Spider on the Road

Lodhi Gardens, Delhi

2009-04-20T17:32:00.001-07:00

November 8, 2008

So, following our plan that we visit some of Delhi's more peaceful spots today, we next had Raj drive us from Humayun's tomb to the sprawling Lodhi Gardens, an oasis of lawns and trees in this busy city.

According to guide books, Lodhi Gardens was originally the site of two villages surrounding monuments surviving from the 15th century Sayyid and Lodhi dynasties, but the villagers were relocated in 1936 in order to create the gardens, which ere landscaped by the British. As there is little architecture from these two periods remaining in India, Lodhi Gardens is an important place of preservation. The tomb of Mohammed Shah is visible from the road, and is the earliest structure in the gardens.

Here Jeff and I saw , as well as ancient Indian tombs, a very helpful series of signs which identified the birdlife we saw in this area (cuckoos and mynah birds!), children playing cricket, and long lines composed of hundreds of school children of all ages, who waved and shouted hello at us as we passed one another along the pathways.

As well as being a pleasant place to walk, the Lodhi gardens finally gave us an opportunity to photograph those chipmunks who had eluded our cameras so skillfully back at Humayun's tomb.

Humayun's Tomb

2009-04-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

Once a burial ground for the Moghul emperors of India, the site known as Humayun's tomb in Delhi eventually became a park for the British colonials. To me it felt like pleasant uncrowded place to wander on a warm day. I did not write much of its history in my journal, but these are the things impressions that stuck with me.
Ancient tombs white marble, deliciously cool to wander in. Old men sweeping the tombs with long wispy brooms.
Stone lacework on the arched windows. Tiny staircases and passageways to explore. Views over the lawns of the park gardens.
Dogs sleeping in the sun. Dusty palm trees and long pathways along tiny channels of water that led to small fountains. An enormous water-bug. Chipmunks scurrying everywhere.

Breakfast and Bird-Watching on the Roof

2009-04-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday, November 8, 2008

The prospect of exploring India seems so much more exciting and palatable after a night's sleep and a breakfast spent bird-watching on the rooftop patio.

We watched large hawks chase pigeons through the maze of buildings around us, dive-bombing low over our heads as they chased their prey. A large eagle of some sort glowered from its perch on a nearby hotel sign. There were some small green parrots playing on the roof across the street (like the ones in the photo below which we took later on today), a few doves, and of course those ubiquitous little LBJ's (little brown jobs), tiny birds pecking for our toast crumbs.

A man from the hotel sat with us for part of our breakfast, pointing out attractions on the map and advertising the services of a car and driver which could be rented for a few hours or all day.

Since we were hoping for a relaxing day before the tour with Exodus started, and yet still wanted to see some things before leaving the city, we decided to hire the fellow, who was named Rajneesh (Raj for short). For under twenty dollars, we would have a guide and transportation all day in New Delhi in his little white car. Just for fun, I started counting the number of times Raj leaned on his car horn---32 times. And I think he might be conservative in that around these parts. :)

A Long, long Day:Leaving for India...and Arriving

2009-04-15T20:35:00.001-07:00

November 5, 2008

Isn't it strange that you can start a day leaving your own front door on one side of the world and end it eating curry from a rubble-filled kitchen thousands of miles away on the other side of the planet? And still be running on three hours sleep?This is the story of how Spider Girl and Jeff travelled to India and Nepal.

Well, it was actually our friends' front door that we left behind, and it was two days that felt like one long one that stretched and stretched in a blur of airports but the feeling is much the same.

We flew Air Canada from Vancouver to London Heathrow, departing British Columbia in the early evening and arriving about noon London time. Our plane was overbooked and we are just happy to get on even though our window seats have been usurped and we are stuck in the middle of the plane. After this ten hour flight, we feel pathetically grateful to have booked a Yotel room at Heathrow. The train tunnels from Terminal Three to Terminal Four are lit with a moody blue, and in our ship cabin-sized Yotel room we are greeted with more mood lighting, this time a soft, cocooning pink shade.

The shower is hot. The bed is soft. Somebody is drilling hammering something in the hallway doing renovations until we ask him for the love of all things holy: stop it. After that, all is bliss , and whatever we paid for this tiny room feels worth it, even for the mere four hours we have it.

Our next flight is on Virgin Atlantic to New Delhi, leaving a wintry London around ten o'clock at night and arriving in the sultry smog of Delhi about noon Indian time. Once again, we are seated in the middle of the plane but the little movie-playing screens on the back of the seats in front of us make the long flight more bearable. An ironic feeling to be flying over Afghanistan watching the movie "Sex and the City. Mentally thumbed my nose at the Taleban somewhere below.

As our plane came into the descent over Delhi an announcement came on that they were going to spray insecticide inside the cabin, but hey, not to worry, it's perfectly harmless. Well, except to the bugs---and oh---you better cover your eyes everyone.

And there went two or three crew members marching up and down the aisles, two cans of bug spray in each hand, merrily fumigating us where we sat. I finished sputtering on the fumes, and asked what kind of insects they were spraying for. "Oh, lots of different things! Anything!" came the cheery reply.

And so we arrived in India.

Delhi sweltered under a thick yellow-brown haze and 27 Celsius. The airport seemed relatively quiet compared to what I'd been expecting. No problems with customs or retrieving our bags. But the driver from our pre-booked hotel didn't show up at arrivals, so we shrugged and hired a car from the airport who would take us there for about twelve dollars (500 rupees). It was a good decision.

Riding in this little car with our driver in his crisp white uniform and cap was our first glimpse of India: and we had previouslythought there were adventurous (crazy) drivers in Italy!

We honked and wove our way through a chaotic sea of buzzing, roaring, weaving, erratic traffic: open-sided tuk-tuks with bare-footed drivers, motorcycles carrying sari-clad passengers riding elegantly side-saddle, buses, bicycles, cars sporting dents aplenty all obeying some universal code of the road apparently based on faith in the gods.

At one point we noticed two guys lying on their backs on the dusty, garbage-strewn highway median. They were reading books, and we theorized that they'd made it only halfway across before deciding it was safer to stay there a while.

Our taxi driver displayed a gold-coloured Ganesh elephant head on the dash and bobbed his head to Hindi pop tunes as he navigated his way into the narrow, dusty crowded streets of Karol Bagh, the congested neighbourhood where he eventually found the Rahul Hotel Palace--after asking twice for directions, once from a man carrying crates of chickens on his bicycle.

From our hotel (not so much a Palace really), the steady street sounds of honking horns and distant shouts gradually became a strangely soothing background as we relaxed and napped for five hours. There was no question of going for a relaxing walk around our street as we often do to unwind from a long plane trip in a new place. One, we really felt exhausted and ready to just sleep. Two, it wouldn't be relaxing to go for a walk here. I'll be honest and say that the noise and rubble and general ambience of Karol Bagh was not for the already-disoriented to deal with. It was intimidating .

Around eight in the evening we emerged from our room and used the hotel's free internet to send "we made it here safely" emails to all, and then up to the roof-top restaurant to dine on butter naan bread, spicy masala tea, and a huge bowl of butter chicken. The food was excellent, despite the fact that the open kitchen is literally heaped with rubble. Renovations perhaps, but it looked more like earthquake-recovery.

From the roof we had a good view of the busy street below. We also spied where extra mattresses and pillows were stored in the open air. Dust and pollution made the air feel curiously heavy to breathe.

The staff was friendly, but no, this was not a luxury hotel. On the one hand, our room had a beautiful marble floor and beautiful tasselled curtains; on the other hand it's a good plan to bring your own toilet paper sometimes. And we luckily did.

Lights off at midnight, ending our first day in India.

London Natural History Museum

2007-04-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

When in London, I highly recommend you pop out of the South Kensington tube stop and have a good long visit at the British Natural History Museum.

I had a fabulously interesting afternoon here today and Jeff and I vowed that we'd come back here again before we leave.

We had dinner at a little fish 'n' chips place called "Seasons" on Cromwell Road and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and catching up on laundry and email. Our B&B gives us free internet access: we love these guys! :)

St. Tommy's in London

2007-04-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Yesterday afternoon after finishing at Hillingdon Hospital and familiarizing ourselves with our new neighbourhood near Victoria Station, we finished up the day visiting the British Museum for the second time on this vacation (we visited the day before leaving for Nairobi).

Alas this time, as I wandered through wondrous artefacts and the stolen treasures of the place that is with good reason sometimes called the Attic of the World , I felt so under the weather and slightly nauseous I couldn't really appreciate the things I was looking at. Feeling like quite the party-pooper, I asked Jeff and his mom if they'd mind returning to the B&B.

Aside from another venture to the local supermarket called Sainsbury's for some groceries for dinner, that was it for me today.

The first photo on this page is the view from our room at the Luna & Simone B&B , a really nice place to stay. We were on the second floor. Jeff's mom had considerably more stairs to climb as her room was on the top floor, two flights up from us.

This morning Jeff's mom chanched the oozing dressing on my arm. I was rather glad I was travelling with a trained nurse as the job was almost impossible with just one arm. She noted that my arm was getting red and swollen above the burn and worried about the red line creeping above it towards my shoulder.

I decided that there was nothing for it but to seek out some antibiotics somehow and I went down to consult with the two friendly desk clerks about the best pharmacy to visit. Their names were Mark and Peter and I believe they were brothers who owned the hotel.

Their very helpful advice included:

*Don't go to the pharmacy without a prescription--antibiotics would be very expensive for a traveller. Instead go to the hospital. Especially as they noticed the ominous creeping red marks on my arm.

*They also recommended St. Thomas Hospital and gave me directions (take the #24 bus to Westminster Square area), starting from a very convenient bus-stop directly across from the Luna simone .

So, on a big red London double-decker bus I rode to yet another British hospital. This was the one where Heather's friend Muriel worked for years apparently, Jeff's mom told me excitedly.

St. Tommy's was directly across the river from Big Ben and the Parliament buildings so while I checked myself into Emergency, Jeff went for a walk to see the nearby sights.

After a short wait I was seen by the very noble-looking Dr. Abdul Said. He was a very thoughtful and soft-spoken doctor from Eritrea who observed that even though he was African he'd never get something like henna done in Africa. Sigh. Yes, in hindsight it seems rather dodgy.

It turns out as well as the second-degree burn, the henna had also given me a case of cellulitis/blood-poisoning. It was a good thing I returned to a hospital.

He was extraordinarily helpful and gave me an amazingly light plastic material to lay over the burn. It felt about a million times better than the rubber dressing.

Like the other hospital, he gave me a generous bag of medical supplies free of charge, as well as a antibiotic prescription that I got filled at a futuristic pharmacy downstairs with a complicated-looking robotic dispensing-arm that was displayed behind a plexiglass wall in the lobby. The sign said something about it being one of the few of its kind in the world. It reminded me of one of those perpetual motion machines at Science World.

The antibiotics cost me six pounds fifty--very inexpensive. Everything else was free. And they hadn't even seen my passport or my insurance or anything. I felt very grateful. From here on in, although my stupid arm continued to annoy me, I was no longer worried that it would become more serious.

Just for interest's sake I'll mention that a BBC film crew happened to be filming in the emergency room where I was, so who knows maybe one day I'll see myself in some obscure medical documentary. The photo here shows St. Tommy's with a double-decker bus crossing on the bridge in front of it.

Jeff and I left the hospital by noon (after a quick lunch in the hospital cafe called "Tom's") and ventured out into London. We could see five or more helicopters hovering in the skies over London from our vantage point near the London Eye.

Apparently we are here just in time for a major media event! There are 75,00 people gathered in Trafalgar Square today...after eighteen years England has finally won "The Ashes" trophy back from Australia! They get really excited about cricket around here. The British people we travelled with in Africa kept us quite up to date about the state of the matches the last two weeks.

Flying Nairobi to London and an English Ambulance Ride

2007-04-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 12. 2005

The four of us flew all night long from Nairobi to England.

I'd had such a good time in Africa, but now with my arm in pain all I wanted to do was leave it behind and get to England. It was a long and miserable flight. I felt tired and nauseous.

Drat it all, this was my thirteenth wedding anniversary and I didn't want to feel this bad. Sigh. My arm felt like a dead weight. I kept trying to peek under my bandages to see how high the blisters were getting. Jen asked to see, but got a horrified look on her face when she did.

The bright moment in this laborious flight was Jeff's mom presenting us with tickets for a Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in London for our anniversary present. It was a lovely surprise! I hoped fervently I'd be able to go to the show on the 14th.

We landed at Heathrow at around six-thirty in the morning. As usual there was a zoo of people milling around to get through passport control. We hurriedly waved goodbye to a few of our safari group (Andy, Pauline, and Graham) as we all hurried off in separate directions. While Jeff and Jen and their mom got in the enormously long lineup, I scooted off to see if I could spot someone to help me.

I approached an airport security fellow in an orange vest and meekly asked him if there was a way I could get some medical help.

It was amazing how fast things happened after he got a look at my arm and found out I was coming in from Africa.

We were all whisked to the very front of the passport line-up and our passports were barely glanced at. An ambulance was called. Apparently I was going straight from Heathrow to a nearby hospital.

The airport security fellow waited with my family for the ambulance to arrive. At one point he jokingly said, "Oh, don't worry luv, they'll just chop it off and it'll be fine." Alas, his attempts to cheer me up didn't go over well. I burst into exhausted tears. "Oh dear", he said, "Just a little gallows humour there. Sorry about that."

Around about this time Jen had to leave for her flight to Canada. She looked ready to cry herself when she gave me a hug. Geez, I was such a downer at this point in the holiday.

The airport fellow told us that he'd seen quite a few people in his time coming back from holiday from places like Spain with injuries of this sort. Black henna had a well-known bad reputation apparently--wish I'd known that. It was illegal in England, and lots of other places too.

Anyway, I got in the ambulance by myself as Jeff and his mom had to stay behind with our luggage and take a taxi to the hospital. I rode to Hillingdon Hospital in Middlesex with a very cute paramedic named Maurizio. He tut-tutted over my arm a little but did a much better job at cheering me up than the well-intentioned fellow at the airport.

He also told me that once on vacation his wife had wanted to get a black henna tattoo from some gypsies on the beach and he had talked her out of it fortunately. Maurizio grinned and said. "I'm going to go home and use you as a shining example of why I was right!"

I was still waiting in Hillingdon's emergency waiting room with a stack of British tabloids when Jeff and his mom found me. Ambulance rides are free for travellers in England, but taxi rides are fabulously over-priced. I cringed at how much they had paid for the short ride here.

A nice nurse named Claire Picton looked at my henna burn and pondered aloud how best to treat it. At last she decided the best thing was to drain the blisters and loosen the pressure. Jeff's mom wasn't so sure this was such a good idea (blisters protect), but I was wildly happy at the idea of getting rid of that horrible tight feeling.

When the blisters were opened it felt like somebody was pouring a large cup of warm water over my arm. Ugh. It felt better instantly but my arm wasn't going to win any beauty contests.

Heather brought out her camera and I asked her to please not take a picture for posterity. Now I wish I'd let her. The photo in this blog taken three weeks later is nowhere near as gory. At the time I really didn't think I'd want to look at that later, but it would have been an interesting souvenir of sorts---here's me on vacation in the hospital. :)

Next nurse Claire fitted some sort of awkward rubber-like sleeve over the burn and then re-bandaged it. She also gave me a big bag of sterile gauze, bandages and the like free of charge to take with us.

Unlike a Canadian hospital, they did not ask to see my identification, my insurance, or indeed anything. It was all free. Heh, except for the taxi ride.

We left Hillingdon by mid-morning and made our way by bus to an Underground station where we rode to Victoria Station. The Bed and Breakfast we'd reserved was apparently within walking distance and we set out to find it.

It was in walking distance but we'd come out the wrong exit of the station and got a little confused finding it. What should have been a ten minute walk was half an hour.

I'd never felt so glad to finally find a place in my life.

Leaving Zanzibar and Being Sick at Nairobi Airport

2006-12-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

Sunday, September 11, 2005

We were scheduled to leave our place on Nungwi Beach for the drive to Zanzibar Airport mid-morning.

That still left time for one last walk down the beach and the local lanes lined with bougainvillea bushes and grass-roofed buildings for some last minute souvenir-shopping. After all, we couldn't take Tanzanian money out of the country officially, so we might as well spend what we had left over.

Some bargaining at the little shop where I'd spotted the big blue tinga tinga painting with panels of animals the day before used up most of the rest of our money (about thirty dollars). I was really pleased with this purchase---and it rolled up nice and tight once the merchant removed it from its plywood frame.

Before we left our villa, we also retrieved our passports from the hotel safe. I'd had some reservations (okay, some paranoid thoughts) about the safety of leaving our valuables there because we'd heard that some nearby hotels had been held-up by robbers but it turned out fine.

As for my arm, it was not fine. As I said in a previous post, the black henna on my arm was quite distinctly causing a reaction. Its outline was red and raised and puffy. I told some other concerned members of our group that I just had sensitive skin and that I sometimes had skin reactions that could be taken care of with the allergy medication Benadryl. Unfortunately, the Benadryl was far out of its league. But at the time, I was still hopeful that the swelling would go down soon.

The airport was about an hours drive away. Oh my goodness, it was such a hot day! Probably the most heat we've felt since we arrived in Africa. We sweltered in the airport lounge while we waited for our 3:15pm flight to Nairobi.

Jeff's mom also had to talk Jen out of buying an elephant figurine in the airport giftshop, similar to one that Jen had seen before on the island and admired. Heather had to confess that, er, she was already getting one of those for Christmas. :)

As we took off from Zanzibar and climbed high above the island, I could see the beautiful blue and green jewel tones of the waters of the Indian Ocean from the air. Gorgeous!

But the very last picture I took in Africa (I took over a thousand) was the one on this page of the men clinging to the outside of the local matutu truck.

Our flight from Nairobi to London was delayed for a long time. It was supposed to leave shortly after eleven pm , but the plane did not take off for London until about one in the morning. It was an excrutiating wait for me. By this time, the black henna reaction was making me miserable and nauseous. I couldn't eat the food from the airport-coupons provided to us. My head ached. My arm was beginning to weep from the frighteningly high blisters that had sprouted all down my arm and hand.

