Day 127 - Travelling to Ngorogoro Crater

We woke up at 6am to our alarm with the good intentions of exercising, however at 6am it was still very dark & the threat of snakes plus the warmth of our sleeping bags stopped us.
We did get up at 6.30am to brave the semi warm showers & eat a breakfast of baked beans & eggs on toast.
By 8am we were on the truck & headed into the town to stock up on alcohol, toilet paper, water & snacks for the next 2 nights in the wilderness of the serengeti. On our way back to camp we stopped off at a tanzanite store & local art gallery. The art in Africa is astounding ! I'm hoping we find a special piece at the end in Capetown & I've got my eyes on some woven baskets with paint & bead work patterns.

Once we arrived back at the camp we broke down our tents, ate lunch & organized a small day pack for the next 2 days & 2 nights in the serengeti. We have replaced the truck, our guide, driver & cook for a smaller safari jeep & a new driver/guide called Ally or the Serengeti Master.
We set off at 1.30pm. Tom & I were joined in our jeep by Natalie & Philip, another couple we've met & quickly befriended and a lady Called Noiria from Uraguay.

All of a sudden the windscreen disappeared behind a wall of black &yellow insects, a split second we realised they were bee's & the speed of our car had buffeted them off the windscreen, along the sides & into the back window which was open!
Thankfully, of the hundreds we saw on the windscreen, only about 7 made it in before the window was slammed shut. 1instantly stung Philip on the arm which made him a moving target for the others. Natalie & I have never laughed so hard! The look of panic on his face while he jumped around in his seat becoming airborne & swatting them away was incredibly comical. 2 of them were squished, while another 2 were caught & released out the window, which left 2 unaccounted for. Thankfully they never appear, realistically phillip probably squished them while jumping around.
The rest of the drive went by extremely quickly, on the roadside we saw many people of the maasai mara, wearing the bright coloured tribal clothing, shaved heads, beaded necklaces, spears & face paint. We were told a lot of the young men wearing the face paint were on the way
to their ceremonial circumcision & that this is the tribe that still practices female genital mutilation, even though it is local. 

As an extra optional activity, we had the chance to go into a traditional Maasai Mara village to see their huts & tribal dances. Tom & I decided not to, especially not for US $20 each, for a 45 minute interaction. I did briefly wonder if we would regret this decision but after the feedback from the people who did go, we would regret this decision but after the feedback from the people who did go, we are happy with our decision. Everyone who's opinion we asked said it had a fake feeling to it, was very touristy, choreographed, not authentic & there was some scepticism about the people actually living there.

We drove for 3 hours & arrived at the new campsite. We were thrilled to see comfortable lush green grass in comparison to the dusty, dry land we slept on last night. Our tents were already up which was fantastic & even better was the revelation of no chores tonight!
We had a couple of hours free till dinner & proceeded to open a bottle of red with Natalie & Philip, while the chatting from the car ride continued.

We had a fantastic dinner of pumpkin soup, vegetable stir fry & some fish that the cook made especially for the people who were vegetarians or wouldn't eat red meat. The other people ate a plain looking spaghetti bolognese. I was internally amused when a lot of them complained that there meal wasn't as nice as ours, despite the fact we had received multiple, loud obtuse comments in the truck about vegetarians & filthy looks. I had one person today who was talking to me about photography & we were sharing a few photos & experiences, before his wife placed down a plate of spaghetti in front of him & acknowledged that I was vegetarian "so don't sit next to her" at which point he said "ewww your vego, why am I talking to you ?" Before laughing. I audibly sighed and rolled my eyes.

Not 1 day on tour in Africa or Egypt has gone past without 1 snide comment.
It's really sad, pathetic, superficial & shows an obvious lack of education & perspective that we would be demonised for not eating animals. It's starting to get really old & my patience is wearing thin. If we decide not to eat animals flesh for multiple reasons such as our health, our morals, ethical beliefs that affect animals & the farmers, vanity, the sustainability of the environment, financial gain, the abhorrent practices of factory farming & the waste of meat & essentially life, how does that affect anybody else ?

We found out that today the cook had tried 3 markets to try & find a vegetarian meat alternative for us & the other vegetarian girl in the tour. It's really nice they have gone to such an effort to make our meals nice & as a minority we havent just had to miss out or eat plain rice etc.

