Barb and Baden’s Excellent African Adventure – Final

Serengeti

If there is one park in Tanzania that is famous the world over it has to be the Serengeti National Park. The name Serengeti is almost synonymous with safari and there are few people who have not seen movies or television shows that are based in this park which of course almost always feature the abundant wildlife.

 

We were driven from the Plantation House to the Manyara airstrip where we caught a 45-minute flight to our first safari camp located in the Serengeti called Suyan. I’ve probably mentioned it a few times now but we have been pretty lucky as far as the weather goes since we arrived in South Africa and the sun and warm-to-hot temperatures continued to be what we were to experience. It wasn’t until we landed that we saw that the ground was all wet and perhaps our lucky streak was going to run out here. We had heard from a few people whom we had dined with over the previous few days who had come from the Serengeti area and told us that it was not only raining but was considerably colder than in the more south Tarangire area.

When we were picked up at the airstrip by the camp staff they confirmed that it had rained for 8 straight hours the night before. The ride to the camp had us going through muddy roads which required on several occasions to use the full 4-wheel drive capabilities of the Land Rover that was being used. The vehicle was quite a different style to the one that Nuru was driving – the main difference was that the style of vehicle that was more common in the Serengeti park were open-side vehicles as opposed to the vehicles with full doors and large openings in the roof more commonly used in the more southern part of Tanzania. I soon came to dislike these open side vehicles as there was no place to rest my camera when taking pictures as I was able to do on the top of the open-top trucks.

We had to traverse no fewer than three rivers to get to the Suyan camp and because of the heavy rains the night before the rivers were far higher than usual. The highest river came above the running board of the truck and had the water in the river been about 2 inches higher than what it was the inside of the vehicle would have been flooded. For what it’s worth, we seemed to be more worried about this than our driver.

The temperature continued to drop that afternoon and the rain started to fall soon after we got to camp. Barb and I had bought brand new long-sleeve fleeces before going on this trip and up until then had been languishing in the bottom of our bags. However, we ended up wearing them for almost two days straight when we arrived in the Serengeti as the temperatures had dropped to about 15-17 degrees in the daytime and colder at night. This was in comparison to the low 30 degrees just a day before.

We only spent one night in the Suyan camp before we moved on to the Suyari camp about 4 hour drive north through the Serengeti park. The weather was still cold and it had rained several times when we were out on safari drives and we had gotten used to wearing the rain gear that was in every vehicle (over top of our fleeces, of course). By the time we had arrived in the Suyari camp the weather was starting to warm up again and we were starting to see signs of the weather clearing up. Within less than 24 hours we were back in shorts again and the warm, clear skies were back once again.

 

Safari Concludes

The final two days on safari were now looming with our arrival at the Suyari camp. The first 5 days had gone by pretty quickly and we never really got tired of going on one safari drive after another. While we had definitely started to see many of the same animals after the 4th to 5th day, we would continually be surprised by something new. For example, we had seen over 20 different lions in different places but on the very last day we saw a small group of female lions and hidden between them in a thicket was a small lion cub.

We came back the next day and after waiting for about 20 minutes, the cub decided to come out by himself.

One of the major must-see spectacles in the northern Serengeti is the wildebeest crossing of the Mara river. The Mara river generally flows east-west, crisscrossing the Tanzania and Kenya border several times. The wildebeest cross the river several times during the year and in general, go to the other side when the grass that they eat has been depleted on one side. The herds of wildebeests number over a million and hundreds of thousands of them congregate in large sections wanting to cross the Mara together.

There are several obstacles in the way of the wildebeests successfully crossing the river. The biggest ones are the huge crocodiles which wait in the water for the crossings and feast on wildebeests as they swim by. In the frenzy to cross the river wildebeests may be swept down the river and drown or may just get trampled and killed by another wildebeest.

I had seen and heard of this event about 15-20 years ago and was definitely something that I was looking forward to. The problem is that the wildebeests cross on no particular schedule and even if you see a few hundred thousand of them sitting on the other bank, they may spend hours thinking about it and eventually decide to turn back to wait for another day. We were told by the guide at the camp that it was unlikely that we would see the crossing and naturally we were disappointed to hear this news. However, on one of our morning drives, we noticed a growing herd of wildebeests on the north side of the river bank and we followed them along to where they were congregating several kilometres away. There were about 100,000 of them all standing around and we stopped and prepared ourselves for the unknown wait. We were informed that the wildebeest crossing is an unpredictable event and that you might wait for half a day and see no crossing or a handful may cross and then the herd stops and retreats from the river. There were no hard and fast rules to predict what to expect for this type of thing. In general, this was the way of the entire safari. you never knew what you were going to see from one minute to the next.