The nurses in the medical unit of the Nairobi Airport were kind, and they tried to be helpful, but they had very limited medical supplies in their first-aid kit. All they could do was wrap my arm (in what seemed to be the last gauze bandages they had) and advise me to seek out a doctor immediately upon arrival in England.

We made a cash donation to the nurses towards replenishing the first-aid kit. Note to self: don't get sick or injured in Africa if you can help it. My experience visiting the Meserani Snake Park's little medical clinic had made me aware of that quite recently, but I hadn't planned on using the medical system at all here. In fact, almost all of us travellers had given away all our bandages, antibiotics, etc. to the Meserani clinic. I was lucky to be able to get one antibiotic tablet from Jo while we waited in the departure lounge. I suspected I might need it.

Last Night in Africa

2006-12-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Tomorrow we'll all be on planes heading for the British Isles. It's home for most of the people who have travelled with us on this trip to Kenya and Tanzania, and it will be my family's next stop on our vacation .

Travelling in Africa has been the most memorable trip I've ever taken, most likely one of the most life-enriching things I've ever done. If you ever get a chance, just go.

I'd definitely travel with Exodus Tours again as well. Excellent guides, great places, and we had the great luck of signing on to the same expedition as a great group of travelling companions.

We celebrated our last night of the trip by having an enormous barbeque on the beach, sitting at long tables on the soft sand and drinking and eating and talking until quite late.

The Henna Incident

2006-12-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

Saturday, September 10, 2005

WARNING: DO NOT EVER USE BLACK HENNA!

It is not the real plant-based henna which when painted on leaves a brown or reddish colour on your skin.

The black henna looks pretty but it is likely to contain POISONOUS dyes and chemicals and can cause SEVERE ALLERGIC REACTIONS in as many as one in ten ( not always on the first application which may only sensitize you to it, so if you have ever got one of these black henna patterns done without incident, please don't get it done again.)

Remember when I said the two dollars admission fee to the Mnarani Natural Aquarium was the best two dollars I ever spent? Well, this was the WORST three dollars I ever spent.

I got this done in front of my beach hotel in Nungwi, Zanzibar by a very nice local woman. She painted a very beautiful design. Unfortunately, this whole experience was a nightmare afterwards.

The design felt okay at first, but I had second thoughts about having done this almost right away, and tried to peel the henna paste off only ten minutes later (they recommend you leave it on for an hour). I ran up to the bathroom in our room and tried to wash it off, but as was common in our hotel the water was not currently working.

Fortunately they got the pump going withing the hour and I took off what I could. It still felt okay, but that inner little voice of mine was already telling me that this had been a bad, bad, idea. I tried to hush it. After all, I've had henna applied many, many times in my life and never had a problem: at bellydance parties in Canada, in the city of Marrakech in Morrocco. But that was real henna, not the black henna.

It was during the night (when my arm began to itch and burn) that I began to realize I was having an allergic reaction and by the time I was on the flight from Nairobi to England I was nauseous and the blisters were at least an inch high. I wouldn't have thought it possible for your skin to contain so much fluid...

Flashforward: This Black Henna resulted in visiting two hospitals over the next several days after I arrived back in London, England. I received a severe second-degree chemical burn which resulted in huge painful blisters and blackened tissue. My arm weeped pus for several weeks and had to be swaddled in a rubberized second-skin and bandages. I took antibiotics for the blood poisoning that occurred.

A year and a half later I consider myself very fortunate to not have a disfiguring scar. But I still have faint outlines on my arm where the black henna was painted on even now.

Yeah, don't do what I did on vacation, folks.

Snorkelling Trip

2006-12-23T13:09:00.000-08:00

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Jeff and his sister Jen (as well as a number of the group we travelled on safari with) decided to join a guided snorkelling trip offered by a local company.

They rented masks and flippers and headed out this afternoon on a dhow equipped with an outboard motor, although they used the sail most of the time.

They sailed out to a likely spot and then swam in clear shallow water (maybe ten or twenty feet deep) among brightly coloured tropical fish and coral. The guides offered the snorkellers some sort of bread to offer the fishes and some came and ate out of their hands, although Jeff said the fish disdained to come and eat his bread.

There was quite a strong current, however, so that although it was gentle enough that you could swim against it, one did have to swim constantly or the current would move you too far from the boat (or into the boat...Jeff mentioned he bumped into the boat a few times.)

Alas, it seemed that nobody brought an underwater camera so the only picture of the trip we have is that of the boat coming in at the end of the day.

The boat came right back to the beach in front of our hotel, but the heavy surf made the boat bounce up and down so much it was hard for people to climb out. Jeff was one of the lucky guys who got to climb into the water to try and hold the boat steady so the others could disembark. He was soaked.

An Afternoon By the Beach (While Jeff was Snorkelling)

2006-12-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Saturday, September 10, 2005

While Jeff was out snorkelling, his mother and I decided to stay landbound and explore the village a little more and perhaps do a bit of souvenir shopping. It was our last full day in Africa, so it was now or never if we wanted to do that.

Jeff's mom had a whole list of people to shop for, and she enlisted my help to bargain for better prices with the merchants. She hated haggling. I enjoyed it.

We haggled for her tinga tinga paintings, wooden elephant figurines, and carved salad tongs. All her Christmas shopping was going to be finished here and now.

Myself, I had my eye on a large tinga tinga painting that hung above the doorway of one of the open-air shops on the beach. It was painted in many small panels with whimsical animals in each and I really admired it, but the price was frightful--perhaps not for North American standards but it was certainly one of the most expensive paintings I'd seen. I decided I'd bring Jeff to see it later.

Meanwhile I contented myself with a small impressionistic zebra painting.

As well as shopping, we spent some time drinking good, strong African coffee in the little cafes. One of the cafes was run by a friendly British girl and I tried to imagine what it would be like running a small restaurant at the edge of the Indian Ocean. It was a nice little place.

We watched local women gathering the edible seaweed that blankets some sections of the beaches here. They carried it away on their heads in baskets and pails to eventually be sold (apparently) to the Japanese market.

We watched a man mending the thatch on the roof of a house, and met a couple of young boys and their monkey Ali. We passed by women sitting on the beach selling massage, braiding hair in corn-row braids, and painting henna patterns on visitors. I wish we hadn't seen those last ladies. I really do. "It would be fun for you to get that done", said Jeff's mom, "since you didn't get it done in Stonetown."

Sigh, I wish (I REALLY wish) I hadn't gotten it done here either.

It was a beautiful day, but I made a bad mistake (thankfully right at the end of my time in Africa). This brings me to the Henna Incident...... well, first let me tell you about Jeff's snorkelling trip.

Lunch with a View

2006-12-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Ah, another morning and lunch in a paradise of sea and sky colours.

Life in Zanzibar feels slow and sunny and lazy.

Sunset Beach Walk with a Rising Tide

2006-12-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005

Tonight, accompanied by a beautiful sunset, the four of us walked up the beach to dine at a restaurant that had a broad deck built on stilts over the ocean.

Very delicious. Very relaxing. There were margaritas involved.

Walking here, we had realized that the tide was already merrily climbing the beach and so we had brought flashlights so we could make our way back to the villa by the dirt road that ran in front of the restaurant area.

After dinner, as night fell, we ended up being glad we could lend a flashlight to friends of ours who suddenly realized they would be stumbling down the alleyway in the dark otherwise.

On our way back we stopped in a tiny internet cafe where Jen was able to finalize plans to travel back home day after tomorrow. Jeff and his mom and I were travelling on to spend a week in London, but poor Jen had to head back to work early. It always amazes me that no matter where you are in the world, it's almost always possible to access the internet. It amazed me in a a small desert town in Morocco that had maybe three buildings, and it amazes me again on this little island off East Africa.

Baby Sea Turtles!

2006-12-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005

Here are some more pictures of our time at the Mnarani Natural Aquarium on Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar.

I think that for all of us holding the baby turtles was a highlight of the experience. Their little bodies were cool and leathery and they had the most serious expressions on their little freckled faces.

There were several sizes of young turtles wimming in separate basins or tanks, ranging in size from a shell maybe only two inches across to the plump youngsters we were holding.

The aquarium also kept a few small land tortoises, as well as a python from the local forest which was kept in a pen with a very large and resigned-looking cane rat.

Mnarani Sea Turtle Lagoon

2006-12-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005
The following information comes from a travel guide to Zanzibar, and illustrates where we spent a pleasant part of this afternoon, about twenty minutes walk down the soft white beach from where we were staying.

It also represents the best use of two dollars that I have ever spent. Thinking back on my vacation I wish I had donated more money than the entrance fee required to this project. Feeding seaweed to these amazing animals has got to be one of the experiences in my life I'll always remember:

Hawksbill turtles have traditionally been hunted around Zanzibar for their attractive shells, and green turtles for their meat. In 1993, with encouragement and assistance from various conservation bodies and some dedicated marine biologists, the local community opened the Mnarani Natural Aquarium (open 09.00-18.00 daily). In the shadow of the lighthouse ('Mnarani' meaning 'place of the lighthouse' in Swahili), at the northernmost tip of
Zanzibar Island, the aquarium was created around a large, natural tidal pool in the coral rock behind the beach. Originally set up to rehabilitate and study turtles that had been caught in fishing nets, the aquarium project expanded to ensure that local baby turtles were also protected. turtles frequently nest on Nungwi Beach, and village volunteers now mark and monitor new nests. The resulting hatchlings are carried to small plastic basins and small concrete tanks at the aquarium where they remain for ten months. By this time, they have grown to ten inches and their chances of survival at sea are dramatically increased. All bar one of these turtles are then released into the sea, along with the largest turtle from the aquarium pool. The one remaining baby turtle is then added to the pool ensuring a static population of 17 turtles. In September 2005 (when we were there), this equated to four hawksbills (Swahili: ng'amba), identified by the jagged edge on their shell, sharper beak and sardine diet, and 13 seaweed-loving green turtles (Swahili: kasakasa). The aquarium manager, Mr. Mataka Kasa, keeps a log book detailing all eggs, hatchlings and releases. On June 5, 2005, the sanctuary released its first tagged turtle, as part of a worldwide monitoring programme. In spite of the aquarium being little more than a glorified rock pool, it's fascinating to see the turtles at close quarters. further, the money raised secures the project's future, and goes towards local community schemes--in a bid to demonstrate the tangible value of turtle conservation to the local population. With luck, this will lessen the trade in souvenir shell products and ensure the species' survivial. On a practical note, the water is clearest about two hours before high tide (Swahili: maji kujaa).

Along with the turtles, the other photographs show the schools of mullet fish swimming in the rock pool. They skimmed the water's surface in tight formation making little synchronized kissy-faces with their bright white mouthes as they swam along.

Nungwi Beach

2006-12-17T15:53:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005

Here are more pictures of the Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar.

The area is known for its hand-crafted fishing boats which are a common sight here out on the water or moored in small groups close to the shore.

As you can see, there were very few tourists down at this end of the beach (close to the lighthouse and the Mnarani aquarium). The sun-bathers and tourists (Zanzibar seems to be a popular destination for Italian-speaking travellers) mostly stayed about a half hours walk in the other direction down the shore, in an area populated with thatched-roof restaurants and bars.

But here was only sand, seaweed, wave-sculpted coral rock and people hauling fish in to shore.

Villa on Zanzibar

2006-12-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005

This is the villa we stayed at while staying just outside the village of Nungwi, in the north of Zanzibar.
It was actually part of a small sixteen-room resort called Smiles Beach Hotel, but I just preferred to think of it as a little tropical villa. It really felt like paradise...well, when the water was running anyway.

Jeff and I stayed in the room on the right-hand side of the upper storey, and Jen and her mom stayed in the room next door to us. Anne-Dorte had one of the rooms downstairs.

The room had enormous heavy wooden furniture and a bed that could be draped with mosquito netting.

And an ENORMOUS bathroom that you could sometimes turn the water on and have a shower in. Water shortage notwithstanding, it still felt quite elegant after our recent time in tents. (Yes, even after a couple nights in Stonetown, I was still appreciating sleeping in a bed again.)

Our room had a balcony and walking down the stairs led you to a white sand path. Following the path led you past coconut trees (boy, it would really hurt if one of those babies landed on you) and bougainvillea bushes right down to the nearby beach.

It was not a very good beach for swimming because the tides brought the water right up to a concrete wall at the water's edge except for early in the morning and at nightfall, but there was some lovely warm sand and beach furniture to lie on if you were so inclined (I tried, but I'm just not a sun-bathing person after fifteen minutes or so).

However, I did have an excellently lazy session of just looking out to sea under the shade of a thatched-grass umbrella and contemplating my toes this afternoon for a while.

Life can be very good.

Nungwi, Zanzibar

2006-12-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 9, 2005

Today we travelled about two hours north from Stonetown, up a very bumpy rural road and past several police checks to the village of Nungwi on the northernmost tip of Zanzibar.

We arrived at our villa under skies threatening a storm. The clouds were deep blue and grey and cast an eerie and beautiful light.

The first thing we did upon arriving was go for a long beach walk and then found a beachside restaurant to have lunch. This was to become a pattern over the next two days: beach walks and eating at pretty oceanview cafes. The beaches of the North Coast are a pretty laidback place to be.

The sand is white and fine here, but the water is cloudy with seaweed. There are spiky black sea urchins in the water too. I am not immediately drawn to go wading and swimming as some people are in our group (they were barely out of our van before they had towels around their waists and were racing to the water), but I do love looking at the water and the local people fishing in their boats.

As usual, I am fascinated by all the beautiful little seashells I find as I wandered along the sand. Eventually I decided to put most of them back on the beach but before I did I photographed them. There are children selling larger and more exotic seashells on the beach too.

Sweet Easy and the Stonetown Night Market

2006-12-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Later this evening, we met up with Jeff's sister and mom and walked down to the beach front again.

There was a night market set up along the shore in a narrow park I later learned was known as the Farodhani Gardens.

Along with the jewellry and wooden-sculture merchants, there was a huge assortment of long tables which held smoking grills laden with seafood and meat kebabs. It was a noisy, crowded scene lit with glaringly bright lanterns and it smelled quite enticing.

But we had already decided where we were going to eat: at the Sweet Easy, an al fresco restaurant nearby which featured a delicious-sounding mix of African and Thai food. Some of our group had eaten there before and it came recommended. Some of the dishes arrived served in coconut shells.

As we had been out on the Serengeti on Jen's birthday, we decided to make this evening meal her official birthday present from us. :)

Sunset from the Africa House

2006-12-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

Before dinner tonight we all climbed the stairs to the patio of the Africa House one more time to see the gorgeous view of the sunset.

I drank Tanzanian ginger beer and saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life from up there.

Shells and Sugar and an Evening Walk Around Stonetown

2006-12-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

This was our last afternoon in Stonetown, so Jeff and I decided to go for a nice long walk by ourselves and get utterly lost.

(But first we stopped for ice-cream at a quiet little Italian-speaking ice-cream parlour just down the street from our hotel. It was dim inside, and painted a dingy pink.We were the only tourists in there, but the owner and a friend sat nearby watching African soap operas on the little television set behind the counter. Ice-cream first, exploration later...)

I've always found that wandering around a new place without a particular destination in mind is a good way to see things you might not ordinarily notice.

We decided that it might not be a bad thing to just wander around and not worried about getting lost. The town is small enough that you can usually find your way back to the beach eventually even if you do get turned around in the little narrow alleyways.

Away from the main streets Stonetown was far quieter and less touristy and vendors did not approach us.

There were lots of tiny open stalls along the streets selling all sorts of goods. The one most memorable sold hairy animal skins (I couldn't figure out what sort) in thick stiff bundles and various animal parts for "medicine".

Later, finding our way back to the main road by the beach, we saw fresh sugar cane for sale and had a walk along the shore where I picked up a number of tiny shells.

Henna After a Spicy Lunch

2006-12-16T20:12:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

After our spicy lunch, some of our group headed back into Stonetown to visit the bank because we are heading for the north of the island tomorrow and there will probably be little access to bank machines.

But a few of us (including me and Jeff, and Jen) stayed behind to watch Evelyn and Heather have a black henna pattern painted on their arm by a young woman in a gold and white headscarf who seemed to be related to our hostess.

Jen had the henna painted in a bracelet around her wrist and a small medallion on three fingers. Jeff's mom chose a long pattern that stretched from her thumb almost to her elbow.

Our hostess (who was quiet but friendly and a very good cook) sat on her living-room's floor (covered with many small carpets) and combed her three year old daughter Khaimat's hair. I know her daughter's name from seeing her "Happy Baby Nursery School" identity card which was lying on the low table. On her card, Khaimat wore a white headscarf as all female schoolchildren seem to do here.

(We saw crowds of school children on our way back into Stonetown today!)

Home-Cooked Lunch in Zanzibar

2006-12-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Lunch today was cooked for us at the home of our guide Hamid. In an small open dining-room off a sunny courtyard, Hamid's wife served rice and vegetables made with local spices and a main dish of cloved beef.

The walls were covered in whitewash from inside and out with a red aluminum roof. From outside Hamid's house, you could see no window but as soon as you crossed his doorstep (removing your shoes first), you realized it really need no windows as it was so open to the elements already. An electric fan cooled the eating area but today's sun was hot on our bare feet on the courtyard's cement floor, and the white walls were dazzling in the sunshine.

Off the main dining room, there was a smaller sitting-room with a table and cushioned benches, and behind a curtain was a tiny living-room with a couch, coffee table and a small television stand--not room for much else.

To the left of the courtyard a sheltered alcove housed the very simple kitchen, painted in bright turquoise blue. There was one other wooden door behind which was presumably a bedroom.

I love looking at other people's houses.

Coconut Trees and Funny Hats

2006-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Still at the Butterfly Spice Farm, we drank coconut milk fresh from the shell and nibbled on large chunks of the coconut meat.

Coconut undoubtedly tastes much better when they are not sweetened and shredded and processed. That much is certain.

But nice as they taste, coconuts seem a more dangerous fruit than most.

The fellows who hacked up the coconuts for us seemed utterly unconcerned for their own safety as they hacked and chopped at them with machetes, blithely pulling the knives up in arcs that came perilously close to their own faces.

As well, another man demonstrated the tricky task of scaling the coconut trees to pluck the fruits. Those trees are tall !

He wore a sort of fibrous strap between his ankles as a climbing aid, but that was all the safety equipment he had.

