To the Serengeti, and beyond! (Safari)

Monday 6/17

Monday morning we left for safari. We could not take all our luggage with us, so Rebekah and I shared a suitcase for safari, and the group left all extra luggage in one room at the hotel. After breakfast, our three drivers (Kakasii, Momo, and Peter) arrived with our safari vehicles. Our group split into the three cars. Rebekah and I got in Momo’s car with Jerry, Sue, Melissa, and Ron. First we went from the hotel outside Moshi west to Arusha along the Moshi-Arusha highway. On the way out of Moshi, we stopped at the Highway Supermarket for bottled water. A street vendor was trying to sell Jerry something by saying Jerry was his “brother from another mother.” He also said “Hakuna Matata” (which you should know from the Lion King means no worries) when Jerry said he didn’t want to buy anything.

On the other side of Arusha, we stopped at the Cultural Heritage Center. This is the largest souvenir shop I have seen in Tanzania, and attached is a very nice gallery with traditional African art. I didn’t buy anything in the souvenir shop, but Rebekah bought a mug. We walked over to the gallery, and I didn’t see the sign when we walked in that I wasn’t supposed to take pictures of the artwork. Rebekah told me halfway through, but I continued to take pictures anyway. All of the artwork was for sale, but everything was way too expensive for me to consider getting (no matter how much I wanted some of the pieces).

After leaving Arusha, we continued driving on the Trans-African road, which is 11,000 km and stretches from “Cape to Cairo” (as Momo said). We stopped at the Tembo Club for a buffet lunch. Tembo means elephant in Kiswahili, and the building that the restaurant was in was shaped like an elephant, complete with a water feature trunk and grass covering the entire roof. They had nice grounds and the food was delicious.

We continued westward along the Trans-African road. There was a 130-km stretch under construction, so we were diverted to the old Trans-African road, which is very bumpy. The original road was built in 1950, and then in 1988, the new road was laid next to it. It is now being completely rebuilt. The project was started 3 months ago and is expected to take a year and a half to complete. We passed two Chinese bicyclists with saddle bags on their bicycles, and Momo explained that many people, especially Chinese, bike the Trans-African roadway in its entirety.

Along the way, Momo pointed out the Rift Valley Escarpment, a mountain range that stretches from Jordan to Mozambique and which was created by volcanic activity. About 110 km to the north of the Trans-African road along the escarpment is Ol Doinyo Lengai, a volcano holy to the Maasai tribe. The Maasai believe that God lives at this volcano. There is a lake near the volcano called Lake Natron, which is popular with Italians. There was a famous Italian explorer who had a skin disease and took a safari to the lake. He showered where two rivers meet and form a waterfall near the lake and was cured of his skin disease. According to Momo, many Italians like to go there and take a shower.

Here is some other information about tribes in Tanzania that we learned from Momo along the way. There are 125 different tribes in Tanzania. The Sumuka tribe is the largest. The Maasai are the nomadic herders that many people have probably seen in pictures even if they have never been to Tanzania. They are actually one of the smaller tribes in Tanzania, but they need a lot of land to graze cattle so they take up a lot of space. Earlier in the spring, there were negotiations happening between the Maasai and the Tanzanian government over a land-use issue. A hunting company from the UAE that caters to rich Europeans wanted to take Maasai grazing land for more hunting land. Just two weeks ago, an agreement was reached and the Tanzanian government said they would not allow the company to take the land.

Later in the afternoon, we stopped in the village of Mto wa Mbu, which means Mosquito River. This town is special because it is where all 125 Tanzanian tribes can be found. There is a Maasai market there that sells wood carvings, jewelry, blankets, and other items. There we met Christopher, a friend of Pastor Chad’s and a shop owner in the market. I bought a drum after bargaining with a shop owner.

After our stop at the market, we had about another hour to go to our lodging for the night. Rebekah decided we both wanted to ride shotgun, so we both crammed into the front seat next to Momo. After a bit of a bumpy ride up a dirt road, we arrived at Rhotia Valley Tented Lodge. We were greeted by a volunteer from Holland named Evelyn, and a staff member brought us warm towels to wipe the dust off our faces and arms. We gathered round for a briefing on the protocol for walking around at night (basically always have an escort with you unless you’re in your tent or in the dining tent). After being taken to our tent, Rebekah and I made a walking video tour of the area around our tent and took some pictures of the view. At dinner, we sat with our three drivers (Kakasii, Momo, and Peter) and Marilyn and Will from Prince of Peace. When we got back to our tent, we found that our warm water bottles had been brought to our bed to keep our feet warm while we slept.