Once the wildebeests did start to cross the Mara river, it was truly a spectacle. Several things were occurring at once: the were ones climbing down the embankment, others starting to cross the river (some getting swept away by the strong current) and on our side of the river, the wildebeests desperately getting out of the water and onto the shore. Within 100 metres of the crossing were the crocodiles that sat on rocks watching the wildebeests cross. Normally the crocs are in the water feasting on the animals as they cross but in our case, they seemed to ignore them. The explanation that was given to us is that the crocs were probably already full from a previous crossing.

The wildebeest crossing that we watched ended after about 1000 of them had crossed the river. For an inexplicable reason, the majority of the wildebeests’ herd stopped crossing and withdrew from the river. Sometimes things like this just happen but we have to consider ourselves pretty fortunate to witness even a small wildebeest crossing as the odds of seeing anything are not in your favour.

Our last day in the Suyari camp had Barb and me feeling the same way that the entire safari had come and gone too soon. The entire experience of seeing all of these animals so close in their natural environment was so incredible and difficult to describe but will be something that Barb and I will share for the rest of our lives.

On the very last night in the Serengeti, we stopped and watched the sun go down where I happened to take this picture.

 

Airport Security

As we have flown to many different parts of Africa we’ve gone through a lot of really small airports where I have described before that the security protocols are pretty casual. Having this on my mind I happened to notice this security sign at one of the small airports right above the check-in desk. It was one of those signs that say things like don’t pack explosives or guns or knives in your carry-on luggage. What happened to catch my eye was the warning not to carry sword umbrellas with you on the plane.

In case you’re wondering, a sword umbrella is a regular umbrella that when you press a special switch you can pull the handle and a sword comes out. My only experience with sword umbrellas is one used by The Penguin on the old Batman shows but obviously, they are used by regular people too.

My first thought about all of this is that at least one person has attempted to bring a sword umbrella onto a plane in Tanzania for them to add this to the list of restricted items. My second thought was where you could buy one of these? Are there specialty sword umbrella stores or is this just a custom request from a regular umbrella store? Important questions to think about.

 

Spice Island

After concluding the safari portion of our African Adventure we were now off to a completely different part of Africa which is the island of Zanzibar where we will be concluding our trip. Zanzibar is located off the east coast of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean. Known for centuries as the source of many spices such as cloves, tamarind, nutmeg, and cinnamon amongst others, Zanzibar differs from mainland Tanzania as it is a predominantly Islamic population and has a correspondingly Arab-influenced history.

We flew into the airport in Zanzibar and were picked up by our car to take us across the island to the eastern coast where our destination of the village of Matemwe where our Matemwe Bungalows hotel is found.

Driving across the island took us almost 90 minutes and through many villages and towns see the worst poverty imaginable. Along the coast where many of the hotels are located beside ours, there are shanty towns within about 100 meters of the hotels. Don’t get me wrong, I am not stating this in the context that the poverty of Zanzibar needs to be kept well away from the delicate eyes of us tourists but more that the stark contrast of the haves and have-nots is no more obvious than in this part of the world.

Our room was quite amazing with a large mosquito net draping down over the bed but it was the smell of the tropical flowers and incense burning in our room that was the most striking feature. The double doors opened up to a large balcony with a sweeping view of the Indian Ocean and a couch and hammock available to make the three-day stay here even more restful. And rest was our primary agenda item in Zanzibar.

The rooms at our hotel all have large, open-air sections of walls and shutters that close but you never really close the room to the air coming in from the ocean. Mostly this is to provide some natural cooling as Zanzibar seems to be one of those places in the world where the humidity is stifling even at night. The constant breeze coming in from the ocean ranges from gentle to really, really strong such that the shutters all have to be closed to prevent the strong wind from blowing everything around in the room. This of course necessitates the need for the mosquito net around the bed as it would be impossible to sleep without it.