Our guide Ali said that he used to climb coconut trees as a job when he was a boy of twelve.

Question: Did he ever fall?

"Oh no!", said Ali with a belly laugh. "I would've been kaput!"

As well as good eating, the coconut tree leaves could be put to a variety of uses, including making funky bags and peculiar hats for the spice-tourists, as our friend Simon demonstrates.

James and his Frog

2006-12-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Early on our tour of the first spice farm, a local boy named James began to tag along with our group.

He was quite clever at plaiting grasses and had soon made a variety of little bracelets which he gave to some of the women in our group including me. We gave him some small amounts of coins in exchange.

James also wove a little frog from grass which became one of my favourite souvenirs of this trip to Africa.

I asked him what he was going to do with the money we'd given him and he cheerfully replied that he was going to save up for a watch and some new marbles. He pulled some marbles from his pocket and demonstrated his shooting technique on the red dusty path.

James and I chatted a bit more as he trotted along with the group, but he told us he had to be at school by one o'clock.

I happened to find a round, white and slightly battered Muslim hat in the grass and offered it to him. He seemed extremely pleased with it.

Zanzibar Spice Tour Part 2: Fruit and Tea

2006-12-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

The next stop on our spicy tour this morning was at the Butterfly Spice Farm where we sat on long wooden benches in the deep shade of a truly magnificent mango tree and ate a picnic of fresh fruits and herbal teas in tiny porcelain cups.

The three teas were lemongrass, ginger and marsala. We'd tried jackfruit earlier, but now we were offered chunks of fresh mangosteen, passion fruit, soursop, avocado, and a gloriously tasty pineapple.

Tasting that fresh pineapple made all other pineapples in my life seem pale and synthetic. All the fruits were delicious in fact, and I'm not really a person who seeks out fruit.

Some of the tastes (like the unlikely-sounding soursop) were completely new to me, but the familiar avocado (like the pineapple) was somehow more luscious here on this island. Everything was good to eat.

This farm had a little market stall where you could buy all sorts of souvenir baskets and jars of locally-grown spices, and in the nearby woods several clutches of baby chickens were herded peeping to and fro by their mothers.

Zanzibar Spice Tour Part 1:Vanilla and Cloves and All Yummy Plants

2006-09-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Our next stop in the Zanzibar countryside was down a rutted dirt road to a farm where many different delicious crops were planted.

Simple wooden fences and gates separated plots from one another and it was often hard for my botanically-untrained eyes to tell the undergrowth from a valuable plant or the regular grass from the sweet-tasting lemon-grass until I nibbled it. It was shady and cool underneath the canopy of trees upon which many of the viny plants grew.

We walked among stands of banana trees, sampled a piece of cinnamon bark right from the tree, and marvelled at the strong bite of a fresh ginger root.

There were so many plants to taste and smell: bright orange turmeric and a pepper-corn right off the vine, yummy caramom seeds, long hanging vanilla vines, the exquisite and tiny flowers of cloves, and arabica coffee beans green on the tree. A young boy climbed into a tree and brought down a sample of mace (nutmeg) for us.

One of the farm workers sliced up a jack-fruit for us. They hung precariously pendulous in fat groups from low trees. The fibrous flesh was slightly sweet and somewhat bland but pleasant enough.

What did it taste like? "It tastes like jackfruit", shrugged Jeff later when I asked him to describe it.

We were also introduced to a "lipstick" plant whose pulpy seeds could stain lips and fingers a bright orange. Jeff's mom modelled it for us.

As we sampled and smelled, a man carrying a basket with tiny jars of perfume for sale appeared and I bought a vial of jasmine scent.

A Tree Named Kodak

2006-09-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005
After leaving the Marhubi Palace (such as it was) behind, we drove further out from Stonetown into a very poor-looking rural area. We passed many old wooden shacks and small banana plantations.

We also saw many women walking along the side of the road dressed in very brightly coloured dresses and scarves--yellow, orange, green, red!

Back in Stonetown, the majority of women seemed to mostly dress in black robes with only a coloured head-veil, but the women in the country here could be seen as vivid exclamations of colour from a long ways away.

We stopped at one point to photograph a distinctive palm tree: its trunk had a pronounced squiggle to it. Ali laughed and said that this particular tree gets photographed so much that its nickname is "Kodak".

Some curious children watched as we took pictures.

Boat-Building Pictures

2006-09-07T17:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

These are some pictures from the beach right by the Marhubi Palace ruins where there were all sorts of wooden boats in various states of disrepair dragged up on the beach.

Several men were working among the enormous wooden ribs of one of the larger boats, but whether they were building or taking the boat apart further we couldn't stay long enough to tell.

Marhubi Palace Ruins

2006-09-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Back in our mini-vans, we all headed out of Stonetown toward the Marhubi ruins.

On the way, we passed the Livingstone House , of "Dr. Livingstone-I-Presume" fame. It's a tall red-roofed building with rows of shuttered windows that now serves as a tourist office but was first the house of a Sultan back around 1860, and then the starting point of the adventures of many missionaries and explorers. Dr. David Livingstone lived here before beginning his famous last trip into Africa's mainland.

Later on we briefly explore the Marhubi Palace ruins, which are the crumbled remains of where a sultan had "many com-fort-able times with the ladies", Ali informs us with a wink.

It burned down accidentally in 1899 and was used by the sultan's secondary wives. It was so ruined that it was hard to imagine what the palace might actually have been like, but one thing is for certain: it did not suffer from lack of bathrooms. Everywhere you looked, there were the remains of enormous stone pools and sunken tubs.

"Oh yes", said Ali, "And all the bathrooms were...ensuite". (nudge nudge, wink wink )

The Marhubi ruins were also notable for a rather pretty lily pond, a nearby nest of ginger and white kittens, an abundance of palm trees on the grounds, and a domed roof in one section of the building where sunlight poured magnificently through the circular holes in the roof onto...a dead bat being eaten by ants.

Stonetown Preschool and Soap Berries

2006-09-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Across the street from the monument to the slaves was a preschool bearing a Catholic name.

As a Canadian preschool teacher, I was very curious to see what an African school might be like. The front door was open and I could see the children sitting on the floor and hear voices as they repeated the teacher's words in singsong. Of course, they were not speaking in English.

Ali said that he thought that in this school Christian lessons were taught in the morning and Muslim lessons in the afternoon.

The playground was in sadly neglected condition. Broken swings and dangerous-looking broken metal things peeking out of the long grass appeared to the only equipment there. Back home, the licensing authorities are quibbling over the least silly infraction in our own wonderfully-equipped play-yard. They would have a bird if they could see the condition of this playground in comparison. It puts things in perspective certainly.

Another thing that made me pause was the list of children's rights painted on the side of the building, between the metal-barred windows without glass. Among others, it included the rights:

* To be Loved
* To be Educated
* To Not Be Beaten....

Yes, you know you're in a different culture when that last right is not just taken for granted.

**************************************

As we continued to walk through this neighbourhood in Zanzibar, our guide Ali plucked some berries from a tree at the side of a street and demonstrated at a little water-tap how soap berries were used.

They foamed up very nicely as shampoo does and smelled quite nice on my hands.

It was around this time of the morning that Jo rejoined our group. She had gone off to a nearby pharmacy to find antibiotics to treat her infected finger. (Somewhere along the way, she cut herself and her finger was now starting to look very sore indeed.)

She returned with a package of "Canesten" that they'd given her. Our Dr. Sarah was quite certain that a treatment for a yeast infection was going to be of little help and returned with Jo to the shop. This time they returned with penicillin. Ah, much better!

Zanzibar Slave Trade

2006-09-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

(More to be added to this post later..)

We visited a Christian church built on the site of a former slave market. The chrch's altar was once the location of the whipping post. Zanzibar was once the awful hub of slavers selling people into captivity.
Nearby, at the art gallery where I purchased the tinga tinga paintings, steps in that building led down to a dank basement with low-ceilinged stone rooms hung with chains where slaves were kept in horrible crowded conditions before being sold. Up to seventy or so were jammed into a room where twenty could not stand comfortably.

It was not thought important if some of the captured people died because it was believed that the surviviors would be the fittest and most valuable for sale anyway.

Near the church on a small lawn was a sculture set into the ground to commemorate the memory of the slaves: five human figures carved in stone and chained at the neck.

Following is a very brief history of the ending of the slave trade in Zanzibar, borrowed from a website:

In 1822, the Omani Arabs signed the Moresby treaty which amongst other things, made it illegal for them to sell slaves to Christian powers. So that this agreement could be monitored, the United States and Great Britain established diplomatic relations with Zanzibar, and sent Consuls to the islands. However, the slaving restrictions were largely ignored, and the trade continued to kill and imprison countless Africans.

Caravans started out from Bagamoyo on the mainland coast, travelling as much as 1,000 miles on foot as far as Lake Tanganyika, buying slaves from local rulers on the way, or, more cheaply, simply capturing them. The slaves were chained together and used to carried ivory back to Bagamoyo. The name Bagamoyo means 'lay down your heart;' because it was here that slaves would abandon hope of freedom.

Slaves who survived the long trek from the interior were crammed into dhows bound for Zanzibar, and paraded for sale like cattle in the Slave Market.

All of the main racial groups were involved in the slave trade in some way or other. Europeans used slaves in their plantations in the Indian Ocean islands, Arabs were the main traders, and African rulers sold prisoners taken in battle. Being sold into slavery was not a prisoner's worst fate - if a prolonged conflict led to a glut, the Doe tribe north of Bagamoyo had the rather gruesome habit of eating 'excess supplies'.

Sultan Barghash was forced in 1873, under the threat of a British naval bombardment, to sign an edict which made the sea-borne slave trade illegal, and the slave market in Zanzibar was closed, with the Cathedral Church of Christ erected on the site. But the trade continued, particularly on the mainland. Slaving was illegal, but it existed openly until Britain took over the mainland following their defeat of the Germans in the First World War. Many former slaves found that their conditions had hardly changed - they were now simply employed as labourers at very low wage rates in the spice plantations.

Tinga Tinga at St. Monica's Gallery

2006-09-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005
The next stop was an art studio and gallery in Stonetown, housed in an old stone building run as St. Monica's Hostel on the grounds of an Anglican cathedral.

We were soon to find that this building housed a bleak dungeon that was once used during the time of the slave trade on Zanzibar, but more on that later.

Most of the artwork here were paintings in the Tinga Tinga style, a stylized and very whimsical form of painting, a sort of African impressionism first popularized by an artist named Edward Said Tinga tinga (1937-1972).

The subject of the paintings were usually African animals, painted with enamel bicycle paint on muslin fabric or masonite boards. The animals were bright and colourful and fantastical, almost resembling cartoons.

It's a very cheerful art form and I was happy to find one I liked for ten dollars. Rolled up into a tight cylinder and wrapped in newspaper, the painting wouln't take up very much room in my backpack.

I took some photos of others that I liked and Jeff's mom bought several pieces as Christmas gifts.

The alleyways and beaches here in Zanzibar are filled with tinga tinga paintings, leaning against walls and propped up in rows on the sand. I bought two others later on, including one similar to the paint-speckled zebras I took a photo of here.

I noticed after a while that although the paintings varied a little from place to place, there were great similarities of theme too. The pictures of the stylized Maasai people in red seemd particularly ubiquitous.

House of Wonders

2006-09-04T17:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Right next to the Arab fort was a very large blocky white building, several stories high and with a long row of columns out front.

This building is known as the House of Wonders or Beit el Ajaib, and was built in 1883 as a ceremonial palace for the Sultan Barghash.

What were the wonders it contained?

Well, it was the first building in Zanzibar, and indeed perhaps all of East Africa, to have electric lights and an electric elevator. I think it had running water too. Very exciting stuff for the time and place.

Nowadays there are plans for it to open it as the National Museum.

Today I didn't go inside but watched as the ornate front door with spiky brass studs was polished and petted the multitude of underfed cats brushing against us in the parking-lot out front.

There is a huge cat over-population problem here and I suspect the cost of spaying and neutering is simply not feasible in Zanazibar (or probably the rest of Africa either).

Stonetown Fort

2006-09-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

We met our tour guide this morning out in front of the hotel. He was a local man named Ali, as cheerful and chatty as a bird. a little hat perched on his head and he used his hands as he talked.

His voice had a soft and beautiful African accent that stretched the vowels to the limit. When he said 'water' it came out as oooo-otter. But to the amusement of all the folk from the U.K. amusement, he was very good at mimicking different British accents and had a crack at an Irish accent too.

"Top ah the morning!", he said to us. He'd heard it first on a foreign newscast and had to puzzle out the meaning for a while.

Ali walks us down our street to a well-known building, the house of Queen's Freddy Mercury, who was born in Zanzibar.

Then down the narrow streets to the nearby waterfront, past brightly-painted wall murals and a multitude of roaming cats. Fishing boats bob in the bay and an open-sided bus full of white-veiled Muslim school-girls shout and wave.

Our first destination is an old Arab fort which is now a public building housing a restaurant and art gallery. It is right across the street from the market-place we wandered in last night and dates back to the late 1600's.

We climbed steep stairs to the top of the walls which were topped by castellated battlements. It had that big, empty, bleak feeling that many old stone buildings seem to have but it had a good view of the town from up high.

I preferred looking at the paintings in the art studio within the main building. Two brightly dressed women lounged by a window-sill chatting and I asked their permission to take their picture because they looked so beautiful.

They leapt up and posed, standing up straight and stiff. I told them I loved their original pose even better and so they gracefully re-arranged themselves again and tried to pose candidly without giggling.

Stonetown Breakfast

2006-09-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Here is a picture of the Muslim minaret just down the street from our hotel. Let's just say it's a mixed blessing to have a spiritual and musical start to the day.

But it was a beautiful day today, so why not start early?

We were one of the first one's up to the Shangani's rooftop restaurant this morning. Gorgeous fresh air, the waiter pointing out faraway dolphins leaping, and a glass of passionfruit juice with breakfast.
I think this day on Zanzibar was one of my favourite memories of the whole trip--I think it was all the delicious tastes and smells on the Spice Tour today. The lions and elephants were more exciting of course, but it is funny how scents and tastes can bring back travel memories.

Anyway, this is how my day started.

Evening Shopping in Stonetown

2006-09-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

This evening the four of us had a wander through the narrow streets of Stonetown and soon ended up bargaining with the street vendors who were everywhere. Between our haggling with the merchants and the Muslim influences in the architecture, I was reminded of my visit to cities in Morocco like Fes.
Although Stonetown has more of a pleasant tropical seaside flair.

Down by the beach, merchants laid out their wares on blankets and make-shift market-stalls and there was everything for sale here that we've seen along our route in east Africa: carvings, bead-work, trinkets. If you are on a safari which ends up in Zanzibar, and you really despise loading yourself down along the way, just wait to pick up souvenirs here in Stonetown. There will be plenty.

Later in the evening, we met some of our friends on the rooftop of a hotel bar called The Africa House , which is a landmark building which seems to have once been some sort of royal residence, and later turned into a colonial social club for ritzy British folk who held fancy-dress balls here at at the turn of the century. It is now a popular hangout for slightly less ritzy tourists.

And it's apparently the place in Stonetown to watch the sun set over the African mainland, but tonight it was overcast so we just sat with our drinks and watched the pinkish clouds and chatted.

I bought Anne-Dorte an iced-tea and shared my pizza with her as she regaled us with tales of learning to drive with African attitude on African roads.

For instance, when a driver approaches at great speed and flashes his lights to say "Get out of my way!" the appropriate response is for Anne-Dorte to flash back indignantly: "No! you get out of MY way!"

And somehow they will both manage to share the road.

That's driving that's way outside my comfort zone, but cheers to people like Anne-Dorte who can do it! And I believe the mirrors on our truck only got clipped a few times on this trip, so it all seems to work. As long as you're the bigger vehicle anyway.

Shangani Hotel, Stonetown

2006-09-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

The Shangani Hotel was located on Kenyatta Road in the heart of Stonetown. It's old-style budget hotel on a very narrow street which nevertheless seems to be a major throughfare.

We gathered in the lobby, gratefully drinking fruit juice while we waited for our room keys and passports. Meanwhile a local guide called Hamid gave us an overview of Stonetown and told us about a spice tour we can book tomorrow if we're interested. We are.

But first things were first: up to our room for a blessedly hot shower!

Our room was #209, up forty old wooden steps. The wooden shutters refuse to open so it was little dim, but it had air-conditioning, beds, hot water, and toilet paper so I'm utterly content.

Onto Zanzibar and Saying Goodbye to George

2006-09-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

We are awakened this morning by the extended-mix version of the Muslim call to prayer.

The muezzin calling from the tinny speakers of a nearby minaret seemed to break off from the music prayer every few seconds to deliver what sounded like an excerpt from a jazzy radio talk-show. It was the most distinctive wake-up call I've ever had at five in the morning.

As I was awakened early and we didn't have to leave here till eight, I took a walk on the soft beach to watch the sunrise.

This morning in the thatched-roof bathroom here I saw a tail-less gecko scurrying around and mentioned to Jeff that the wound to its tail end looked very raw and fresh. It is, said Jeff. He told me it was probably the poor lizard that Helen thought she killed this morning by closing its tail in the door. Poor thing.

As we packed up our tents this morning and loaded them back onto the truck, we ended the camping phase of this holiday. We are saying goodbye to old George the Truck itself today as we head off to the spice island of Zanzibar.

Everybody either packed up their bags last night or is finishing emptying their lockers this morning.

Graham, Andy, and Simon all set up cameras to take some group photos which they promise to mail to us all later (which they do...thanks guys!).

We have one final ride on George to the port we arrived at yesterday and a short ferry ride again. It is very crowded in the truck as our backpacks form a huge pile up to the ceiling, taking up the front part of the truck we referred to as "first class".

We say a final goodbye to Pete at Wayne at the port. They are heading back to Arusha today to buy supplies and get the truck ready for the next group of travellers. It must be an exhausting way of life doing this job year round. This was one group of tour leaders that I felt really earned their tips. They are simply marvellous. If any executives at Exodus are reading this, please be sure to give Pete, Wayne, and Anne-Dorte a big raise.

Jeff and Heather and I take the first turn watching our big pile of luggage at the port while we wait for the ferry to Zanzibar. It is in a fairly safe enclosed area backing on to a coffee shop.