Tuesday 6/18

The next morning, we continued our journey westward toward Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. Rebekah and I were in Kakasii’s car. We passed through the gate to Ngorongoro Conservation Area and started the drive up to the rim of the crater. We saw baboons as soon as we passed the gate. Our next stop was a viewpoint on the rim of the crater. They are building a porch there, but it is not yet completed, so there was no railing between us and the crater floor. It’s a very long steep drop from the rim of the crater into the bottom.

After reaching the rim of the crater, we drove around on the rim for a little while, and then started our descent down the other side. We saw our first zebra and wildebeest, and we saw many Maasai herders grazing their cattle. A few times when we stopped, we had Maasai children come up to the car asking us to take their picture for money. We also saw an ostrich and some giraffes before lunch.

We stopped for lunch at Oldupai Gorge. The gorge is where the earliest evidence of human development has been found. Researchers from international universities do ongoing research at the site, and there were tents set up for this purpose while we were there. We ate lunch at the picnic area overlooking the gorge, and a man gave us a talk on the archaeological importance of the crater.

After lunch, we continued driving toward the Serengeti. We stopped at a Maasai boma (village). Upon our arrival there, we were immediately welcomed with a dance. The four of us teenage girls got pulled into the dance, and Rebekah was looking a little uneasy about the whole thing at first because she wasn’t expecting that. I had visited a Maasai village in 2009 and experienced the same thing so I knew what was coming. Pretty soon, though, we were both enjoying the dance, and we tried to imitate what the Maasai women were doing with the necklaces around their neck. After the welcome dance, we were split into smaller groups with a Maasai who spoke English. Rebekah, Jerry, Ron, and I went with Emmanuel. He is married and has one child. He goes to college in Arusha (the city we passed through on Monday), and he wants to be a doctor so that he can return to help his tribe. He took us into his hut and talked about the Maasai for a little while. After we came out, he took us around to see all the jewelry for sale in the hope that we would buy some.

After the Maasai village, we continued our drive toward the edge of the Serengeti where our lodge for the next two nights was. Along the way, we disrupted a group of ostriches who ran beside our vehicles for a little while. We also saw some gazelle and impala. Just before we reached the lodge, Peter spotted a giraffe on another road and we took a detour that took us very close to the giraffe.

We arrived at Ndutu Safari Lodge and were shown to our rooms. Ndutu Safari Lodge is named after nearby Lake Ndutu, and it is located on the border between Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti. We dropped our stuff in our room and almost immediately left again. We had a couple hours before it got dark, so our drivers took us on a game drive around the lodge. Rebekah and I went in Momo’s vehicle. We went around Lake Ndutu and found two elephants in a marsh. We kept going to find what we were looking for: a pack of four lionesses and ten cubs. We parked next to the lions and stayed for over an hour watching them. The sun set behind us as we watched them, but no one cared about the pretty sunset when there were 14 lions on the other side of the car.

We went back to the lodge to clean up before dinner. One thing that is hard to explain to people unless they have experienced it is the amount of dust that you accumulate on your body in the course of a day on safari. The windows on the safari truck are usually at least cracked open so that it doesn’t get too hot so dust pours into the car as we drive down the dirt roads. We went and ate dinner and then hung out in the lounge until we went to bed.

Wednesday 6/19

After breakfast on Wednesday, we drove by Lake Ndutu to see the flamingos. Rebekah and I were with Peter. We drove up from the shore of the lake toward the Serengeti. On our way up a particularly steep hill, Kakasii’s truck got stuck in a deep rut in the road. We all had to get out and stand to the side while the three drivers decided how to pull out the truck. When we got up that hill finally, we continued to the gate to the Serengeti. The land flattened out very quickly and soon we were on flat grassland. The gate to the Serengeti sits at the bottom of a hill that is the only hill in sight. You can walk up to the top and get a great view of the surrounding grassland.