Interestingly, this is the only part of the entire African trip where we have seen any mosquitos at all. Throughout the 7 days on safari, we saw no mosquitos although there were lots of flies in Tanzania that in some cases really made things miserable. The tsetse (pronounced: teat-see) fly was bar far the worst as they would often bite you and no amount of insect repellent seemed to make any difference to these flies. I’ve already been bitten by mosquitos a few times since arriving in Zanzibar yesterday so hopefully, the malaria medicine that we’ve been taking regularly will do its job. 🙂

The first dinner that we had in Zanzibar last night was a real treat as they were serving an authentic Swahili dinner – mostly made of rich curries and exotic-sounding side dishes. The food was spicy and fragrant, no doubt made from all kinds of local spices. For some reason, none of the safari camps that we were in served any local food. It was all great food but mostly stuff that we would find at home or in Europe. I can only assume that this was to cater to a mostly European and North American clientele.

 

Creepy Crawly Things

One of the worst fears that Barb and I had about coming to Africa was dealing with all of the bugs and snakes that are commonplace in this part of the world. Not only are most of these creepy crawly things poisonous, but they all also seem to be unnaturally larger than anything that we see in Canada. For example, we saw this moth the other night flying around the room and it had about a 2-inch wing span! Up until now, we have been fairly lucky that we haven’t had to deal with any surprises in our room.

Until last night.

We were lounging about the room thinking about getting ready for dinner when this thing caught the corner of my eye. All I was able to see was that something was crawling along the floor and it went underneath some furniture. The only part that I was able to see was that it was about 4-5 inches in size.

So as you might imagine the two of us went into full alert mode and within a few seconds I’m on the phone to the front desk asking them to send someone to our room to help us deal with this. Within about 10 minutes we have a housekeeping lady and two burly security men in our room and me standing well back holding the flashlight on the area of the floor where I saw it crawl under the furniture. One of the security guys takes some bug spray and sprays it under the furniture and proclaims “it’s probably dead now”. Of course, this wasn’t satisfactory as we both wanted to see the bug removed from the room.

The two guys moved the furniture aside and using one of their nightsticks started to poke and prod the creature into exiting its hiding spot so that it could be captured. Finally, one of the guys says that he sees it and reaches down underneath the small cavity under the cabinet and pulls it out. Always thinking about the blog first and knowing that a picture was going to be necessary for this story, I had the sense to have my camera ready and took this picture before they got rid of it.

Mental note: I’ve got to remember to tell Peter and Liz to check the duffel bag that they lent us for this trip for spiders and scorpions when I give it back to them.

 

Final Day

As I write this section, it is the final day in Zanzibar (and Africa) before we begin our long flight which starts tomorrow. Barb and I hired a boat this afternoon and went to the nearby Mnemba atoll to do some snorkelling. The water was bath water warm and the variety and colours of sea life were incredible to behold. Overall, it was a warm relaxing day but Barb and I knew that our thoughts were already around the return flights and the whole process of departing Africa and returning back to everyday life. We had already noted yesterday that “by this time next week we’ll both be back at work” with some reluctance.

 

And Finally…

When I am writing these blog articles on our Excellent Adventures, I always try to convey what was it like. and not just what did we do? It’s important that the feeling of what we experience is in some way described in my words and on this area I’m not sure if the feeling that Barb and I have had on this African Adventure is possible to really describe – at least in the time that I have set aside for writing these blog articles. In many ways, our Excellent African Adventure will be the greatest adventure that we have been on as there have been so many unique things that we have seen on this trip that it really is set apart from anything else that we have done before.

So the natural question is will you go back to Africa?

Long before we got to this stage of our trip we had already answered that question and it is certainly yes. There are so many other parts of Africa that we’d like to see and having gone here once we will be far less shy about returning. One thing in particular that I would like to see is the gorillas in Rwanda and several people whom we met on this trip had done that and have said that it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

When we will come back to Africa is not clear but I suspect that it will not be too many years before we start talking about it again.

Most of my regular blog readers know that we usually have our Excellent Adventures planned several years in advance. I had already mentioned for some time that after Africa our next big trip was going to be to Antarctica. However, Barb and I have decided to move this trip back one year as it was going to occur very close to the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver and we both wanted to be in town around that time. We also have some smaller getaways planned before next fall and those trips may also make it to my blog as well.

I want to thank everyone who has followed along on our African Adventure and especially those who have helped Barb and me with the planning process for this trip over the past 10 months.

Within a few days, I will post more new African pictures on my photo website here .

 

Take care,

Baden