Later, when others are watching the bags, Jeff and I walk two blocks to a modern shopping mall. In a Shop-Rite store we bought some snacks to eat as lunch on the ferry, and also some hair-conditioner for me. It's a small thing, but I've been grateful to borrow some of Liz's a few times on this trip.

We notice quite a lot of uniformed police officers on the streets of Dar-es-Saalem.

At ten o'clock we carry our bags over to the ferry terminal and go through security. They use metal-detecting wands and search my purse.

Once on the ferry's deck, we heave our packs up onto high shelves at the front of the ferry which is called the Seastar II.

The crossing to Zanzibar is bumpy and lasts about two and a half hours. There is a television screen at the front of the passenger area with and picture and volume that fuzzes in and out constantly. I sleepily watch the movie "National Treasure" and the beginning of "Blade 3"(an odd choice for public transportation).

Along the way, a young Muslim family hands Anne-Dorte their video camera so she can film them with their new baby.

Disembarkment from the ferry is noisy and chaotic. Touts and porters wave their arms, wanting to carry our bags for a fee and sell us hotel rooms, but we zig and zag to avoid them as we trudge up the steep wooden ramp to shore and are hustled through immigration with Anne-Dorte in the lead. She had collected all our passports from us earlier.

Zanzibar is technically part of Tanzania but still requires a passport stamp. The British UN Trust Territory of Tanganjika became independent in 1961 and merged with the British protectorate of Zanzibar (independent since 1963) into Tanzania in 1964.

From the ferry port, we pile into three mini-vans that are waiting for us and zoom away to Stonetown.

Mikadi Beach, Dar-Es-Salaam

2006-09-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2006

We dabble our feet in the swimming pool for a while where many of our group are swimming, and then the four of us decide to take a walk along the beach.

The white sand is incredibly soft and I spot numerous little sea-shells. I also pick up a white and empty sea-urchin shell.

I have no intention of taking these things home with me. Too hard to get through customs. I just liked picking them up and holding them for a while.

I think back to when I was a girl and collected shells: what a time I would have had on an African beach!

We notice a sign that says : Warning! Thieves operate on the beaches past this point!" As if, any criminal would come along, see the sign, and say 'whoops! musn't steal on this side of the sign!'

Sadly, on the other side of the sign, along the beach there was a fair bit of garbage strewn along.

Our Exodus group had one last official meal together tonight, down on a long table on the beach, bought with the last of the money from the food kitty: calamari, fish, chicken, vegetables, and yet one more of Pete's now- renowned cakes in honour of Philip's birthday.

There were farewell speeches by Wayne and Pete, as only Anne-Dorte is travelling on to Zanzibar with us. Oh, it was sad, this feeling of the last real night of our group together!

Pete, who is usually a man of few words, decided to tell us all an African story, and told us the tale of how God made the hyena from the spare parts of other animals. Pete makes some absolutely realistic hyena sounds!

Later, the whole group gathers again in the moonlight around the pool. The conversations ramble on to a huge variety of subjects: life back home, psychology, politics, travel.

My favourite memory of this evening is lying on my back at the pool-side, looking up at the bright stars, and listening to Wayne's tales of his travels in India and Africa. He has got some very funny stories, although they are mostly of the kind where they are probably not so funny at the time.

Like the one that involved diarrhea, sliding down a hillside, and being watched by very curious little children.

Dar-es-Saalem Campsite at Mikadi Beach

2006-09-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Our campsite at Mikadi Beach looks like a nice place to relax and we have all the rest of the afternoon and evening to do just that.

We're very glad to be out of the truck.

We pitch our tent in a sandy area near some palm trees. There are little grass huts with hammocks for rent, a swimming pool, and an outdoor bar with a pool-table where you can walk barefoot on the white-sand floor. Wayne recommends the vodka slushies.

The showers are salt-water and in a little woven-grass enclosure. They look very swiss Family Robinson.

Dar-es-Saalem Harbour and Ferry

2006-09-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Having successfully made our way through the snarled traffic of downtown Dar-es-Saalem, we pass a large and evil-smelling fish market and arrive at the Magogini ferry dock in time for our truck to board the boat.

It is about ten minutes across the water to the peninsula where our new campground is located.

It is a gorgeous day on the water. The sun is hot, the colours of the boats around us are bright, and I am fascinated by the intricate and precarious-looking hairstyles of some of the women passengers on this ferry-boat. I believe there is not enough hair-spray in the world to support some of the shapes in their hair..I wonder if they used wires. I'm sad I didn't get any photographs of them.

Other foot-passengers carried large baskets full of groceries on their heads.

Traffic in Dar-Es-Salaam

2006-09-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Around four o'clock we arrive in Dar-es-Saalem, one of the biggest cities in Tanzania. It is noisy and modern and the traffic is bustling. Colourful matatus, blaring music, fight for lane space on all sides.

"Dar-es-Saalem" means "Haven of Peace",, Wayne tells us. He raises his eye-brows. "You wouldn't think it, would ya?"

There is a school bus in the lane to the left of us and we pull up and are stopped by the traffic jam so many times that one of the children on the bus leans out an open window and introduces herself to Andy, who replies "That's a very fine name, Maria."

I make eye-contact and wave at a very small child who is sitting up at the front of the bus beside the driver. He grins and waves back wildly every time our truck reappears next to their bus. The driver is grinning too.

A huge farm vehicle pulls alongside of us on the other side. Several men are riding on top of it and call out to us: "Water! Give us cool water!"

There are people riding on top of vehicles all over the place, even on top of a garbage truck.

Soon after, we hear George's horn blare again as Anne-Dorte leans on it for all she's worth. The driver in front of us is refusing to move out of our way and he's blocking all the traffic behind us too. The man in front of us is yelling. Wayne hops out onto the sidewalk to find out what the problem is. I'm not quite sure what was up, but the traffic behind us decides not to wait until we've sorted it out and surges over the sidewalk to get past us. Finally it is sorted out, and we move on.

From Moshi to Dar: a Long Travelling Day and Much Talk About Loo Stops

2006-09-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

I had dreams last night with the roiling psychedelic qualities that I am attributing to the Larium I am taking once a week to prevent malaria. It seems to be the only side effect that this drug has on me, and Jeff hasn't felt any side-effects at all.

In one of my dreams, I am in an African marketplace and a man runs by and steals my purse. I chase after him and get my purse back. After I talk to him, I realize that the man has only stooped to crime because he is desperately poor and so I give him some money and we become friends. Aside from the psychedelic swirls of clour in this dream, it was really a nice dream after all.

Today will be a long travelling day. We are expecting to be on the truck about ten hours today as we drive from Moshi to Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of Tanzania.

We took down our tents early and made lunches to eat on the truck: sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, pineapple slices. If we don't stop for lunch then we'll all spend a shorter time on the truck, so we all readily agreed to packed lunches.

We were on the road by seven o'clock and drove and drove, only stopping briefly in the town of Segera to buy snacks and use the loo around ten while the truck re-fueled, and later in the day another stop in Chalinze.

While at one of these stops we saw a familiar truck, another overlander vehicle called "Captain Bugwash" that we first saw way back at Nakuru. We have also been travelling a similar route to a truck called "Nellie."

This was a day of riding on the truck, as I said. People chatted, ate, read books, did sudoku puzzles, and slept. I spent most of the time watching the scenery going by and catching up on my journal-writing.

Aside from that there are two main topics I will discuss today.

The first one being, our On-Board-the-Truck Trivia Tournament which pitted the people riding at the front against the team of people sitting in the back.

Sample Questions Their Team Asked:

What's the capital of Turkmenistan? Answer: Oh dear, I've already forgotten.
What 1986 film won an Oscar for best film? "Out of Africa", of course.
What's the name of the biggest hospital in the Southern Hemishere? I thought this one was a little obscure, but Sarah, being from South Africa, knew the answer.

Our Team Asked Things Like:

Name the three kinds of giraffe. Reticulated, Maasai, and Rothschild's.
What is the chemical name of the substance found in the lake in Ngorongoro Crater? Soda=Calcium Bicarbonate
What is Pete's (our wonderful cook) last name? This was a question I came up with and nobody on the other team knew it. The answer is: Wambua! Bonus points: His tribe is Akumba.

There was some good-natured argument back and forth over the questions, but both teams scored quite close after all and we had several rounds.

The other thing I will talk about in this post is loo stops. We were all drinking an awful lot of water on this trip.

It is hard to judge a town by its public bathrooms. We saw the insides of some pretty awful third-world loos today, although none quite so spectacularly manky as the one off a trail on Kilimanjaro. At the time, I decided to try and think charitable thoughts, like perhaps the people using this facility were dreadfully ill and couldn't quite make it all the way to the squatting hole. It's quite possible in Africa, after all.

After observing me today at the bathroom in one town though, Sarah declared the mark of a bad loo was when you fasten your trousers up after you come out. Ironically, just outside this disgusting hole was beautiful with flowers and a bountiful jackfruit tree.

Perhaps, gentle reader, this is all too much information. But I feel the need to share.

On this trip I got so I preferred to do my business out in nature behind a rock or something.

And on an overland trip like this it's an issue that does come up now and then when you are far from a designated toilet.

For instance, today there were two pee breaks beside the roadside. Now, the guys have it easy, but the girls usually run for cover behind bushes or rocks.

Today we had travelled through an area still smoking from a grass-fire, ash blowing through our truck, and at one stop there had obviously been another recent fire. All the underbrush and grass had been burned away. So there wasn't much privacy. We tried our best.

One of the girls declared later that she's thought she'd found a great private spot, but unfortunately it wasn't. There was much ribbing when she got back to the truck about the full moon coming out early. But none of us are very embarrassed about this any longer.

Someone observed at one stop far out in nature that everybody chose to face the mountains instead of the road. Perhaps some bottoms might be seen by passersby on the road, but we have a vista of scenic wonder.

Ahem.

Okay, I'm done talking about going to the bathroom.

An Ornithologist and a Search for Bush-Babies

2006-09-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005

This evening Heather and I decided to relax in the garden for a while, tired after our afternoon's hike on Kilimanjaro. I took my tea and Heather brought her beer over to a table underneath an enormous mango tree. A hedge of jasmine perfumed the air.

Our drinks finished, we took a wander around the Marangu grounds and along our way we met a very interesting man.

His name was Peter Oliver, an Englishman with a strong Irish accent, and he was the resident bird-watcher.

He led us over to a telescope set up among the flowering shrubbery and let us peer through it to show us some rare nesting falcons. These gorgeous birds were two African "hobbies", as they were called, and they hadn't been seen around Marangu in thirty years.

He was a font of information on the local birds and pointed out various species as we walked along. "Ah, these are variable sunbirds", he would nod, pointing to some little birds on a nearby branch. It was his job to take small groups of visitors around the area on birding tours. He told us that we could pick up a checklist of birds seen in the hotel gardens from reception, which we later did.

Peter also identified some of the trees growing here that I was curious about. The tree with the pink pom-pom-like flowers was known as the "powder-puff bush", which is exactly what I would have called it.

Later on this evening, after dusk had fallen, we Jeff and I met Peter Oliver again, this time sitting under the mango trees and talking to Wayne and Anne-Dorte.

Peter told us that if we were interested night-time here on the hotel grounds was a good time to look for chameleons in the big hedges. They would often have pale skins at night making them easy to see by flashlight.

He also said that he'd seen bush-babies here at night, which are squirrel-sized nocturnal mammals with huge saucer-shaped eyes. Wayne said he heard one behind the shower-block last night. Bush-babies are named because their sound is said to resemble the noise of a crying infant, but Wayne says it sounds more like a little dog yapping: ow ow ow ow ow !

Jeff and I decided to set off with flashlights in hand right then, looking for chameleons and bush-babies. But although we wandered around peering up into trees for nearly an hour, we did not find any animals.

Marangu Laundry Debate

2006-09-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005

Besides the pleasant campgrounds, the Marangu campsite had another plus to it: laundry service.

And oh, we were really ready for some truly clean clothes. The orange dust of the Serengeti and environs was still with us as it were.

The laundry service employed local women to wash the clothes. As we were staying here two nights, there would be enough time for our clothes to be air-dryed in the hot sun.

We were provided with a price list for individual items of clothing: 450 sch. for a T-shirt, 300 for underwear, 750 for pants, etc.

Jeff and I dug around in our lockers on the truck and came up with eighteen items altogether to be laundered. Our bill will be 10,500 schillings (about ten dollars).

It will be WELL WORTH IT .

I decided to handwash all our own socks and underwear though as there is a large metal sink by the shower building and there are clothes-lines to hang them on. I'd feel funny about some poor strangers having to handle our skivvies.

Our trip leaders, Wayne and Anne-Dorte, have much differing views on the subject of giving your undies to the laundry service.

Anne-Dorte, like me, feels that these women shouldn't have to wash strangers' underwear. Wayne feels that as the service is present on the price-list it is not an issue.

He grins and adds, "And as Mom isn't here, why not?"

We returned from our hike on Kilimanjaro to find a fresh-smelling pile of our clothes neatly folded in the hotel office. Ahhh! Lovely!

Down Kilimanjaro

2006-09-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2000

The hike going down Kilimanjaro from Mandara was much easier than the ascent. It was almost too easy as we were sometimes almost jogging down the incline and you really had to watch your footing with all the roots and stones and gullies.

We walked down most of the way with Sarah and Jeff's mom. Two of the guides walked with us, and one of them turned out to be quite nice.

He hadn't seem involved in the fee disagreements this morning, for one thing. And also he was quite knowledgeable about the mountain and answered many of our questions about the wildlife and plants.

His name was Rogath Ephrem Mtuy (he handed me a business card in case I should have any friends who needed a guide on Kili) and told us about his claim to mountain-climbing fame. Mr. Mtuy claimed that he held the speed record for an African ascending Mt. Kilimanjaro and returning to the bottom again. He did it, he said, in only fourteen hours and fifty minutes.

I was impressed.

I researched his name on the internet after returning home and found out that, indeed, Mtuy holds the African record for fastest return ascent.

According to the article I found, our friend Rogath, a member of Team Kilimanjaro, started out from Marangu Park Gate at 4 am on the morning of March 27th 2000. He reached the true summit of the mountain in only eleven hours and thirty minutes, and then leaped down the mountain again, arriving at the park gate again only three hours and twenty minutes later.

I'm really impressed.

And I notice that Mtuy and our other guides are wearing casual leather loafers for their climb today with us. No special hiking boots for them. Maybe they don't need them.

We were soon back down at the base of the mountain and chatted with the other hikers and browsed the books in the horrendously over-priced souvenir shop while we waited for our group to reassemble.

Lizzie was one of the last ones of course, but just thinking about exerting myself like that with a bad knee makes me almost as impressed with her as Mtuy.

As we had foreseen might happen this morning, the drivers were not happy about waiting to get paid. And in an accidental bad move, Andy had given the money for the drivers to our guides telling them to please distribute it fairly. Sorting out the money again was a royal pain.

Wayne sorted it out later at the campground this evening. I heard him berating the head guide: "You can't bloody well charge folks double what you said before!"

Wayne says Exodus will not use those same people again.

Despite the frustration over paying guides, it was a very satisfying day. And one that my lungs and calf muscles were sure not to soon forget.

Maundi Crater: a Teensy Bit Farther Up Kilimanjaro

2006-09-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005

After we'd caught our breath and had some lunch at Base Camp, we decided to climb on a little further to reach the Maundi Crater.

From here it was said to be possible to see one of the peaks of Kilimanjaro, although it had clouded over so there was not much chance of a good view today.

It was only 800 metres or so up the trail, and after some thought, we decided that we'd come all this way so it would be worth it to go a little further.

I'm glad we walked the extra few metres because although the view was indeed obscured by rolling mist and cloud, the change in the scenery told us we'd reached another zone on Kilimanjaro's slopes..

Up by the Maundi Crater, the mossy rainforest we'd been travelling through gave way to moorland with fields of yellow tufty grass, plants that smelled delightfully of curry, and many different wildflowers. One of our guides picked a bouquet of them for Gill to hold.

Welcome to Mandara

2006-09-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005

So finally we arrived puffing and panting at Mandara, Kilimanjaro's base camp. The climb took us only slightly over two and a half hours. It felt like longer.

I was heartened to find out that despite my struggle on the trail, Jeff and I were the eighth and ninth to arrive in our group of twenty.

The Mandara Huts are at an altitude of 2720 metres. It is a grassy area with several A-frame sleeping cabins and a little office where we once again signed our names in a registration book.

This is to keep track of the hikers on the mountain. I guess they like to know if anybody signing in for a daytrip doesn't make it off the mountain by nightfall. Pauline wondered a little cynically if they actually checked it or if it was just paperwork.

Ravenous, we bought Mars Bars at the office and then flopped down onto the grass to eat the lunches we'd carried up with us.

While we were picnicking on the grass here at Base Camp, a man bundled on a stretcher was rushed by carried by porters heading down the trail towards the bottom. It would have to be an uncomfortable ride.

I wondered if the man was suffering from altitude sickness and if he'd be okay. Apparently the average number of people who die on Kilimanjaro each year is between nine and twelve.

Hiking on Kilimanjaro

2006-09-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005

I have long suspected I am not the athletic mountaineering type. For instance, here's an important clue: I avoid walking up hills.

But, given an opportunity to climb on Mount Kilimanjaro, I was willing to give it a try. Turns out I was right about my mountain-scaling abilities, but what better way for a rank amateur to find out the humbling truth than to attempt the first leg of the highest peak in Africa and the tallest free-standing mountain in the world?

Oh, I'd love to say I charged all the way to the top of Kilimanjaro on my summer vacation, but all I was trying to do this morning was make it to the Base Camp at Mandara with some dignity.

That leg of the climb is just eight kilometres if one is speaking of a flat path, but there's a vertical kilometre in there somewhere which makes it more challenging than it sounds.

After the grumbling and bargaining unpleasantness at the check-in station at the bottom of the mountain, we had all managed to hire our guides at nearly double their originally stated rate. Aside from that, it was a beautiful morning.

We set off in the September sunshine up a wide trail of red earth through the rainforest on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro.

The first hour or so was pretty easy hiking.It reminded me strongly of a steeper hike up a path at Seal Bay Park on Vancouver Island in my own British Columbian rain-forested part of the world.

