hours where we saw nobody else. I think you really need to have been there to really figure out what I’m on about. A photo can show a big grassy plain but it doesn’t show the fact that you’ve just driven a good 50km seeing the same kind of open plain- the size is mind boggling!
The "endless plain" of the Serengeti
However mind boggling the size is however, long stretches of grassy plain have less of an impact on two small boys and two in laws impatient to see some animals. Thankfully, this was not a problem. On this, our third safari in less than a year, we were unlikely to see anything totally new- of the “big 5” (lion, rhino, elephant, water buffalo and leopard) we’ve just the final one to see and to be honest it’s going to take a huge chunk of luck to do that! For us though, it wasn’t about new sights, but about scale. We’d seen a few hippos from a distance before but not a huge group of them close up. The big animal experience however was all about lions. Again, we saw maybe five or so in Mikumi and a few more in Ngorongoro. The lions of the Serengeti are well known, however, and did not disappoint. Within half an hour of arrival we’d seen a small group of maybe five, lying yards from the roadside. The next morning we’d see a full pride in close up. We saw no new animals I guess but that did not mean we saw nothing new.
One of the many lions we saw- Kieran was convinced this one was "Scar" from the Lion King!
We stayed in the Serengeti for two days and two nights. In that time we managed a very early drive (starting at 6) which made it possible to see the big cats do something other than sleep- a pair of cheetahs stalking impala for example. An early start also means breakfast in the Serengeti at dawn. Watching the sun come up over the plain was one thing. However, for all of us, breakfast was an experience. Our guide found a safe (well relatively speaking in a reserve full of dangerous animals considerably more expert at hunting us than we are at evading them) place and we had breakfast sitting on the jeep bonnet.
Picnic breakfast on the jeep. On this occasion we were eating breakfast rather than being breakfast!
It is good to go out at different times of the day. The kids stayed back with Soma while we went on an evening drive- we were going to the same places but it was at the same time quite different. Most fun for me (still affected by years in sunny and dry Egypt) was the drive back in pouring rain. As the cool of night sets in there is pretty much always a short violent storm- very wet but only half an hour or so. Standing up in the open topped jeep as we sped back to the hotel, I got soaked- my in laws thought I was mad but it was fun!
From the Serengeti, we drove a few hours south back to Nogorongo Crater, location of our last safari. We made a short detour en rout to a place called Olduvai. This famous for two things. First of all, it is home to a rather impressive volcano, which we flew over on the way to Seronera. More importantly, however, the adjoining gorge has been the location for considerable archaeological work and some major finds providing much information about early humankind. Not for nothing is place known as the “Cradle of Mankind”.
View of the Olduvai volcano crater taken from flight from Arusha to Seronera
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The museum was pretty small and not very well organised- perhaps appropriate for the scene of some minor finds but not for the place where some very early hominid bones have been found. We looked; we left.
An hour or so later, we were once again descending into the crater. I have to say that even though this was the second time, I was just as blown away by the geography of this place- the largest unbroken crater in the world is just impressive.
We only had time for the one drive- basically lunch in the crater than a few hours inside. However, a couple of things became apparent. Firstly, on the positive side, it was easier to see animals here. I guess being in a crater means that everything is more packed here. Rather than seeing a herd of zebra off in the distance, you see thousands of them by the roadside! The animals were less impressive here (huge prides of lions hadn’t simply been airlifted in over the past couple of months surprise, surprise!) but they were closer to us and therefore interesting in a different way.
Wildebeest and Zebra in Ngorongoro- zebras in a bit of an odd position to share the load of keeping a lookout ofr predators
The second thing becoming apparent was that Kieran had obviously had something dodgy to eat. He started to complain that he needed the toilet and within seconds we were faced with the choice of getting out of the car (never advised- just don’t!) and a major accident inside the car. As the wise father I took the decision….. to get out and let him do his business.
Kieran, being very aware of what was out there, managed to finish his business in record time. However, holding him up with my back to whatever predator might be out there must have counted as the longest and scariest few seconds of both of our lives! We climbed back inside and Soma made the wise decision to offer Kieran one of Rohan’s nappies- I for sure was not getting out of the car again! I'm not sure what it is about this Crater and my offspring. If it's not one who can't get it out it's the other who can't keep a plug in it!
The rest of the afternoon was uneventful and by dusk we were back in the Sopa Lodge, able to take advantage of a babysitting mother in law to have a way more leisurely dinner than we’d ever had before!
After a few minor blowouts with Coastal on the way back, we found ourselves back at home in Dar es Salaam by the following evening- tired but happy.
I’m very glad we visited the Serengeti and also glad we got another chance to see Ngororongoro. My father in law thought the former was definitely best. Although I loved the sheer space of the Serengeti, I had to disagree. Ngorongoro Crater for me will always be may favourite bit of the north.
I’m not sure if we’ll go there again. Apart from anything the northern circuit really does cost a small fortune to visit. In any case, further trips round Tanzania are off the agenda for now. Next week I’ll be back in Amsterdam, one year on from the meeting that originally set in motion the process of moving us all from Cairo to Dar.
After that, I’m back to the UK for the first time in almost a year. Now this little fact really did get me thinking. This has to be the longest period I’ve been outside the UK. Even back in Syria I only just about scraped a calendar year. In the fourteen months I’ve been gone a lot has changed too. When we left the UK last in late May 2007 so much was different. Tony Blair was still PM, England were still rugby world champions, some people still thought Steve MacLaren was a good football manager, Northern Rock was a dynamic, forward thinking bank, the term “credit crunch” was unknown and house prices were still rising. I’ll be interested to see how things are back in the UK- I guess you only really notice change when you’ve been gone a little while.
We get back here in late August but then I’m back to the UK few weeks later for an MBA course. Straight afterwards, I’m probably in Mozambique for a week. All quiet in October and November before MBA exams in the UK in early December followed by a (not yet booked) Christmas in some (as yet undecided) part of India. Anyway, one thing at a time- can’t wait for Amsterdam!
1 comment:
Breakfast outside the car - you crazy Howaga!
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