Safari part 2

The Ngorogoro crater is absolutely magnificent, it is an unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera (if you want to get technical). It was formed 3million years ago when a giant volcano erupted and collapsed on itself. It is 2000 feet from the rim to crater floor and it covers 260 square kilometres. Basically its bloody massive and supports a HUGE amount of wildlife, including the critically endangered Black Rhino (there is only 20 in Northern Tanzania). Which is not actually black – I think it was just a bad translation from its original dutch name.. Magnificent beasts they are – we saw 7 or so of them but sadly none up close. They do resemble natures version of a tank to its full extent.

Wildabeest mid run - NCA 

Lone male bull Elephant in the Crater

Posing on the rim of the Crater

A snippet of the Great Migration

Flamingos 

Flamingo

Black Kite

Black bellied Bustard

The plains of the Serengeti

Olduvai Gorge - Earliest human remains found here NCA

Fossil of extinct herbivore with cool horns

A view over the NCA

Safari - in two senses of the word

23^rd – Up at 4am, on bus by 5:15am, departed kigoma by 6:00am, break down at 8:00am. Moving again by 12:00pm, drive till 12:00am, stop in random village and told abruptly that we’ll move again at 4:00am. Get off bus, find ‘guest house’, sleep 2.5 hrs, back on bus by 3:45am, moving by 4:00am. Arrive Half way city, Singida at 6:00am. Taxi to bus station, find our next bus, buy tickets (the last 4), depart again 8:00am, drive till 2pm, get off bus at place called Makayuni. This is our turn off for Karatu (our destination). We find a Dalladalla (a minibus taxi of sorts) or rather it finds us being that we stuck out like 4 sore white thumbs. Quickly bustled in with our bags strapped onto the top and back. We felt good, we’d done the worst part and the minibus was fairly spacious. Oh how we were wrong. With in 10 minutes they’d managed to fit at least another 10 ppl in with us. At one point I had a Massai woman sat on top of me. Sadly she was not attractive. Although staring through the holes in her ears passed the time a little. 4pm and we’ve arrived in Karatu. From here our Safari operator has ensured us it is but a short distance to our hotel. We find a Taxi but he’s never heard of the hotel. I ring Safari operator, he talks to Taxi driver, taxi driver knows where it is now. We leave, 10 minutes later were at the hotel – it’s the wrong hotel. The wrong hotel tells us where our hotel is. 20 minutes later, Taxi breaks down, me and Julian get out and push. 5 minutes later we arrive! Roughly 5pm, bring on Christmas!

If its one thing new skill I can take away from this experience is the upmost competence at peeing into a bottle whilst hurtling along on a severely bumpy road. Speaking of which, where did I put that bottle?

25^th – Did bugger all

26^th – Started our 3 day Safari. We spent 1 day in the Ngorogoro conservation area, 1 day in the Serengeti and 1 day in the Crater of the Ngorogoro crater. We saw lots of awesome animals – Jonty was amused for most of it although he was disappointed by the lack of Tigers and Dragons. Here are the photos.

Adult male Impala in iPhoto (unintentional)

the very pretty Superb starling

The grasslands of the Serengeti

Mum keeping look out for tigers and dragons and what not

Leopard with fresh Impala kill in tree

Cheetah

A particularly poor photo of a Pygmy falcon

Malisa - our driver/babysitter/animal spotter

A grey crowned Crane

Camp

16^th – 21^st was spent in camp, quite a change of pace but not to bad. A few early starts to try and see a real chimp but sadly to no avail. They proved their true wildness. Bastards. Luckily there is more to the place than its chimps. 

Me under my new veranda

Jonty ruining a perfectly nice photo - in the kitchen

Mum rehydrating 

Mmmm rice and beans

Our local magnificent waterfall - 40m top to bottom

Jonty and his tortoise

 21^st – headed back to Kigoma, went straight to a campsite on L. Tanganika called Jacobsons and stayed their for two nights. Mostly very relaxing – all in preparation for our 2 day bus journey back to the North. It was correctly predicted to be hell.