The fern gullies, the little waterfalls, and tiny violets in the undergrowth added to the illusion that I was in the forest back home. The trees even dripped with familiar moisture.

Of course there are no monkeys where I live, but other than that...well, I was all ready to pat myself on the back. Jeff and I were not even far behind the fastest hikers in our group (Simon, Helen, Andy, Evelyn) for the first third of the climb.

But somewhere along the route (well before the two hour mark if I'm honest) I started to get a little winded....Hmmm, I'll just stop and drink from my water bottle. (pant pant)

I walked a little further.

Hmmm, maybe I'll just stop and admire the hanging moss on this tree. (puff gasp) Uh, I'll just stop a sec and...

Hmmmm...maybe I'll just stop.

The trail would level out reassuringly for a short while, but then we'd go around a bend and a steep disheartening stretch would be there, looming like a ladder, only with lots of rocks and skinny drainage ditchesto trip over and fall in.

I go for long periods in my life when I forget I have asthma and I'm just fine with forgetting. But today I became acutely aware that my lungs were displeased with me. The nerve! Striding briskly up mountainsides in thinning air!

Oh well. So I slowed down. It was very beautiful, and aren't you supposed to stop and smell the flowers?

Jeff claimed he wouldn't want to hike much faster anyway, but he is a gallant fellow with legs much longer than mine, so I suspect he was politely lying.

The most embarrassing thing about not being a good climber on this mountain was the steady stream of African porters carrying heavy loads on their backs and heads that would breeze on by us.

Well, they breezed by ALL the foreign hikers, not just me I want to add.

Those porters were in fabulous shape! One fellow had a propane tank balanced on his head as he strode up the steep incline. It must've weighed a lot. Sweat was actively running down his forehead. There is no way that they are getting paid enough for doing that kind of work. I really couldn't complain anymore after seeing him, loaded down as I was by my water bottle and a sweater tied around my waist.

One porter smiled as he went by and teasingly shook a finger at me. "Pol-ee Polee!", he grinned. I believe that literally means "slowly, slowly" in Kiswahili. Sigh.

But I made it.

A Matatu to Kilimanjaro and Frustration

2006-09-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5, 2005
Yesterday, on the drive to Marangu, we had all seen the crown of Kilimanjaro poking through the clouds.

Today we are all going on a day hike on the famed mountain's lower slopes.

It was not included in the price of our trip with Exodus, but everybody in our group decided to do it (even Lizzie who's recently had knee surgery). Anne-Dorte and Wayne have arranged for the local guides and drivers we need for this expedition.

After breakfast, we wait out in the lane for our transportation to arrive. Anne-Dorte is shaking her head, annoyed. As usual, she says, the locals are late.

Well, to be more accurate, one vehicle was there on time, the second arrived half an hour late, and the third one didn't show up at all. Then our vehicle that arrived late inexplicably decided to leave without us.

One of our new Kilimanjaro guides flagged down a local matatu, and a minute later about twenty local people were climbing out of it and walking away down the street with all their packages.

Did we just kick all those poor people off their bus? I was a little appalled.

"Higher fare wins", somebody near me muttered, obviously thinking along the same lines.

There were three African guides with us plus the two drivers and twenty of us in our group. Anne-Dorte and Wayne were staying behind so that meant we needed to squeeze twenty-five people into the two vehicles.

Eight of us piled into the Land-Rover (Jen and I shared a single seat), while the other seventeen squished into the mini-van. It was an amazing feat, but we certainly weren't even the most packed vehicle around.

As we squealed recklessly along the road to the mountain, we passed matatus with people leaning precariously out the windows, and on the outside of that same van three people were riding along by clinging onto the tailgate and the outside door somehow.

"What have they got? Spidey-fingers?", somebody in my Land-Rover marvelled.

We also saw a couple of young men riding half-in and half-out of a car's trunk, looking for all the world like kidnap victims making their escape.

It was a wild no-seat-belts ride up to the base of the mountain, honking and swerving to avoid other vehicles on the road, but we made it.

Once in Kilimanjaro's parking lot, we made a group decision to hold off paying the drivers so that they would indeed return to pick us up later in the day. We were getting shady character vibes off these guys unfortunately.

We pooled all our money ($30 US each to pay for the entrance fee plus our share of transportation and guide fees on top of that) and we gave it all to today's treasurer, Andy.

And then the "fun" began. The African guides decided to change their fees and wanted more money up front for each of them.

And they said we had to hire an extra guide,their friend here, and pay him too. Or they wouldn't let us climb.

Now, they told us, the entrance fee is wrong too. We want more money.

And, oh, about a fee for..oh never mind what for...but it will cost you this much.

We could tell we were getting shafted, but if we wanted to climb today we had no choice but to pay up or waste all morning arguing with these guys. We would let Anne-Dorte and Wayne know what happened later.

We were feeling pretty cranky with our guides after an hour of sorting out our New Fees, but, as Andy philosophically noted, we can call it a true African experience.

We signed our names in the official registration books at the bottom of the mountain, and began our hike to Base Camp.

A Garden in Marangu

2006-09-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 4, 2005

We are camping for the next two nights on the grounds of the Marangu Hotel near the town of Moshi.

Our tents are set up in a grassy area near some low cement buildings holding quite decent toilets and showers a short distance away from the hotel itself which was originally a farmhouse built in the early 1900's.

Scattered around the grounds which cover twelve acres are little white bungalows for rent, and I am very pleasantly surprised to find that the gardens here are filled with all sorts of beautiful flowers and trees that I've never seen before.

There are also many birds to be seen in the grounds.

When I signed up for a budget overland tour I wasn't expecting to be camping in places like this actually.

I spent a pleasant part of the evening wandering around photographing flowers and writing in my journal under the trees.

At night, some of the larger mango trees are lit up with big round Christmas tree lights, lighting the paths with soft light.

Late in the evening, some of us meet in the hotel's lounge. It is decorated with beautiful wooden lamps carved in designs with African animals. A double amaretto costs two dollars here, pop is fifty cents. We relax and chat and talk about tomorrow's day-hike on Kilimanjaro.

Sausage Trees, Internet Cafes, and Flying Toilet Paper

2006-09-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a little piece of trivia: the long brownish-grey fruit of the African sausage tree (Kigelia pinnata) or (K. africana) can grow up to two feet long and weigh fifteen pounds. I wouldn't want one of those suckers to land on my head.

Apparently, in its flowering season, the blood-red blooms of this sort of tree attract all sorts of birds and bats to feed on its nectar.

We've been seeing the sausage trees with their strange dangling appendages all over Tanzania--they are very curious looking.

Well, I took a picture of a typical "butchery", a sort of African general grocery store along the way, but I've just realized that none of us took any photos while in the town of Arusha which was our next stop. There really didn't seem to be much to photograph.

Our truck stopped there for a lunch break and it gave Jeff a chance to change another sixty U.S. dollars into Tanzanian schillings, but aside from those necessities I'm glad we weren't staying long in Arusha.

Apologies to the residents, but it didn't seem a particularly attractive town to walk around in although it seemed like quite a large and busy place.

Jeff and I spent most of our time here in what was obviously a backpacker's haven, an internet cafe/eatery of the kind likely to be recommended by Lonely Planet for its hassle-free internet access, a service to burn your digital pictures onto CDs, and cheap and yummy food. Actually, our Anne-Dorte recommended it to us. It was called, I believe, Mac's Patisserie.

We ate a lunch of samosas, spring rolls and cold drinks and for the two off us the price came to less than five dollars. Perhaps not dirt-cheap for Africa, but for a place that resembled Starbucks it seemed quite reasonable.

Not everybody in our group ate here. Sarah, for instance, a native of South Africa, was overjoyed to find a "Steers" chain restaurant that served her burgers and fries. Apparently, "Steers" is big in South Africa.

After lunch, we retired onto the truck to help out with "truck duty".There were a lot of merchants around the truck and along the main street, but they didn't have anything I wanted except an English-language newspaper that they were asking four dollars for!

I didn't want the newspaper that badly; I was actually kind of enjoying not knowing the news of the world for a while.But the headline of The Guardian had caught my eye. It looked like there had been a big hurricane disaster in America, in New Orleans. It was proclaiming ten thousand people dead at the time.

We go back into the internet cafe and read a little bit of the headlines from there. It wasn't until we reached London, England that we really caught up with international news though.

Soon after lunch we left Arusha behind. As our truck picked up speed, the air was suddenly filled with whirling toilet paper streamers. Some of the rolls stored on one of the upper shelves had been caught in the wind and there is much laughter in the aisle as we capture them once again.

Once, our truck needed to slow down and we passed a group of young teenage boys along the roadside who hooted and gave us the finger as we drove by. I couldn't help myself. I returned the gesture out the back window. The boys erupted in laughter.

I am such a diplomat. Sigh.

Maasai Souvenir Shopping

2006-09-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2005

After we had bid farewell to our camels (some of us with reluctance, some with relief), my family and some others in our group returned to an area near the Meserani snake Park where local women were selling beaded crafts, jewellery and red and black checked Maasai blankets.

Each woman had their own little shop which had a number painted on a board above the the door.

Before going on the camel ride I had looked around in hut #12 and spoken with the woman there.

When she saw us all ( me and Jeff and Heather and Jen) returning and making a bee-line for her shop, she grinned from ear to ear.

I am not really on this trip to go shopping, but I did need a few light souvenirs to take home to friends, and besides I have a soft spot for homemade, sparkly, beaded things.

I bought five beaded bracelets at 2000 schillings each ($2) and Jeff's mom bought two blankets, some necklaces, and a few other things for Christmas presents.

Besides, this is much more interesting than buying your souvenirs at an airport gift shop.

After this shopping expedition, we just had time for one last cool drink in the straw-walled lounge of the bar in the Snake Park before boarding the truck again and heading off.

This time we are bound for Arusha.

The Village at Meserani

2006-09-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2005

Here are some more photos from our visit to the Meserani village. Arusha is the nearest big town.

We had seen buildings like these round thatched ones as we drove through the Tanzanian countryside. They were usually clustered together in groups of three four or five houses. It was rather difficult to have a good look at them as our truck rumbled by so I was glad we visited. Now I realized that each group of houses probably belonged to a single extended family.

Our village guide, who seemed to be a relative of the man who had fathered all the village children, seemed rather impatient with them as they gathered around us, shooing them away as he told us about village life.

He let us go inside one of the houses. Inside was one large round room with a central wooden pole much blackened by smoke. The walls are made from clay and straw. It was quite dim inside from the total absence of windows. There were a few simple pieces of wooden furniture on the dirt floor, some cooking equipment, and some bedding. There was very little else.

If this is anything like a typical Maasai home, they have very little affinity for knick-knacks or clutter.

This village consisted of perhaps eight or ten circular huts and one or two rectangular mud-brick buildings with flat roofs.

The yards were dry and dusty and mostly free of any vegetation except for a few thorny and withered acacia saplings.

There were some animals such as goats penned in enclosures made from twigs, but chickens roamed about freely. We saw some children with laden donkeys walking by too as we visited.

On our way out to the village we saw some people working in garden plots, but it is so hot and dry here that it must be very difficult to keep crops alive.

I wonder what the village looks like in the rainy season?

Meserani Village Kids

2006-08-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2005
Arriving by camel, we were greeted by a crowd of giggling children.

I had hoped to meet some children in Africa and I did here in this village in Tanzania near Arusha, meeting the twenty or so offspring of one large extended family.

If I understood correctly, all the children were the progeny of a single father and his seven or eight wives.

They lived in a collection of round mud houses thatched with grass and shared the space with a smattering of goats, chickens, and donkeys.

It was DUSTY. The children were covered in it. They didn't seem to mind, happily throwing themselves down on the ground to doodle with their fingers in the dirt.

"You're a mucky little pup!", I heard Vicki say to a child, laughing.

I am so used to wiping off dirty faces at the daycare where I work that my fingers itched to use a damp wash-cloth on them. But aside from the dust, they were pretty cute I have to say.

They were curious about our watches and other jewellery and some wanted to try on my hat. They peered at their little digital images in the window of my camera in delight. A few clambered onto our laps.

They were not shy at all, most of them. I believe that the children of this village see Westerners quite regularly as part of their village income stems from allowing tourists to come and photograph their homes and families.

Vicki and I gave some of the littler ones horsey rides on our lap and sang some little preschool songs with them. I showed them "A-Rem-Sem-Sem" which I sing with the children at the daycare back home because the words are nonsense words anyway and the actions are easy. The children grinned like crazy.

After a while, many of them wandered off and returned to their daily activities, many carrying younger children with them in their arms or on their backs.

They were dressed in a ragged and colourful mix of African sarongs and wraps and western T-shirts. One child even wore a barely recognizable garment from Baby Gap.

I couldn't help but compare them to the privileged children I know back home. Not a single plastic toy was apparent. No television. No video games. No playground equipment. No bicycles.

Just sticks, rocks, and siblings.

I wouldn't wish this kind of extreme poverty on any child I know, and yet I wonder if there is some sort of happy medium in between. Because I am almost positive these African children had something North American children are in short supply of: a longer attention span. I really enjoyed watching these children play!

Fascinated from a cultural perspective though I was, daycare worker instincts die hard, and I felt compelled to step into one game and unwind the string one little girl had tied tightly around her little sister's neck to lead her around.

Of course, as soon as I'd walked a little distance away, the string went back on again.

A Camel Named Sungura

2006-08-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2005

While in Morocco, I had the chance to ride a camel but the moment passed.

Now, here in Tanzania, at a place where they hold a well-known annual camel race, I was not going to let the opportunity slip by again. What can I say? I like camels.

It might be a very touristy thing to do, but I'd rather ride a camel out to the village at Meserani than walk. I think it cost me and Jeff about three dollars.

I chose the camel with the number two spray-painted on the side of his long neck because he had a nice-looking face (for a camel) and didn't seem to object to me scratching his ears. Some of the other camels were already groaning and snorting with abandon as they sat in their line waitng for us to mount, but not Sungura.

Sungura means "rabbit" in Kiswahili and one of the men handling the camels told me that it meant he was quick like a rabbit.

I didn't notice Sungura being particularly fast, but he was a very independent-minded animal. During our twenty-minute trek to the village, our camel broke his rope that tethered him to the rest of the caravan and danced nimbly out of line.

For a minute or two, the camel handler tried in vain to get Sungura to put his head down for a rope. He was very reluctant. I leaned forward in the saddle and tried to help by pushing his neck, but camel necks are strong. It was pretty funny. I couldn't help laughing.

I liked riding a camel. The saddle was broad and soft and comfortable with large, flat wooden planks at the sides to rest your feet on. There is an easy back-and-forth motion that is much more enjoyable than being on horseback to me.

Jeff didn't like it as much as me, but it was probably because he was sitting behind me and had to lean far forward to hold the metal saddle handles which jutted at the saddle's front in a V-shape. It was better for him after he learned to lean back a little and just hold my waist.

The part of the ride which was a little less relaxing was the sharp lurch down as the camel kneels to let you off. One sharp lurch forward and then one back. Actually, being on top of a camel as it gathers its knobbly knees under itself and stands up is also rather breath-taking. You don't really realize how tall camels are until you're up on one looking down.

Maasai Cultural Museum at Meserani

2006-08-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

After our visit to the clinic, we moved on to see the cultural museum built by the local Maasai. here in Meserani.

Our guide was called Martin, a Maasai man wrapped in the now-familiar red, who introduced himself as a morani, a warrior. He led us into the dim, cave-like corridors of the museum.

Inside was a fascinating collection of scenes from Maasai life cleverly made from painted papier-mache and chicken-wire and set in surreal tableaus. The air swirled with clay dust and the floor was dirt. No Disneyesque tourist attraction this!

There was a near life-size model of a Maasai home made of mud and grasses and dung with the walls partially cut away so you could see inside. The women are the builders of homes and they are only built as high as the woman can reach.

One of the scenes showed the bleeding of a cow with a bow-and-arrow sort of tool. Cattle's blood is one of the staples of the Maasai diet and this blood-letting is a delicate process so no lasting harm comes to the cow. I remember as a child listening to a Kenyan visitor to our school and being fascinated by the tale of this tradition. I could scarcely believe it was true!

The Maasai also eat the meat and milk from cattle. Cattle are very important to the lifestyle of the Maasai.

Other exhibits showed women giving birth, warriors in their traditional costumes, and an elderly Maasai man apparently in a drunken stupor lying under a tree, an empty drink vessel near his outstretched hand. I think the man was supposed to be under the influence of some sort of ceremonial narcotic, but the scene made me blink a little.

In this same exhibit a long wooden keg hung from the same tree. I've seen these on trees on this trip and Martin informed me they were bee-hives for harvesting honey.

The exhibit showing a young boy being circumcised elicited some raised eye-brows from the group, but Martin seemed eager to explain its cultural significance.

Martin was twenty-two years old when he was circumsized and so I am sure he has a clear memory of it as no anesthesia is used.

He emphasized that it is very shameful to cry during the operation, or even to show evidence of any discomfort or emotion. A girl might be expected to cry during their circumcision, but not a boy.

He showed us the tight-lipped, impassive look a boy might wear on his face and then a look of deep, pained concentration which was very convincing. A man must be circumsised before he is able to marry.

Lizzie piped up with some thoughtful questions for the reasons behind this sort of tradition, but to sum up Martin's answers: "It's tradition."

We also passed through a room full of everyday articles such wooden spears and shields, leather carrying-bags, drinking cups made from cow horns, and a fly-swatter made from the tail of a wildebeest.

Snake Doctor

2006-08-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

September 4, 2005

The guinea fowl didn't keep me awake last night, after all, although I occasionally heard deep-throated groans in the night from the enormous crocodiles in their pens behind our tent.

I crept out of the tent very early this morning to reach the communal showers before hordes of other campers woke up. The water was not quite luke-warm but the shower-room was reasonably clean, and I was glad to wash my hair.

And then I wandered up to the reptile zoo again to look at the snakes again. They have a few predatory birds here too--the sad-looking vulture here was the only one I saw on this trip.

Pete cooked pancakes for us this morning--delicious. A three-legged dog called Tripod that Wayne knows parked himself by our breakfast place this morning. He is obviously fed well enough here to turn his nose up at the pancakes that did not have any jam on them...

