Shashe, our trusted Acacia Truck, has taken us considerable distances across Africa thus far, but not necessarily at considerable speeds. East African roads can be horrendously pot-holed and terribly inconsistent. I wouldn't want to commute in East Africa. On our travel day from Nairobi to Arusha, we left camp at 6.30am and already traffic into town was crawling along at a terribly slow pace. We took the road out of Nairobi that avoided the centre of town, but unfortunately we couldn't avoid the pot holes. This is now affectionately referred to be all on tour as the African massage. We thought Tanzania would be better, but we happened to get Tanzania in the middle of its road upgrade. I counted at least 10 times we diverted from the main highway onto gravel dusty roads - the worst part was a 20 km stretch of diversion at which we were only able to manage 25 km per hour!!!
Needless to say, hours later, much later than the kms on Shashe's dashboard would suggest, we arrived at Arusha. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at the horizon on our drive, trying to find where Mt Kili mount be situated, but cloud cover kept Kili back that day, but we did get a partial sight of Mt Meru, which was pretty cool too. I had high expectations of Arusha, after all my darling friends Rachel & Sharon had spent well over a year supporting the local community through the Christian brother's presence there. The boys spent some time tasting the various different snack offerings and deciding whether Samba, Wow, or Champ were the best of the cheesy puff varieties!!!
Arusha was our final outpost before visiting the Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater. I may have raved about the Mara, but the Serengeti has my heart. Not nearly as exciting in terms of game viewing intensity, after all you have over 15000 square km to explore in the national park and therefore oodles more places where animals could be hiding. But is was the vast expanses, even more spectacular than the Mara in terms of scale, were simply outstanding. I sat in the front a bit beside Emmanuel, our guide, with Toto's Africa and Somewhere Over the Rainbow running in loop in my head, grinning like a fool from ear to ear. The sunsets and sunrises throw up the most spectacular colours even if my camera is unable to do them justice.
We did see a great many game as well as birds. The highlight was seeing two leopards in one day, one having just caught its Gazelle and was taking it to a safe spot to munch (it walked right past me, so close that its tail nearly grazed my hand as I was taking photos). We spent a night bush camping in the Serengeti - as a rule you must not go to the toilet on our own, and throughout the night buffalo and hyena walked amongst our tents. Thankfully the lions stayed further afield, but they could be clearly heard at night. My heart was pounding so much that I had to put ear plugs in simply to fall asleep. I needed to pee from about 4.30am but held on to it for an hour until it was time to get up - there was no way I was leaving the safety of my tent for anything!!!
It was sad that we only spent 24hours in the Serengeti - I was quite upset when I realised that was all we got - but Ngorogoro crater game viewing made up for any sadness I felt. The crater is... well I kept saying Awesome to everyone, but that's the only word I thought could do it justice. Nothing, not TV or camera can capture the magnificence of the crater from the rim. I got up early to watch the sunrise, just a shame the clouds obscured the view slightly. We saw male lions basking in the sunshine, black rhino, scavengers circling the air looking for a recent kill, and lots of other amazing sights. My favourite was watching an Ostrich (male) chase another Ostrich (female) then abruptly stop and do a dance to court the female. I caught it all on video which was magnificent timing on my behalf.
I left the crater feeling exhausted - having not slept well for a few days for fear of encountering wild animals during the night - and from having to endure extra bumpy roads in rather hot weather. I arrived back at Arusha and slept well.
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