For the next few hours until lunch, we just drove into the Serengeti looking for animals. We saw giraffes, wildebeest, lions, a dead hyena, a lioness who climbed out of her tree to try to hunt gazelle, zebra, elephants who crossed the road right in front of our car, heartbeast, and a leopard. We stopped for lunch at the Serengeti visitor’s center. After lunch, we went to the hippo pool. There was also a crocodile there.

Because we ate lunch late, we had to start heading back to Ndutu lodge after lunch. By this time we were a few hours drive from our lodge and we hadn’t even made it to the far side of the Serengeti. On the way back, we saw more zebra, elephants, lions, and heartbeast, and we saw a live hyena. 

Thursday 6/20

We had to pack up everything to leave this morning because we weren’t coming back to Ndutu again. After breakfast, we loaded up the trucks. Rebekah and I went in Kakasii’s car. Right after we left the lodge, we saw a family of hyenas with babies. Soon after that we saw warthogs, a jackal, and a secretary bird. We went back to the rim of the crater and started our descent in. It was a little frightening for those in our group who didn’t like heights. Once we reached the floor of the crater, we saw wildebeest, cape buffalo, gazelle, and zebra. We saw a hyena with two babies that was trapped by safari vehicles near a pond. They were crying to each other trying to figure out how to get out. We saw some sort of snake hidden in a tuft of grass. We saw two hippos out of water lying in the grass.

It was very cold in the morning, but we expected it to warm up by lunch. It didn’t. We stopped for lunch by a pond. There was a lion nearby that some other people went to see, but I don’t think anyone in our group walked over there. I bonded with a stranger outside the bathroom about how cold it was because he was wearing a hat and mittens. I was a tad jealous because I only had a rain coat and was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

When we continued on from lunch, we saw a very large herd of zebra and wildebeest. We drove toward the other side of the crater and could see our lodge up on the rim. We drove past a vehicle that had broken down and stopped to help. The passengers of the other vehicle were standing outside smoking cigarettes and drinking cans of beer (Kilimanjaro Lager) waiting for their car to be repaired so they could continue on their way. We kept going a little further to see black rhino. These are rare in the crater, and they were too far in the distance for me to get a decent picture. We sat and watched them for a while, but they didn’t come any closer.

After this, we started our ascent out of the crater. Along the way, we saw some Maasai with camels. When we had turned on the road to our lodge and were maybe a minute from the gate, we saw an elephant on the side of the road. That was a pleasant surprise. When we arrived at the lodge, we discovered that they had a huge balcony along the entire length of the restaurant/lounge/lobby area that looked over the rim of the crater. We discovered that we also had a crater view from our room. If we sat on our beds and looked out our window, we couldn’t see anything but the crater floor because we were that close to the rim.

Dinner was a buffet with really good food. After dinner, we didn’t stay in the lobby area very long because it was so cold. Rebekah and I both went to bed fairly early. 

Friday 6/21

I set my alarm to wake up to see the sunrise over the crater, but when my alarm went off, I saw that it was too cloudy and foggy to see it. It was hard to even see the trees under our window outside because it was so foggy. After a delicious breakfast buffet, we loaded up the vehicles again. Rebekah and I went in Peter’s truck with the other young people. We drove away from the crater and out through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area gate that we had come through on the way in. Our first stop was at the T-Shirt Shack, a little round building that sells t-shirts and other souvenirs.

Our next stop was Kakasii’s home in Arusha. We met his wife, Brenda, who is from Nebraska, and his two and a half year old twins, Ellie and Max. We had soft drinks there and visited for a little while, and then we continued on to our lunch destination: Arumeru River Lodge. We invited Peter to sit with us but he said he couldn’t because he knew he was going to have to say goodbye to us in a few hours and he needed to think about what he was going to say to us. We had a nice buffet at Arumeru and then continued on to Moshi. We returned to Lutheran Uhuru Hotel in Moshi. We ate a buffet dinner at El Rancho after having some time at the hotel. We had to unpack from safari and repack for our trip to Bukoba, and then we went to bed.

Check out the pictures below, and a post of our trip to Bukoba will be coming soon!

Natalie