After breakfast, about half of us made a visit to the medical clinic on the campsite grounds which provides free treatment for the local Maasai people. The doctor there was expecting us.

The building was a small concrete one and several Maasai patients sat waiting outside on benches.

The first thing that greeted us inside was a row of caged snakes.

The clinic was tiny: two rooms with bare concrete floors. It REEKED of pine cleaner.There was a sink, a small table, one bed, and a very inadequate supply of medical equipment.

We met the "doctor", a friendly man who confessed that he wasn't trained as a doctor professionally, but had grown very experienced treating common complaints like diarrhea, infections, malaria, and snake bites.He was particularly an expert on toxic snake bites.

"Actually, I am a snake man", he said, nodding. His other job was snake- handler.

The doctor told us of a few of the cases he'd treated over the years. One Maasai man came to him with a festering sore on his shoulder which had been left untreated for THREE years. The wound had been infected all the way down to exposed bone. Luckily the man recovered, but he had to report to the clinic every day for a long time to have his shoulder re-dressed with a bandage.

The doctor explained that the Masai often avoid seeking medical help, being self-reliant, or are simply too isolated to find it. Some of the villages we passed were way out in the middle of nowhere, where no transportation by vehicle was available.

What would it be like to have a medical emergency here?

Well, somehow the patient would have to get to the hospital in Arusha, the nearest city, because they simply couldn't handle anything that required surgery, for instance.

"It's very difficult", the snake man told us soberly.

Before we left, the doctor let me handle one of the kinder, gentler snakes. It was a hook-nosed snake, which is non-poisonous. It just bashes its prey against the side of their burrows.

As I held the snake I looked up to see a grinning Maasai child's face pushed up against the grill of the window. He was very curious to see why the muzungus (foreigners) would want to hold a snake, I think.

We would have liked to stay and ask more questions. Sarah, the doctor in our group(who was most certainly notfond of snakes), had come up with some good ones about contraception and the like, but we noticed that there was now a line-up of men and women clad in the Maasai's traditional red blankets, stoically waiting on benches outside in the dusty yard.We hurriedly excused ourselves. We didn't want to make those people wait any longer than they had to.

I will never complain again about having to wait around in a doctor's waiting-room here at home.

Footnote:

After I got back to Canada after this trip, I sent some photographs off to some of the people from Britain I travelled with. They were such a good group of people--likeable, smart, funny people, all of them.I immediately got an email back from Helen who has been busy collecting and sending off medical supplies and various other items to this clinic in the Meserani Snake Park.. She had just received word that her supplies had made it to their destination.

I was so glad to hear from her, and what a good idea!

At the end of the trip our group leader requested that we donate what we could spare from our first aid kits: bandages, aspirin, skin ointments, whatever we could come up with, and then they would deliver it for us.

Meserani Campsite and Bar Evening

2006-08-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2005

Before dinner this evening our group gathered around the truck to celebrate Jo's birthday. She turns forty today.

We toasted her with potent cane spirit fruit punch and munch chips and popcorn.

Jo told me and Jeff that one of her reasons for booking this trip in the first place was to be far, far away from England before her mother got any ideas about planning a monstrous birthday bash. A cunning plan....

This camp hosts barbeques for overlander truck groups. This afternoon I noticed a lamb turning on a spit in the cooking area. Around seven o'clock we trooped down to a covered area and find seats at long tables covered with red and black Masaii-inspired table-cloths for a huge buffet meal--all sorts of food really, vegetarian and otherwise. None of it was particularly African, but it was good.

I make friends with some of the camp's resident animals, a little cat and her friend the dog. They sat behind my chair and waited patiently for the little delicacies I handed down to them.

After our meal, most of us end up in the campsite's bar which is reached through a warren of passage-ways thatched with mud and straw and littered with rustic twig furniture.

The overlander bar is full of character and mostly-young people holding drinks. The ceiling and walls are hung with T-shirts, flags and souvenirs from all over the world. I am suddenly filled with a feeling of kinship with travellers on George-like trucks everywhere, rumbling over the roads of the world. I dunno, maybe it was just the Tusker beer talking.

There is a large section of wall by the bar crowded with photos of overlander trucks mired in mud, overturned in ditches, or crossing swollen African rivers. The overlander tourists in these photos are soaked in red dust and mud and are a good deal more scruffy-looking than I feel at this point. I am glad that I am visiting this part of the world in the dry season.

Jen and Jeff and me have a conversation here about how the group dynamics would be on a much longer trip like this. Exodus offers an eleven-week overlander trip from one end of Africa to the other. I wonder how that would be. Part of me really wants to find out; the other half of me who enjoys creature comforts frowns at the idea and hisses 'you fool! when am I going to get that hot bath you promised me?'

Jeff and I go for a walk around the camp-site before bed. We walk by peaked wooden cabins thatched with straw that you can rent here. Little clouds of green and yello love-birds chitter on the pointy rooftops. There are big tropical flowers growing among the dusty trucks and tents. We see red geraniums growing as big as shrubs here.

I wonder if the flocks of guinea fowl roosting on the grounds will keep us up all night with their noise. They make a shrill sound like creaking bed-springs. It sounds like a lot of enthusiastically amorous people.

Well, good-night to the crocodiles and off to bed.

Meserani Snake Park

2006-08-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2005

After our driver Simon had gotten us safely out of the Crater, he drove the four of us to a cramped overlander tourist campsite in a nearby town to rejoin our group. At least five trucks like George were parked there. It was swarming with campers very like ourselves.

Fortunately, this was not where we were stopping for the night.

We tipped Simon and then bought piles of snacks and drinks at the campsite's little grocery store before leaving though. I am growing addicted to Tanzanian ginger beer...

From here we made one more stop before stopping for the night: a view point over Lake Manyara which is apparently famous for its local tree-climbing lions.

Is it true? I don't know. And why would these lions climb trees and not others? This curious tourist would like to know.

It was here I first saw baobab trees in the distance, their limbs looking curiously like they have been planted upside-down with their roots spreading into the air.

And then on to our campsite at Meserani Snake Park!

I was excited about camping here because of its enormous collection of reptiles, some of them among the most poisonous snakes in Africa! There were pythons, boomslangs, mambas, cobras, and adders, as well as less fearsome snakes.

These were mainly housed in large glass reptile cages, but there was also an assortment of large lizards like monitors and some tortoises housed in walled outdoor pits. In one pool there were baby crocodiles who managed to look both cute and menacing at the same time.

Most fascinating to me were the dusty wire-fenced bomas housing the adult crocodiles. The animals were about nine or ten feet long and for the most part eerily immobile. Some lay with their mouths open so that you could see right past their prehistoric-looking teeth into their pale fleshy throats.

This was my first close look at crocodiles on this trip. The one we saw in the Grumeti River on safari looked much more like a floating log than the reality of these enormous animals with their armoured hides.

At the other end of the crocodile paddocks there were pools for the reptiles to swim in and these were backed by waist-high white-washed walls.

On the other side of one of the white walls? Well, that's where Jeff and I set up our tent actually. Very late tonight I crawled out of my tent to shine my flashlight into the dark pools. Eyes glowing yellow-white glided below me in the water.

While walking in the reptile zoo before dinner, my family and I met some locals from the nearby town of Arusha. The girl was called Gilda Godfrey and we admired her intricately braided hairstyle, while one of the fellows (Nelson Osward) talked to me about crocodiles and translated the signs in Kiswahili by the crocodile pens.

Usiweke mkono na usitupe mawe. Ndani boma ya mamba. : basically it means, please don't be a stupid idiot and try to pat the crocodiles because you are sure to regret it.

Mamba is the word for "crocodile".

Later, back in Canada, I corresponded a few times with Nelson by email.

Ngorongoro Pics

2006-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2005

These are the last of the pictures from Ngorongoro (for some reason I couldn't add them to my previous post.)

They show views over the Ngorongoro Crater as we left via the high and winding road, a few pictures of zebras of course, and a view of the inside of our Land Rover vehicle.

There is also one picture of Jeff and our African park guide and driver, Simon.

There is also one picture of a vervet monkey (a tombeli) crossing a dusty parking lot where an animal skull lies. It was here that I heard the crackling of the elephants breaking branches, but, try as I might, I couldn't spot them in the underbrush until I was leaving in the big truck and had a view from higher up.

Leaving Ngorongoro

2006-08-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2005

When we arrived on the crater floor early this morning, the surrounding mountains were shrouded in thick cloud and the sky was lowering and grey with fog, but by the time we were leaving Ngorongoro in the late afternoon the sun was blazing hot and the heat seemed to shimmer on the grasses.

I was glad of the cover on our truck for shade, although I banged my head repeatedly on the raised cover over the roof as we bumped along the tracks. Basically we stood on the back seat in our stocking feet and leaned out for most of the day.

We were able to get some nice close-ups of zebras as they came right up to side of the road, flicking their tails and turning their broad backsides to us as they grazed. They made a most curious sound--like a wheezing mule braying at double-speed and hyper-ventilating at the same time.

I learned that even if a zebra is starving it may still look curvy and fat. It is the state of its mane that is a more telling sign of its health. Or so said our driver Simon. These particular zebras looked incredibly healthy and fat to me. Er, their manes looked fine too.

Our little land-rovers had wandered separately around the plain for most of the day so except for the lunch-stop we hadn't seen much of our other friends. Upon gathering at the dusty rest-stop before climbing out of the crater we learned that one of the other vehicles had gotten a flat tire, but their misfortune turned to luck as they chose to break down right near a leopard sunning itself in a tree. The tire was fixed quite quickly and they got some great photographs.

At this rest-stop I took a picture of Simon and Jeff in our vehicle and also a picture of one of the vervet monkeys as it ran by a buffalo skull in the parking-lot. Simon says these are called tombeli in Kiswahili, which sounds an awful lot like Tom Bailey.

There was the sound of branches breaking in the thick brush just beyond the monkey and Simon cautioned me about going too close. We couldn't see them, but he figured there was at least one elephant nearby. I looked and looked and couldn't see one, but as we drove away I saw two broad grey backs moving through the undergrowth there.

I'm amazed that two somethings so large were completely invisible to me.

We had a better view of the precipice-edged road on the way back up from Ngorongoro. This is not a road for sissy drivers like me. I am not scared of heights but the drop on one side is quite impressive.

We passed by a large blue truck that had overturned at the side of the road. It was very lucky it hadn't gone over the edge. Anne-Dorte later told us that brake failure is a common hazard on these roads.

We also stopped to read the name on a monument at Heroes Point (2266 m) which had all the names of park rangers who have met their end badly: a shocking number at the hands of poachers, and in at least one case killed by a rhinocerous. It's obviously a job which should call for danger pay.

A Picnic With Kites and Bones

2006-07-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September, 3, 2005

We held on tightly to our sandwiches when we stopped to eat in the afternoon. The kites of Ngorongoro circled over our heads as we picniced by a tree on the shores of a lake.

They were bold brown hawk-like birds who feinted and dived at us as we ate.

"If you hold your food up in the air, your fingers are bound to get lacerated", warned Wayne. I kept my fingers down, although I left part of a banana on a nearby rock so I could get a better look at them.

We were in a beautiful spot. We sat on warm outcroppings of rocks and relaxed in the sunshine or the shade of the tree.

The brilliance of the afternoon light made the colours seems so bright here: the blue of the water, the green of the lake reeds, the dusky oranges and yellows of the plain. There was also the brilliant white of bleached bones here.

I wandered over to the bones which lay on the grass or by the water's edge here and there. I think bones are fascinating and marvellous to photograph. Several times on the plains on this trip I've seen the scattered white remains of animal skeletons. Once, from a distance, we spied a large group of bones with what was almost certainly the skull of an elephant among them. They were scattered over a wide area though and a group of antelope cropped the grass growing amongst them.

The Biggest Elephant I Ever Saw

2006-04-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 3, 2005

In the Ngorongoro Crater, there are no elephant herds to be seen--no females and no young ones. But there are elephants.

Old bull elephants, massive and heavy-tusked descend the steep crater hills and roam the fertile plain alone.

They are HUGE.

We spotted one enormous old fellow in the distance and stopped our vehicles to watch him. He swayed over the savannah, at first a small grey shape in the distance, but looming ever closer. He could have avoided us, but instead he walked directly in front of us, passing within feet of the trucks.

Was he curious? He was certainly beautiful.

We watched him for a long time as he walked away from us, toward the cloud-crowned hills. That sight was one of the most majestic I saw in Africa.

Wildebeest in Ngorongoro Crater

2006-04-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 3, 2005

Photographs can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Hippos in Ngorongoro Crater

2006-04-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 3, 2005

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Down Into Ngorongoro Crater

2006-04-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 3, 2005

I woke up in a cloud this morning. Water droplets swirled past my face as I peered through the thick fog, trying to find my way from my tent to the bathroom buildings.

It was dark still and it was cold too. We huddled over an early morning breakfast of porridge and coffee.

I learned that our camp had had some animal visitors as I slept unawares: Lizzie had come out of her tent last night and seen a hyena that was fortunately feeling too shy to confront a human. And someone else spotted a bush- pig rooting around near the toilets. Wayne said that one night on another camping trip a bush -pig had wandered into someone's tent and become panicked--the big left the tent in a hurry, ripping a new back door for the tent in the process.

Hired land-rover vehicles arrived to take us down to the bottom of the Ngorongoro Crater; it was a road that a big overland truck like George could not possibly navigate.

There were five or six passengers in each vehicle: in ours there were we four Canadians plus Phil (from Norfolk) and Simon, our local driver.

Simon proved to be the slowest and most cautious driver of the bunch for which I was glad:the road was pitted, narrow, and full of switch-back curves over high drops. It was about 600 metres (2000 feet) down to the crater floor. There was also very, very poor visibility this morning. The thick cloud layer followed us as we descended. At one point our jeep pulled up by another of the vehicles and our driver Simon had a brief but heated conversation with another driver as they gestured at the road and the weather

I wondered if they were discussing the other's insane driving habits.

It turns out that heavy fog is actually pretty typical in the mornings here. It was predicted that by afternoon it would be blazing hot, and I fervently hoped so as I huddled in my fleece.

The Ngorongoro Crater (named for the melodic sound of Masaii cow-bells tinkling) is a vast conservation area. The diameter of the volcanic crater is about twelve miles across and between twenty and thirty thousand animals populate the caldera floor. It is a conservation area and the animals are protected by law as long as they stay within the boundaries of the collapsed volcano.

On the Rim of a Crater

2006-04-09T19:40:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 3, 2005

We stopped at a place overlooking a vast white soda lake called Lake Magadi.

It seemed to shimmer from the middle of a great dust plain under the harsh afternoon light. We are quite high on the rim of a volcanic caldera.

As we stepped down for the truck to photograph the view, we were greeted by two tall young Masaii warriors in traditional clothing and bright beaded jewelry. They were from a nearby village down the hillside.

They grasped our hands with a hearty "Jambo". They were hoping that we would like to take their picture but our guide had told us to please not encourage them. They were charging five dollars for the privilege.

We did decline, but I would have been tempted if I hadn't known we would soon be visiting a Masaii village where we'd be allowed to take pictures. I love to take pictures of people.

Tonight we camped at Simba Campsite, a flat grassy area on the edge of the famousNgorongoro Crater. Unfortunately the surrounding trees made it impossible to see down into the crater's interior.

No, up here we had a view of tents, tents, and more tents. There were overland trucks and safari vehicles everywheretoo. One had to negotiate a sea of laundry lines and cook-fires to get to the bathroom buildings. As I walked through the camp I heard French, German, English and Spanish spoken. It was a busy place.

I took some time to do some laundry and hair-washing in the sinks available, but the showers were horrendously busy and the floor flooded so I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Around the campfire tonight it became horrendously chilly and I was very glad to be wearing my fleece. Who knew a warm fleece would be one of the best things I brought to Africa? I've used it every day for at least a little while in the mornings or evenings. However, it was here, in the cold mountain air, that I became most grateful I'd brought something cozy along.

I noticed Simon was wearing mittens around the fire tonight! Now that's being prepared.

The group stayed up quite late around the fire telling gross and unlikely medical stories and dissecting urban legends, but I was quite tired and retired to our tent before most people had left the fire. I wore my fleece over my night-clothes and snuggled down into my warm sleeping-bag. My nose felt frosty.

The wind flapped at the tent all night, so I did not hear any animal sounds. Although apparently there was wildlife around as we were to discover the next morning....

Naabi Gate and Into the Dust Beyond

2006-03-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 2, 2005

Exactly twenty-four hours after entering the Serengeti National Park, our overland truck rumbled into the dusty Naabi Gate entrance/exit area. Our allotted time here was up.

It seems that this is a more popular entrance to the Serengeti than the gate we entered by, and the parking-lot for visitor registration was filled with tourists, somewhat of a shock after seeing so few people besides ourselves on the savannah itself.

We had half an hour or so to relax and drink a cup of tea or climb up to the Naabi look-out. Jeff and I decided to do both.

The trail up to the look-out was steep but short with a view over the grasslands and acacia forests we had just left. Along the way we saw many more agama lizards skittering among the rocks and also another kind of lizard, possibly an anole, which seemed to levitate from vertical rock surface to surface. It was the most physics-defying little creature I'd ever seen!

Descending once more to the gate, we watched the iridescent-blue starlings gather to drink at the stone bird baths. There were a lot of birds up in the trees too. I decided that a beautiful book of East African birds (authors Chris and Stuart Tilde) offered at the little shop here would make a nice souvenir of the Serengeti, but alas it cost 30,000 shillings ($30) and we didn't have enough Tanzanian money changed at the moment.

I saw tiny animals moving underneath a tree and sat down on the grass with my camera ready. The animals disappeared like lightning. I held perfectly still and soon the mice came creeping out of the holes in the bottom of the tree to play in the grass again. But at the slightest movement from me to focus my camera, they disappeared again.

Before we left Naabi Gate, a memory that still makes me giggle: the horrified nose-wrinkling of a female tourist in designer khakis as she came out of the public bathroom here. She put up her hand to stop me as I entered the loo, saying in a hushed and distressed voice: "There is NO toilet paper in there!" I smiled and showed her the folded wad of tissues in my pants pocket.

