3rd – 4th – Coming home

I ended up spending the day at the lodge and I took my own taxi to the airport, so it was sitting in the bar and spending time on reading and using the wifi. The trip the airport went better than last time; this driver did not run anyone over this time. What a relief.

The flight hone went well, too. Apparently, when sitting at the emergency exit you are not even allowed to sit reading during take-off and landing. Fair enough – closed the book and put it in the lap, but noo… Not even that was allowed. Nothing in hands nor laps during take-off and landing. I know that you have to be more aware when sitting at the emergency exit but this was taking it to the extreme, I think. Anyways, I made it home safely and another trip was successfully concluded.

Big thanks to our guides Patsie and Moses, and my fellow group members Monika, Daniel, Vince, Kyra, and Emily. It was an amazing trip (might be biased due to the sightings…) and I hope to get the chance to see you all again!

2nd – In the crater on the last day

As we would be leaving the crater at mid-day we departed earlier than usual. Breakfast was served at 0600 and departure when possible which ended up 40 minutes later. Getting out of the tent at around 0520 the sky was clear and you had – for once – an unobstructed view of the stars and Milky Way. Less than 10 minutes later it was all covered by a dense cloud cover. The sunrise was similar; beautiful colors and contrasts to start off with, and moments later it was all covered by clouds.

We drove off to the crater and before reaching the rim we came through several cloudy passages. After an hour, though, the sun had burnt through and the weather turned beautiful. We left mid-day and came back in Arusha 4 hours later where we checked back into the lodge.

We ended up seeing a rhino but unfortunately from a bit of a distance. We saw some lions, a lot of birds, zebras, wildebeests, buffalos and elephants. One saw a cheetah sneaking into some tall grass close to a herd of zebras, but they moved away before anything interesting could have happened. On the way out of the crater we saw 2 wildebeest fighting each other – that was a nice sighting to finish of an amazing safari.

Last time I visited the crater they had app. 25 rhinos. Now they have around 18; only 1 of them was poached, one died of natural causes and the last have been moved to other locations.

Tomorrow is spent on doing nothing; people are departing so they are picked up throughout the day to be brought to their next destinations. I have a flight at 2050 and another have one a few hours earlier – I might decide to join him to the airport; waiting there will probably not be much different from waiting at the lodge.

The zebra keeping a watchful eye on a lion passing by.

Rhino!

Grey crowned crane.

Two grey crowned cranes flying by.

Abdim's stork.

African sacred ibis.

Hippy keeping an eye out.

Yellow green vireo (I think...).

Speeke's weaver.

Pelicans.

Pelicans competing in the not-so-known discipline "Synchronized landing".

Great egret.

It's hard to see on the photo but these elephants were massive.

Close up.

Our last sighting in the crater; two wildebeest having a go at each other.

28th – Transfer to Arusha

Skipped breakfast this morning due to last night and at 0730 we were southbound towards the Tanzanian border. Having driven a couple of hours we arrived and after a slow moving queue to get our departure stamps on the Kenyan side we walked across to the Tanzanian side. Here, fir the first time ever, I had to show my vaccination card to confirm that I had had my yellow fever shot before getting my Tanzanian visa which was handled surprisingly fast.

At around 1230 we arrived at the Outlook Lodge in Arusha, our place to stay until leaving for our drives tomorrow. It was the same place as back in 2010 and it brought back memories. Nothing had really changed since then.

We had lunch and shortly after two guys of the remaining 4 of the group also arrived. Getting the share my room (and therefore also tent) now. We had a walk into Arusha but concluded that unless you enjoy being hassled by street vendors and other similar entities who don’t accept no for an answer, Arusha is not a very interesting city. As I said; nothing has really changed since my last visit.

As planned we had our meeting at 1800 where we got to meet everyone, and after dinner we relaxed at the bar and got to see an acrobatics show before crashing. And, if I’m not mistaken, that could also be classified under the “nothing had really changed”-column.

Tomorrow we will be departing at 0745 to visit a village and do a drive in Lake Manyara NP.

24th - Going to Kampala

People drive in the left side of the road in Tanzania.

This part of my trip deserves its own post. Not because of the flights (Kilimanjaro -> Nairobi, waiting 3 hours and then Nairobi -> Entebbe), the taxi drive to the hotel or the waiting game at the airport. Not because of the mentioned, but because of the first five minutes from leaving the lodge in Arusha. The taxi picked me up at 0600, and when leaving the gravel road where the lodge was located and going onto the paved road, it happened. Ever since I arrived in Africa I have been surprised how crazy people drive without any accidents happening. People drive aggressively, but not angrily, which might be part of the reason why things are the way they are.

Anyway, leaving the gravel road in darkness, the driver looks very briefly to the right, after which he looks to the left, and not seeing anyone, he begins pulling out and turning to the right. At that moment a very dark shadow enters my vision from the right – a guy on a bicycle. He got bigger and bigger, and I thought it was my depth of vision screwing with me (very early, and not much sleep as we were staying quite late at the bar last night to say our goodbyes with the group) until I heard a loud thunk. What did the driver do? Still looking left, he didn’t brake, he actually tried to speed up. This resulted in that the poor biker went up on the hood, across the windscreen and over and down on the ground down behind me on the left. The driver swore, completed his turn, and then hesitated just long enough for me to suspect that he would have continued if I hadn’t been there. Fortunately he pulled over and left the car – and checked the front first. He then went over to the biker, and came back a couple of minutes later, which felt like hours. He drove on and when asked he said that the biker was fine. Maybe he was, but he could just as well have given him a bunch of money so that he’d keep his mouth shut or something. Or just given him a whack on the head to get him to stop complaining for all that I know. Fun morning!

The really fun part is that 5 minutes later he almost pulled off the same stunt again – the biker did stop by himself this time so nothing happened, all while my driver was looking to the left.