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
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
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