"Don't worry, I don't think I've been in a toilet with its own paper this trip", I laughed. She looked at me as if she'd rather have faced a lion than carry her own loo paper around. Ah yes, a good tip on an African trip: always bring your own toilet-paper.

The rest of our afternoon was a long dusty, dusty ride toward the Ngorongoro Crater area. Choking dust in shades of orange and grey followed in our wake in an enormous cloud, silting in through the open sides of the truck and coating our skin in hair in a fine layer of grit.

Later, I would do my laundry and watch as the washing water turned the colours of Serengeti mud.

Yes, bandannas: they're not just for bandits and cowboys anymore. I slitted my eyes against the glare of the sun and held a hankerchief over my nose.

The roof of the truck vibrated so hard as we jolted over the road that once again the screws in the ceiling began to work loose. Somebody was always getting up to tighten them.

We also had to be careful that none of our possessions fell off the upper shelf to fly out the window. Jen lost a flip-flop shoe today somewhere along the long road through these Masai lands. The bread and other groceries also needed a good shove once in a while so we didn't lose them. As for carbonated beverages, they were opened tonight at the owner's own risk after the shaking they received today.

This was incredibly arid land---a flat, yellow-grey prairie, a wasteland of rocky soil and dessicated grass to the horizon. The termite mounds here were made from grey clay, unlike the red mounds in the reserve area we'd spent the last day on.

Once in a while we'd see a bright splotch of colour in the landscape--bright red in a sea of dull colours. It would be a Masai herdsman walking along with two or three cows. He was literally miles and miles away from...anything. It was incredible.

It got me wondering if the modern world touches these people at all. What does the whole rat race matter out here? I suddenly felt like I had way too much stuff.

Once or twice on the way to our campsite we passed a circular boma, a small Masai compound encircled with a wooden fence. You could easily pick out the Masai people from a distance--clad in bright red or purple they were the most colourful thing in the land for miles around.

Dassies Everywhere at the Serengeti Visitors' Centre

2006-03-08T20:21:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 2, 2005

At noon we had a pleasant stop at the Serengeti Visitors' centre.

There was a picnic area with thatched-grass umbrellas over tables and a kiosk that sold pricey instant coffee.

Several of our group descended like vultures on the coffee opportunity. It wasn't that we had no coffee on our little camping-trip, explained someone, it was that this was coffee served in a proper cup and saucer .

Ah yes, civilization. :)

At this centre there were peaceful wooden walkways which led through leafy glades, past informational displays of maps, stone-age artifacts, animal bones, and buttons you could press to listen to recorded animal sounds. Eventually the walkway led to a look-out point with a view of kopjes, and the many-armed euphorbia candelabrum trees .

The way was dotted with whimsical metal animal sculptures, and such things as a life-sized model of a termite mound which you could step inside to see how the inner passage-ways were formed. We've driven past a number of these mounds, but I'd never gotten either a close look or a decent photograph.

But my favourite memory, and the single-most prolific wildlife presence at this stop were the hyrax. They were everywhere. We'd caught quick glimpses of them on the savannah, sunning themselves on rocks and then dashing away. Here they were much less elusive.

Also known as dassies , these little animals were as bright-eyed, button-nosed and about as cute and tame as a wild animal can get.

Emma disagreed vehemently and pronounced them vermin, but I privately added them to the list of favourite animals encountered on this trip.

The dassies reminded me quite a bit of the furry little marmots of Vancouver Island fame, but in a strange twist of DNA evidence, their nearest living genetic relative is actually....the elephant .

Believe me, the relation is not obvious to the casual eye. It's got something to do with their teeth I believe.

Tree hyrax climbed in the branches over our head at our picnic spot and along the forest-walkway, while rock hyrax scampered among the boulders and peered at us from the porch foundations of the visitor centre itself. One of them crawled ever closer and closer to my camera as I sat on the ground watching it. Closer, closer, closer. There was no need for a zoom-lens in this wildlife encounter.

They seemed so oblivious to our human prescence that we even saw several occasions of a little dassie-on-dassie action. One pair were right in the middle of the path and we had to either wait politely for them to finish their amour or step over the little enthusiastic lovers.

Back at our lunch-spot by the truck, a little cloud of birds of several varieties descended on a spiny acacia shrub and began to peck for seeds almost at my feet. They were pretty to watch, and also very used to humans.

I read about this visitor centre before coming on this trip. It stuck in my mind because the author of the journal I read encountered a lion here. She and her boyfriend passed by a shrub along the path somewhere here on the grounds and a lion was behind it. Somehow the tale ends happily with the lion running off in one direction and the people in the other. She emphasized that no way would she have thought an animal as big as that could hide behind a little bush like that.

But no lion for us. Just birds, dassies, and a mongoose. Oh, and a big metal crocodile.

Elephants and Hyenas

2006-02-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 2, 2005

It was perhaps hard to top the excitement of seeing a lion hunt first thing in the morning, but by late morning we had also seen a large herd of elephants moving along the horizon and had strategically followed a system of the reserve's roads until we were much closer to them.

There were perhaps thirty or more animals in this group and some were babies! one or two wild elephants is a magical enough sight, but seeing so many together under the sky is inforgettable.

At another place, we saw more elephants grazing among a herd of African buffalo.

We also encountered a pair of hyenas who trotted through the grass right up to our vehicle, sniffed around a bit, crossed the road in front of us, and trotted off into the savanah again. We got a really close look at them.

I was very glad to see hyenas--they are one of the animals I was most interested in. I've seen some really good documentaries on their hunting skills and social lives. They seem to have a bad reputation, but after seeing the real animal close-up many people in our group decided that they had been misguided in their judgement. Perhaps hyenas were not so evil and ugly after all.

They are certainly interesting looking creatures--a bit like a bear and a bit like a dog and a bit like something else with hunched shoulders and spotted coat, big round ears, and a surprisingly-intelligent looking face.

Later, one night around the campfire, Pete told us the African legend about how the gods had made the hyena from the mis-matched parts of different animals. It would explain a lot.

Pete can also do a mean hyena impression. "Once you hear one, you will never forget the sound", he told me.

The first hyena we saw today was sitting in the muddy shallows of a small pool of water, resting on his spotted rump with his hind legs stretched out in front of him. I have seen bears sitting like that. He looked quite comical.

We also saw more bird life this morning, including the cory bustard, which is Africa's heaviest flying bird, and a large speckled bird of prey, which was likely either a thorny eagle or a Marshall's eagle.

The beauty of the Serengeti landscape is really affecting too.We stopped at one watering hole surrounded by lush fern-like plants. Hippos swam in the water. Storks flew overhead, and baboons sat in the branches of an over-hanging acacia tree. It just struck me as a beautiful scene. It felt like it could be a scene from thousands of years ago, peaceful and wild.

Lions

2006-02-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 2, 2005

The Serengeti is a magnificent place to wake up. The dawn this morning was red and fiery and the most beautiful I've ever seen.

Everybody in our camp were all up shortly after five. Our friends Liz and Jo had to get up even earlier because a jeep (from the lodge we'd seen the night before) picked them up at an ungodly hour to take them on their hot-air balloon ride over the savannah. It sounded like a wonderful experience, soaring over the Serengeti in the fresh early morning, seeing the animals from above. But at the price of $400 US per person for an hour's ride, it was a little too dear for Jeff and I to budget. Throwing in a champagne breakfast once on the ground again is a nice touch, but...no.

As it ultimately turned out, there would have been no room in the balloon for us anyway, and others from our tour who had planned on going were disappointed. I'm glad I didn't have my heart set on it.

As we chased the gorgeous rising sun on our drive this morning, we sometimes caught glimpses of our friends' balloon, floating in the distance along the horizon.

One of the first thing's we saw this morning was a magnificent male lion, posing majestically atop a kopje . He was a truly regal sight, sitting there in the pale dawn light like a living sculture.

The kopjes, rugged rock formations that rise out of the ground here and there like tall stone islands in a yellow sea of grass, were ideal places to spot lions. They made good look-out points for predators to survey their territories.

We spent a good part of the morning carefully circling likely rock formations and keeping our eyes peeled.

The next lions we saw were also males, although these had give up any pretenses to majesty. They were sprawled near one another in the grass, bellies up in the sunshine. Their massive golden paws lazily twitched in the air.The lions occasionally interrupted their nap to scratch themselves, but ignored both our presence and the two giraffes grazing peacefully nearby.

We also came across two lionesses roaming about on the lower slopes of a rocky hill cloaked thickly in vegetation. To our delight, a young cub accompanied them, although it was hard to see its antics as it kept gambolling about behind the bushes.

The most thrilling moment of this trip (and perhaps my life) came when one of the lions threaded its way down to the ground near our truck. She was a beautiful animal, lithe and muscular, and we could tell she was going to come very close to our truck....

All of a sudden the lioness catapaulted through the air towards us! In the blink of an eye, a reedbuck exploded out of the grass, literally right beneath us, and fled down the road in front of us with the lion in hot pursuit.

That moment when I saw the lion's shoulder muscles bunch before she jumped is frozen forever in my mind. Such speed and power! If a human had been her intent and not a deer, that person would not have had time for a full thought before they were caught. Incredible!

None of us noticed the reedbuck before she ran at all. She must have been snugged up right against one of our wheels.

And although most of us had been leaning expectantly out of the open windows with our cameras in hand, not one of us captured a picture of the hunt. It happened much too fast. Although someone's photo captured someone's face in the rear-view mirror with such a wide-eyed and startled expression on it that someone said it could be used in a safari-safety brochure.

The deer got away, by the way. After chasing the zig-zagging animal for a hundred yards or so, the lion gave up, and came trotting back.

The Serengeti Loo Song

2006-02-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

Friday, September 2, 2005

As I've said before....here's the thing about glow-in-the-dark eyes:

If they are yellow or green you are probably okay.They probably don't belong to a predator, although it still might be something large and cantankerous and dangerous like a buffalo or hippo. But if the eyes reflect red you should back away slowly and NOT run away because that would make you look like prey.

Yum yum.

Okay, so there we were in the early morning hours. The sky is beginning to glow in the east but it's still dark out and Nature is calling.

New skill learned while on this trip: the art of holding your flashlight in your teeth while using the loo.

The three of us (Jeff's mom and Jen and I) have just finished in the lovely squat toilets that are located far away from the tent area for a reason, and Jen has just finished being surprised by a bat that flew OUT of the toilet-hole.

We have just started down the trail back to the tents, giggling about the bat, when we swing our flashlight to the side and there are GLOWING EYES right nearby.

Quick, quick, what colour?

Ah, green. Probably okay.

But it is impossible to see what sort of animal it might be, hidden in the shrubbery as it were.

....Er, let's walk away...casually..

So we do. We giggle, a bit nervously as we do, and one of us pretends to whistle.

Just then a little tune pops into my head and out a song springs fully formed. The inspiration of nervous adrenalin. (cough cough)

Ahem.

The Serengeti Loo Song goes like this:

We're casually walking away
We're casually walking away
So we don't look like prey
We're casually walking away

And if the eyes are yellow
We breathe a sigh of relief
Cuz if they're red
I guess we're dead
We're casually walking away

We all want to see a lion
But not on the way to the loo!
In fact we're happy to see nothing at all
Except maybe some animal poo

We're casually walking away
We're casually walking away
So we don't look like prey
We're casually walking away!

Well, it's not Andrew Lloyd Webber, but it DID fit the occasion.

And it has a catchy tune. :)

Spaghetti on the Serengeti....and Some Bugs

2006-02-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 1, 2005

As evening fall on our first Serengeti game-drive, we must head for our camp-site. We must be off the roads before darkness falls.

We make a quick pit-stop at a large luxury safari lodge that suddenly looms out of nowhere. It looks very modern, with lots of wood and glass. Impala graze just outside the edge of the parking lot.

I wonder aloud how much it costs to stay in such a posh-looking place, but from my pre-trip research into safari options I am quite sure I don't want to trade my cozy sleeping-bag for a frighteningly-expensive bed. No, all I want out of this lodge is to sneak in and use their toilet facilities.

The line-up for the Wanawakes (Ladies) is too long so I make myself into an honourary
gent.

We are bush-camping at Ngiri Campsite tonight. There is a grass-thatched shelter there for cooking under in bad weather, but that is as close as we get to the amenities of a luxury-lodge. The loos are pit-toilets located a short walk away down a trail from our tents.

We pitch our tents to form a horse-shoe shape, the truck forming another side to the circle and our camp-fire in the middle. Once again we are cautioned about the do's and don'ts of bush-camping.

Remember... be careful where you spit your tooth-paste and NO food or toiletries in your tent. Pee behind your tent if you must get up in the night. If you spot animal eyes, that are green or yellow, it's probably not a predator but move slowly away just to be safe. And if you see the reflection of red eyes, do not run away and act like prey. Ah, all good safety tips .

We gather around the camp-fire to eat as Pete works his magic and makes the spaghetti fabulous. I coin the phrase Spaghetti on the Serengeti which is gleefully passed around.

After dinner we stay around the fire to talk. I am sitting on a camp-stool writing in my journal when I notice a scuttling motion near my feet. There is a large odd-looking arachnid of some kind trundling around in the dirt. I fetch my camera and follow it around trying to get a good picture until it scampers away into the grassland around our camp.

Yes, I'm interested in bugs. :)

Nobody was able to tell me what it was at the time, but from some internet research I believe it was a solufigid of some sort. The members of the genus Solifugae include some pretty scary-looking arachnoids, like the infamous camel spiders, but they are non-venomous and quite fascinating. Their Latin name means "flees from the sun" because they are nocturnal and can apparently dig some impressive burrows. They are also known for their impressive hunting abilities and their ability to run at enormous speeds.

One of my fellow campers studied the weird-looking critter I was trying to photograph, and noticing my sandal-clad feet inquired : "Thinking about a change in footwear?"

Soon after this sighting, there was a loud whirring sound to my left and then a THWACK as an enormous beetle crashes like a miniature helicopter into Helen as she sits peacefully by the fire. She was most unhappy about it!

But (lucky for me) it's something I've been wanting to see: a scarab/dung beetle! I scoop it up in my hand for a closer look. It's quite a big and heavy insect and clings to my fingers with a strong grip. It has a hard and shiny black body. There is a mixture of interest and polite revulsion as I bring it around for everyone to have a look.

Helen probably thought I was crazy, but I'd be feeling poorly towards any creature that hit me in the head like that too.

Wayne says its nice when campers are interested in wildlife other than the bigger animals.

We retire to our tents somewhere around nine o'clock. Bedtime comes early on this trip.

The Last of the Big Five

2006-02-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

September 1, 2005

By mid-afternoon we reached a central area of the Serengeti known as the Seronera Valley.

It is here we see our first lions---two males hidden in the long grass. It is not a very good view of them unfortunately. Pete, with his animal-radar vision, somehow spotted yellow ears twitching among yellow grass. His animal-spotting abilities were downright spooky, but without them we would have missed seeing wonderful things on this trip.

Binoculars are passed around. It is still thrilling to see wild lions, even at a distance.

Seeing lions means we have now officially seen The Big Five : lion, buffalo, leopard, rhino, and elephant. Traditionally, these were the animals Victorian big-game hunters would brag about coming to Africa to kill because they were supposed to be the most dangerous to hunt....

Yes, travel to exotic, faraway places and see magnificent creatures--then stick their head on your living-room wall or make a rug out of them. That kind of travel philosophy just boggles my mind...

Wayne admitted that although he doesn't like to emphasize sighting these particular animals, he, like most safari leaders, heave a big sigh of relief when their group has seen them all. I suppose it happens that one might come to Africa and never spot a lion or elephant at all. It's not a zoo, after all, and the animals don't appear on cue. But we were fortunate. I don't think anyone went home disappointed.

This afternoon we saw a lot of wildlife: giraffes, several different species of antelope and deer, hyena, jackal, zebra, wart-hogs, baboons, and a wonderful variety of birds, large and small , including a sleepy owl peering down from a tree.

(By the way, the pictures of the small birds on this page are a result of Graham's infinitely superior camera and excellent ornithological photography skills. Thanks for sharing them!)

I think the true highlights of this afternoon were our encounters with elephants.

One elephant decided to slowly lumber down the center of the dirt-track our truck was on. There was another smaller safari vehicle further along. Both vehicles slowly and respectfully made way for the massive animal to pass by. Close encounters between stubborn cars and elephants can end poorly, I've heard.

Elephants weigh between 7,000-13,500 lbs. (3, 000-6, 250 kg) and don't like to play chicken.

Another elephant entertained us by pausing for a dust-bath in camera range, scooping up trunkfuls of dirt and dumping it over her shoulders onto her back. Tail and trunk swished back and forth energetically as she enjoyed a good dusting. Her broad grey back was soon covered in a layer of reddish-brown clay, causing a significant cloud of dust to hover in the air around her.

As afternoon faded to evening, we also came upon more animals which didn't mind a little dirt: several hippos, caked comfortably in mud, reclining in a shallow pool. One of the younger hippos lolled so that its head rested on another's back, a contented expression on its broad face. They looked totally relaxed and at ease with the world.

On the Serengeti

2006-02-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 1, 2005

The Serengeti was huge under a vast open sky. I folded my arms on the window-ledge of the truck and rested my chin on them, dreamily watching as the truck rolled quietly through the yellow savannah.

Acacia trees grew here and there, landmarks in the waving grasslands. We are here in Africa's winter, the dry season, and sometimes we saw areas of scorched earth, evidence of grass-fires. Here on the edges of the Serengeti, we did not expect game to move in big herds, especially as it is not the annual migration season.

But there was still lots to see--zebras, kicking up their heels in a cloud of dust as we passed; ungainly wildebeest and graceful impala; a lone hyena loping along.

There were twittering trees with colonies of birds' nests, and tall trees filled with hunched and grotesque marabou storks. There were the rust-red pointy hills of termite mounds, stately ostriches, and families of roving baboons.

And when we turned off the main track to take a detour down to the forested banks of the Grumeti River, we let out gasps of excitement as we sighted our first African elephants.

There were three of them, moving slowly through the shrubby woodland. At first, it was hard to see them, camoflauged behind the trees. Although they are massive animals they move extraordinarily quietly and their dusty grey hides blend surprisingly well with the subdued colours of the landscape.