After dinner, it was pretty much straight into bed. It's an early breakfast at 4am & a big day tomorrow. We were tucked into bed by 8.40pm & Tom was snoring by 9pm, while I hurried to finish this entry. Overall a pretty boring day, hopefully tomorrow makes up for it!
-Alli

Day 126 - Kenya To Tanzania & Camping At Arusha

It's finally day 1 of our tour!
We were packed, fed & ready to go in the lobby by 8am, of course the truck was late & did not turn up till 8.30am. The weather is 10 degrees & overcast, looking very miserable which is the opposite of how we felt. We stowed our bags & hopped on the truck, taking our first seat placements 2nd last from the back of the bus. We have just over 300km's to travel today & a border crossing into Tanzania.

The first half of the drive goes by quickly, I fell asleep shortly after we left Nairobi. I was so exhausted after my terrible sleep the night before. When I awoke we had about 60km's till we got to the border, the sun was shining & it was lunch time! Happy days. Everyone dove in to help set up & before long we had all eaten sandwiches & watermelon.
After lunch we again helped to clean up the dishes & pack up the food & utensils. Crossing the border was a bit of an unorganized mess, typical of African borders. We had to get our large bags out from under the truck & go through security, but not our small bags. Then we filled out an arrival card & went to the first window to get a stamp out of Kenya, this window was in an awkward demountable office in the hallway. After this we turned right & went to the second window where our yellow fever certificates were checked. Window 3 was to the left & down a corridor where we handed over $50 US each. This seemed to be the longest process, the printer took a frustratingly long time to produce our receipts.
After this we went back down the way we came to window 4, located behind the demountable office of window 1, where we finally got our stamps into Tanzania, collected our bags & walked back to the truck on the Kenya side through the same door we entered. If that was confusing to read, imagine how we felt trying to make sense of it & go to the right place. Haha T.I.A. - This Is Africa.

The landscape is starting to look like East African wilderness. The soil is a deep, exotic red. In the distance we can see a mountain range, a subtle reminder that Tanzania is home to the 1st & 3rd largest mountains in Africa. There doesn't seem to be much grass, but there is lots of green shrubs, tufts of weeds with white flowers & those tree's that have a flat top that looks like a man ran over the tops of them with a hedge trimmer. I think they might be called Acacia's.
 On the smaller trees, devoid of leaves we can see hundreds of round bird nests bobbing in the breeze. We see very few dwelling's that look like houses, instead we see huts & of course the shanty dwellings. We see lots of people shepherding herd's of goats, cows & sheep. We haven't yet seen any wild animals of Africa, though I have no doubt they are just out of sight.

In Tanzania we start to see people, mostly women, wearing traditional tribal attire. They have shaved heads, pierced ears with very loud, dangly earrings & are wearing striped, checkered & geometric lengths of material that they wrap around their bodies in layers, entirely different to the saree's of India. Most of the people in the small villages & along the road seem happy enough & wave at us. In one village on the Kenyan side I saw a group of men spitting at the bus & flipping us the bird.... I can't help but feel sorry for the way of life over here & how little they have. I can understand how they must resent foreigners sticking our privileged nose into their business.
After crossing the border into Tanzania, we were debriefed on the United republic of Tanzania & how it was formed from 2 countries, the island of Zanzibar & the formerly known land of Tanganyika.

They gained independence only very recently in 1962 & are only currently on their 5th president. Our guide warns us that Tanzania is a dodgy country & we need to take precautions. He doesn't really elaborate at this point in time, Aside from being dodgy, it has 125 recognized tribes & is the only place in the world where the precious mineral known as Tanzanite can be mined.
He told us that in the next 3 years it will be completely gone. Luckily when I went to Africa back in 2013, I splashed out & brought an ethically mined tanzanite ring, set with diamonds from kilimanjaro in platinum gold. At the time it was quite expensive & still to this day remains to be the most expensive thing I've brought, including my old car. It's one of my most cherished possessions & one day it will be my something blue when I get married & hopefully a family heirloom.

Just before 4pm the truck slows down, up ahead crossing the road is a large Male giraffe. Our first wild African animal sighting! This is why we love Africa. It's good to be back! As we get closer to our stop for the night, we drive through a village & see a few houses that I would actually call mansions & field's of plants that our guide explains are coffee. The fields of coffee plantations continue on as a constant sight out the window as we drive into the town of Arusha. Our stop tonight is at the Snake Park tourist camp, in the town of Arusha.

We all pile off the bus & are given an instructions & a demonstration on how to put up our tents. Pretty standard for us, but it's a first for many. Once our tents are set up & the truck is unloaded, we are given free time before dinner. There is a bar & a collection of reptiles in enclosures out the back, giving credit to its name. We have a look around while enjoying a local beer called Kilimanjaro. We see 6 crocodiles of various sizes, 2 different species of monitor, a chameleon, some tortoise, a goshawk, pigeons, a barn owl & a vulture. The biggest attraction were the glass cages full of snakes. We saw Egyptian cobra's, black & green mamba's, spitting cobras, boomslang's, different types of Vipers & some rather large pythons, just to name a few. After checking out the animals we went back to the bar to sample the local beers called Kilimanjaro & Serengeti, the red wine & played darts with 2 other couples we've met.