Bambino and Bambi at Jacobsons

Gombe part 2

 14^th – Having safely arrived in Kigoma night before, we get the boat to Gombe Stream National Park to see the Chimps. These guys have 50km² of forest to roam yet they walked straight through the park headquarters. Must of heard we were coming? Children arnt allowed in the park in the fear that they will be eaten by the chimps. Not an unreasonable fear according to some of the stories we heard. So Jonty stayed behind with me for the day while mum and julian went to find them (and then shortly returned behind the group that came straight through base). We built castles on the beach and went swimming.

Our boat to Gombe

We tricked Jonty into thinking we were going too

Jules and Jonty braving the storm

Bit of cassy love

Mum and Jules withe their, not particularly hard to find, chimps 

Me and Jonty watching the chimps from the safety of water

Mob mentality

Architecture at its best

Family posing at Gombe

15^th – We got the public boat back to Kigoma, a 3 hour journey that stops at all the villages on the way back to collect people, fish, goats – the usual. After arriving into Kigoma we collected the car and departed for camp, a 4 hour journey.

Sunset over the Congo as seen from Gombe

Making the most of the leg room

The public boat journey from Gombe to Kigoma

The hull

28th Jan

Ok – 2 days later and ive worked up the will power to continue. I should say that the reason the parking break got left on is that I’m currently teaching one of the guys (Shed) how to drive. Thankfully not from scratch. He’s had proper lessons in an old landrover where he rotated with 9 other students over a 90 min period. His theory is sound, he just needs practice and the occasional warning that edge of the road is getting a bit close..

On the 10^th of Dec my Mum, Jules and Jonty came out to visit me. I’d like to think they came to see me anyway, if I was living in some crummy suburb in Poland it may have been a different story. Thankfully we’ll never find out. It was great to see them all. Jonty in particular (3 year old brother), he’s grown lots and his diction is now good enough to express how awesome his big brother is. They flew into Kilimanjaro airport, a half hour outside of Arusha. We then had a day to kill in the city before heading West. Somehow I managed to convince them that that day was best spent at a place called Meserani Snake park. God knows how I managed that. It was awesome. Going to a snake park in Africa really does make you realise how boring Health and Safety makes life in the UK e.g. On jokingly asking the guide if I could pick up one of the younger crocodiles he said “yeh sure” and promptly showed me how, next thing I know im holding a wriggling foot long croc. Mum then insisted on holding the fella!

Me and Mum holding our Nile Crocs

Jonty and a Sand snake - definately my brother

Rufous beaked snake - im not stoned btw

12^th of Dec and it was time to depart Arusha for the splendid 2 day car journey back my home town of Kigoma. The journey went pretty well considering the length and quality of the roads, bar one minor incident of me nearly painting the road with a dog. Fearless bastards.

26th Jan

Sorry that it has been so long since I’ve written anything (formality)… Im afraid it is becoming increasingly evident that my laziness knows no bounds. The consequence of this character flaw is that occasionally I leave a mountain of literature on my blog that no one wants to read tbh. Its intimidating to the most interested of readers (mum), who has probably skimmed over this already. My excuse for the inevitable typos that you will find is that I myself cannot face reading over what I have written. So there you have it, quit while you are ahead and just look at the pretty pics. Everyone prefers little and often – unfortunately that is a luxury that is not afforded to me. It has been roughly 2 months since I last posted any words on my blog but now im afraid your holiday is over.. The nagging feeling inside my to bore the shit out of you again has become strong enough to force me to my desk to jumble together a series of words that I hope to sum up these last 8 weeks.

It is 6pm on the 26^th of Jan and I have just informed that the parking light is still on for the car. This is not ordinarily a problem because the car is usually at camp. The wet season however is becoming the bane of my life – it has forced us to leave car 45 mins away where the road is not so bad. So there goes my plan to whittle away the hours masterminding my plan to bore you.. Count yourselves lucky. Especially while you sit at home sipping your tea and eating your crumpets while I go trudging off through the swamp and forest at night to turn the f*cking parking light of before the battery goes dead.

The leopards of the Serengeti 27th Dec

Leopard in tree at dusk

Close up of the 2nd leopard

Female Leopard in tree with dead Impala