- Alli

Day 125 - Meeting our tour group

Today we say goodbye to our Nairobi family & leave the guesthouse. We have 1 nights accommodation booked through the tour company, at a hotel in the city. This means all the members of the group can gather in one place & have the pre tour meeting the night before.
We had all our bags packed & ready to go by 2pm & piled into a taxi that George organised. We hugged everyone while liesa the 3 year old started howling... poor thing. I think shes going to miss us.
We were a bit surprised when George hoped into the front passenger seat & accompanied us into the city to make sure we didn't get lost or ripped off. There was some small confusion when the taxi driver took us to the Kenya Comfort Suites, instead of the Kenya Comfort Hotel.

Once we had checked in, we thanked George once again for everything & said our last goodbye of the day.
It was about 3.30pm at this stage & we were in need of a beer & food that we were hoping to sneak in before 5pm when the meeting started.

Unfortunately the food didn't come out till just before 5pm & we had to get it in a take away bag. We met our guide who's name is Jurumba (I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling or if he has a longer name)  & he is a local Kenyan. The group that attends the meeting is about 10 people, mostly our age from Germany, America & Australia. We are told that there are more people arriving overnight & in the morning we will meet up with a few more people already on tour who have been in Uganda. 

 Making our group about 25 in total. The people who arrived overnight are from Lithuania, are over the age of 50 & not overly friendly or keen to start conversations or introduce themselves.

The meeting goes for 1 hour & is pretty straight forward with no big surprises. We are delighted to find out that the tour now provides mattresses to sleep on, which is a bonus for us & an upgrade from 2013 when you had to provide your own. I feel a bit jibbed that I've been carrying around a blow up mattress in my pack this whole time in preparation for camping in Africa. It's been an absolute pain in the bum & takes up 1/4 of my pack space... oh well. Another upgrade is the facilities at each campsite now have a toilet, showers, bar & charging stations. Year's ago I remember going days with none of those things. The tourism industry must be going really well.

After the meeting we eat dinner & Tom goes back down to the bar to make friends while I pamper myself with a face mask & wash my hair. At 9pm I try to go to bed after reading a few chapters of my book, but I can't quiet my brain. There is a night club in a building across the road on the 3rd floor, directly across from our window which is also on the 3rd floor. They are playing some 90's RnB

so loudly the window frame is rattling & there is a genuine risk the bassline could interfere with my hearts rhythm. Ear plugs & even my own calm music listened through head phones does little to block it out. It is slightly turned down at 12am which is also the time Tom appears back in the hotel room.
At 1.30am, I am still wide awake. In addition to the music I can hear drunk people on the street yelling & fighting, while next to me Tom is giving me his best wart hog impersonation with every inhale.
I give up on sleep & continue reading my book. Tomorrow can't come soon enough.

- Alli 

Day 121, 122, 123, 124 - Nairobi, Kenya

Nairobi,
After finishing our tour in Egypt, we had always planned to have a break between tours, particularly because the overland Africa tour is nearly 50 days long,  full of camping, adventure & not enough sleep.

Our accommodation in Nairobi is in a gated community guesthouse, about 10 minutes drive from the airport. The Guesthouse is owned and run by a couple called George & Caroline who have 2 kids called Juliet, the same age as me &  Leisa who was 3. They also had  a worker called Monica that lives with them, who was an excellent cook!
We had a lot of catching up to do in regards to sleep, personal admin such as the budget, blog & sorting the thousands of photos that we took in Egypt.
We intentionally didn't want to do much in Nairobi, the only big attraction that we considered doing was a local wildlife park that we had previously emailed about volunteer opportunities, which they unfortunately do not do.

We did go to a local supermarket with Monica to buy some groceries and a bottle of wine so that we could cook a nice vegetarian dinner for the family. Being  vegetarian and  atheist's was something very strange & unfathomable for the Kenya family. Over dinner's we had many discussions about economics, politics, religion, culture & various problems that each country faces. It was a great way to get some local knowledge & insight.

- Alli

How to open a wine bottle with no bottle opener ;) 

                            The vegetarian meal we cooked the family; garlic bread made with fresh garlic, seasoned & roasted pumpkin, honey mustard pasta salad & a warm potato & egg salad with beans.

                   Saying goodbye to Leisa, she was initially very shy but cried when we left.