Then they moved into the open and came quite close to us, swaying gently as they walked, before turning and retreating back into the acacia woodland. Jen was so thrilled! Out of all the animals she'd wanted to see on this trip, it was elephants that were special to her.

As we travelled across the Serengeti, we would often see evidence of tree damage caused by elephants. They consume a massive amount of vegetation daily, and often simply break a tree by pushing it to get to the tastiest parts.

We moved further along the dirt track, down towards the Grumeti.

As we rounded a corner the water came into sight and we were rewarded by the sight of an enormous pod of hippos soaking in the river. There was probably as many as thirty of them, maybe more! It was hard to tell because some animals were almost completely submerged, showing only eyes, tender pink ears, and massive flared nostrils. It was a lumbering river of grey and pink bodies, grunting and sighing and jostling.

There was even two amorous hippo friends, an educational sight to be sure!

We followed the river around a bend, and shallow river-pools revealed more hippos wallowing in the murky water. It was amazing to see so many of them together.

We also spotted a crocodile, our first and unfortunately the last in the wild on this trip. (Although we did meet our share of crocodiles, as I will tell you later). The Grumeti River is famous for particularly large crocodiles, but they were shy and retiring today. Our lone crocodile floated very quietly, regretfully hard to see, like a bumpy brown log with unblinking eyes.

Apparently, during the rainy migration season from May-July, the banks of the Grumeti are often the scene of dramatic struggles between the gigantic crocodiles who lie in wait and the hapless zebras and wildebeest who try to cross the swollen river.

I suppose a bloodthirsty part of me would be thrilled to see that hunt take place, but I am just as happy today to be amused by the grunting hippos and not see any poor ungulate become a reptile's lunch.

Running the Tsetse Fly Gauntlet

2006-02-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 1, 2005

Anybody who knows me will probably not think it's very strange if I say that I'm a little disappointed that I didn't see more strange insect-life while I was in Africa. It wasn't just the four-legged kind of wildlife that I was hoping to see.

Upon reflection, it was probably because I was personally repulsive to them. Me and my buddy DEET made sure I wasn't going to have many close encounters with my LEAST favourite beasties, mosquitoes, and who knows what else took offense to my Eau de Bug Repellent. (Well, for instance, Jeff had to share a tent with me, poor fellow...)

But when our truck entered the Western Corridor of the Serengeti, a wild vast plain, we had to run a six-legged gauntlet of testse flies who drank DEET for breakfast.

Wayne, our driver, told us: "The best thing to do if a tsetse fly lands on your friend is to slap them hard. You're doing them a favour."

He told us he was going to drive as fast as he could through this particular area where the flies always hung out and he would just ignore any screaming he heard coming from the back of the truck. It would just be the ruckus made by us running around and slapping one another.

Tsetse flies are a scourge in Africa. They cause fun diseases like sleeping sickness (trypanasomiasis), are largely immune to insect repellent, and can inflict a bite through multiple layers of clothing with a long, stinging proboscis. They look quite a bit like the Canadian horsefly, but with none of a Canadian's politeness.

We prepared for battle.

Off we went, hair whipping in the wind, red dust swirling in our wake, vigilant for the flies that blew willy-nilly into the back of the truck through the open sides. It's probably sad that I felt so exhilarated by swatting insects, but I did.

Loud shrieks and giggling mixed with cries of triumph as the little blighters met their ends at the ends of rolled-up magazines. They were hard to kill though and they reminded me of Freddy, Jason, and that guy in the hockey-mask in the Halloween movies: you THINK they're dead, but they come back....

But we made it through the Corridor with only a couple of us bitten. Though many of us got slapped. What's a little pent-up aggression between truck-mates anyhow? :)

Don't Sit Under the Monkey Tree

2006-02-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 1, 2005

After leaving Musoma we did not stop until we'd reached the very edge of the Serengeti.

As our entrance fee only allowed us exactly twenty-four hours within the Serengeti Reserve, we stopped for a picnic lunch in a shady grove of acacia trees outside the Ndabaka Gate.

There was a cheerful wooden sign tacked to a tree: "WARNING! ANIMALS MAY ATTACT HUMAN BEING!"

As we were just outside the gates to the Serengeti National Park where lions and hyenas roam freely, I don't suppose the sign was misplaced, but I wasn't expecting the attack to come from such a cute little creature as a vervet monkey.

And I wasn't expecting the attack to come from above!

Yes, be careful when you are sitting underneath trees and monkeys are about. They laugh like crazy when they find somebody to pee on.

Pol, sorry about the shirt I borrowed. I washed it three times but the back of it was just never the same again.

By the way, the monkey momma and her baby pictured are totally innocent. It was one of her evil friends in the next tree who did it as I sat peacefully eating my lunch.

Musoma

2006-02-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 1, 2005

In the wee hours before dawn this morning, I wandered out of my tent across the beach to the toilet area. A man sat in one of the plastic beach- chairs, cradling a rifle laid across his lap. He nodded to me as I walked by in my pyjamas. I presume he must have been an armed guard for the camp-site. At least I hope so.

When we opened our tent-flap this morning we looked out to see sunlight glistening on the water. It's nice to wake up to a view like that.

I took some pictures of some of the birds fishing along the beach in the early morning light: ibises, herons, and egrets. Off in the distance a traditional dhow boat sailed by.

It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed my breakfast of French toast (eggy-bread to the British among us), syrup, bacon, and coffee immensely.

Poor Jen was not having as good a morning as me unfortunately. She was very sick to her stomach all last night, and felt pretty awful this morning too. She is the first one to get sick on our truck (and hopefully the last). We are all very careful about our drinking water and washing our hands and dishes with Dettol.

Wayne thinks that she might be reacting to her Malarone (her daily malaria medication) . She took it on an empty stomach last night and washed it down with a beer. Jeff's mom is chiding herself because she is a nurse she felt that she let Jen do that.

After leaving Tembo Beach, we headed back into the town of Musoma. We had an hour or two to explore before we could exchange our money so after our stint on truck duty, Jeff and I wandered into the town.

Musoma is not a tourist-oriented town and we were advised that the local town-folk would probably not appreciate having their photo taken, so to be respectful of that. Therefore I refrained from taking pictures down at the busy waterfront because it was bustling with people.
There was a lot of activity down at the harbour around the beached fishing-boats: people mending nets, painting boats, selling fish, and just sitting around chatting. We spoke to some local women in bright headscarves to try and identify the tiny, tiny salted fish they were selling heaped up in big round flat baskets.

"The fish?" they said, nodding, "They are tiny, tiny fish." Heh, that much I knew already, but thank-you.

Although I refrained from taking pictures where there were people, I did manage to snap the photos of some local chickens who posed nicely for me by baskets and under tables.

Speaking of non-peopled photography subjects, I laughed to discover later that both Jeff's mom and I had taken a picture of the same store-front, a shop that sold toilets and other plumbing supplies. I had taken my photo while the store was closed and so had photographed the painted outer-wall, and she had taken her picture later when the toilet shop opened for business.

We walked up a block or so from the waterfront along the dirt streets, and wandered into the narrow passage-ways of the market. There were rows and rows of wooden stalls crammed with produce and hung with all manner of goods: baskets, brooms, tools, clothing, and food-stuffs. It immediately reminded me of the maze-like medinas of Morocco, especially the way spices and beans were displayed in tall barrels and baskets with a little wooden price sign stuck into the display.

We made a friend in Musoma's market.

His name was Ruta Ntongani and he was a short and cheerful peanut-seller who spoke very good English. We started off discussing the merits of the different kinds of peanuts he sold, but after we bought half a kilo from him, we got into a longer conversation.

We ended up exchanging addresses,and he asked us if we'd take his photo and send it to him (which we did). So we ended up with a photograph of a person in Musoma after all.

Ruta seemed to be in his twenties. He had no wife or children, but his brother ran a similar market-stall nearby. He told us his father was dead, but his mother lived in a village further north in Tanzania.

"It's very pretty up there", he told us, "And you should see the animals leaping around! I could've taken you there, but I'm sure sure you didn't plan for it on this visit!" He laughed easily, showing a lot of white teeth.

Before leaving Musoma, we exchange fifty U.S. dollars for Tanzania shillings, and stock up on snacks and drinks at the money-changer's grocery. She must get a lot of store business this way. This is our last stop before the Serengeti.

Tembo Beach

2006-02-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

We made a quick stop in the small town of Musoma late in the afternoon. An Indian woman who runs the Kotra Mini-supermarket here is the local money-changer. It's better to deal with her, as the banks have dismal exchange rates. Alas, she was not carrying enough funds to supply us today, so we must return in the morning.

We set up our tents at Tembo ("elephant" in Swahili) Beach, right on the shores of Lake Victoria. Tomorrow we camp on the plains of the Seregeti, but for tonight we relax on the beach.

Lake Victoria is the second-biggest freshwater lake in the world, so big it is actually considered an inland sea. When the moon is right, Lake Victoria has tides, and the wind blowing this afternoon kicked up the waves so that it looked just like the sea. The Nile River is fed from these waters.

Its shores are sandy, a pinkish-brown gritty sand that reminds me strongly of aquarium gravel. Drifts of black and white "sea"-shells line the beach, in such abundance that I could pick up great handfuls of them all at once.

This made my tradition of spelling out words for souvenir photos using beach detritus very simple indeed, although I lazily settled on the word A-F-R-I-C-A because it was much less effort than assembling the word T-A-N-Z-A-N-I-A in shells.

Compared to gathering empty crab shells on the beaches of the Canadian West Coast to spell out T-O-F-I-N-O, it took no time at all.

Jeff and I went for a bare-footed walk along the shore, watching the hawk-like kites swooping and floating on the currents and pointing out fallen coconuts and paw-paws (papayas) that had fallen from trees onto the sand.

We waded to our knees in the lake a bit, but decided against swimming as Wayne had given us a cursory warning about a very uncomfortable parasite called bilharzia which commonly frequents the waters of Lake Victoria.

There were lots of locals swimming naked, however, apparently unconcerned by bilharzia, so many in our group decided to take a cue from them and dive right in anyway.

The snail that is host to this parasite apparently prefers to lay its eggs on reeds in stagnant water, and Victoria's waters at this location were anything but that, so the risk here was low. All the same, I'd rather not have have parasites targeting my urethra. Especially as just before our trip, we'd experienced the comparably inconsequential annoyance of swimmer's itch back home in Comox Lake, and that was annoying enough.

Eventually we settle in chairs facing the water under shady trees, drinks in hand from a little kiosk where one could run a tab, peacefully taking in the evening.

Later, we move to the other end of the beach where others from our group are relaxing. Our little family of four sit together, curling our toes in the sand, comparing cameras and experimenting with sunset photography. Dark falls early, and the stars are bright. We can easily see Jupiter, Venus, and Mars.

Dinner is late, but fantastic as usual. It features Nile perch, or, as Pete admits, it could just as easily be tilapia . Both fish are common to the waters of Lake Victoria. Regardless, it is delicious Mystery Fish.

Charcoal Sellers

2006-02-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2006

We stop by the side of the road this afternoon to buy charcoal for our cooking needs. We are parked by a rocky slope on which some goats are tethered. It feels like a really isolated area,but nearby there are some small round huts from which children run. They gather by the roadside, calling Jambo! to us as Pete purchases several tall sacks of charcoal from a lean man on a bicycle.

Some older people join the children, including one fellow with a portable radio with a long antennae. There is a lot of chatter among the children as Vicki and some others give them some pens. One of the pens has green-coloured ink and this causes a pleasant stir.

Finally, one of the older children inquires whether we have some paper to share. I decide they probably have more need for my cheap little elephant note-book than I do and pass it down to waiting hands. The notebook is passed from hand to hand with smiles and interest.

I'm glad they like it, but I feel most peculiar that I am able to give something away that means almost nothing to me, but that seems to mean a lot to them. I feel a pang of something, I don't know, guilt? Embarrassment?

Is this how these people make their living, selling charcoal to passing campers? It must be a hard way to make a living.

The children are a friendly chattering bunch, dressed in ill-fitting clothes. I give one of them a pack of gum. Immediately a grown-up man pounces on the gum and grabs it away from the child. "It's for the children!", I say indignantly. "You have to share it!"

I doubt very much if that happened however. Too bad.

Cows at Lunch

2006-02-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Almost immediately after the border into Tanzania, I felt like I was in a different country both geographically and culturally.

There were rugged hills and strange, lumpy rock formations. We saw different kinds of trees, and fields planted with different crops, like cassavas, that we hadn't seen before.

And the houses, mostly square and wooden or aluminum in Kenya, were almost universally round, mud-bricked, and thatch-roofed here in Tanzania. We characteristically saw little clusters of these houses bunched together.

At noon we stopped for lunch by the side of the road. It was just a small dirt pull-off area, but it was located by a shallow river and was apparently a popular area for the local cow-herders to bring their animals through.

I said hello and gave lollipops to two young children, a boy and a girl, holding long wooden switches and guiding their dun-coloured cows through the grassy area next to our lunch-spot.

" Asante sana?, said Wayne, reminding them of their manners, but they just stared at him with big brown eyes and walked off silently with their cows, swinging their sticks.

Other cows soon appeared along the river-bank followed by a man, and later, when we were back on the road, we slowed to let a noisy herd of cattle go by.

Young Entrepreneurs at the Border

2006-02-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

I gave my three Canada flag pins away to children selling baby-bananas from flat baskets on their heads just before we arrived at the border-crossing area into Tanzania. Other children were selling little paper cones filled with roasted peanuts. It was about ten cents for a delicious little snack of peanuts and I think everybody ended up with at least two paper cones. It was a good way to get rid of pockets heavy with Kenyan coins.

Vicki had brought a bag of ball-point pens to give away, and the children jumped up and down with excitement as she handed them out the window of the truck. It was quite entertaining to watch the entrepreneurial little urchins run around to the other side of the vehicle and try to sell them back to us. And of course we bought them, trading US dollars and the last of our Kenyan shillings in exchange for Tanzanian money.

Vicki sighs and laughs. "So much for school supplies", she says, shaking her head.

Wayne had collected up our passports just before reaching the border, and disappears into an ugly building with them for a few minutes. The crossing does not take long.

Just on the other side of the border there is a large area of parched grass where a bandstand and stereo equipment are blasting out canned music to an assembled crowd of Africans who are all facing the direction the music is coming from, but looking bored and decidedly disinclined to dance.

" Cel-e-brate to-night!.....Come on! ", blasts the familiar tune encouragingly, but nobody but Simon and Wayne, who do a goofy little dance on the lawn, pays the slightest attention to the music.

More small African children swarm us with snacks for sale as soon as we leave the official area of the border-crossing in Tanzania. "You're quite the businessman", says Andy to one very persuasive little child.

Andy bought a long length of sugar-cane here, and stowed it in the over-head rack. Later, Pete brought out his machete and hacked it into pieces for everybody to share. It was chewy and fresh and sweet-tasting (of course), but not overwhelmingly so.

Last Morning in Kenya

2006-02-20T21:35:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Our last morning in Kenya dawned bright and gorgeous. I took a last walk around the lovely grounds of the Kericho Tea hotel, doing a little bit of bird-watching.

Casque hornbills jumped about in the trees above the swimming pool, hadaba ibises flew low overhead calling Bawk-ha-ha, and black and white pied crows pecked about as crows do.

Over breakfast, I did a bit of monkey-watching too. The vervet monkeys desperately wanted to share in our breakfasts, but we were quite careful not to encourage them. Although they did get a bit of burnt toast for their troubles, I believe.

We practically had a sleep-in morning today; we didn't have to be on the road till eight o'clock. I felt really well-rested today. The only animal sounds to keep one awake last night were cows and roosters. A bit of a wind kicked up last night and rattled a nearby tin-roof, but although it kept some people awake, it didn't bother me.

Our drive this morning towards the border with Tanzania took us through the hustle and dust of towns like Keroka, Kisii, and Migori. There was always something interesting to see.

In one town, a woman sat on a chair on a sidewalk. Four other women gathered around her to plait her long hair.

We saw amazing feats like three people sharing the same bicycle, and a woman who miracuously balanced a huge load of long wooden boards on her head. How does one walk balancing lumber on one's head?

We also passed many colourful outdoor markets with crowds of people gathered to buy and sell. We learned that "Sony" is a brand name for sugar here, and not for stereos.

At one place we passed the place where an oil tanker truck had over-turned and spilled a black stream of oil all down a long length of ditch and street. In places it was deep enough to wade into, although my only picture shows a place where the stream was no longer so big. All along the trail of the spill, a crowd of grown-ups and children alike scooped up the oily sludge with pails and cups and any sort of containers they had.

At another place along our way, the large black body of a snake lay squished on the road. It was over six feet long and was probably a cobra.

Between the dry, busy, and dusty towns the countryside was uncrowded, lush, and green. We saw many more tea plantations and also fields of banana trees.

We snacked on local nouma crisps (made from arrowroot) and matoke crisps (made from bananas, although they tasted nothing like bananas) as we watched the sights go by.

We made sure to keep our heads and limbs in the truck as the driving was pretty dodgy today. Our mirror was clipped twice as other trucks and cars barrelled by in the other direction on the narrow highway. Each time we were clipped there would be a high-pitched ping sound and the truck would rock. No worries, though. George is built like a tank and Anne-Dorte is a formidable driver in her own right!

Deep Thoughts Over Dinner and Masai Dancers

2006-02-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

After the tea tour, it was back to the camp for another excellent dinner made by Pete, the man who works miracles over charcoal ---adding rosemary to the sausages and orange zest to the chili. This is not "camping" food. It's fantastic.

Before we ate, about half of us pulled up our campstools and had a discussion, led by Simon, about the problems and challenges of Africa, and what the world was doing to help Africa.

Soon our conversation was covering Eastern versus Western mindsets and lifestyles, the Buddhist philosophy of tolerance, and other weighty subjects.

"Whoa, this is heavy", grinned Wayne, listening in. "We usually don't get into religious/political discussions until well past the third day...."

Some Masai men clad in red blankets quietly approached Wayne during our meal-time to ask him if we would like to see them dance. So after the dinner dishes are washed, the lot of us troop over to the hotel to see the performance.

It is a very surreal feeling to be sitting in the living-room of an elegant old hotel while a troupe of Masai dancers jump and dance and whoop on the wooden floor against a back-drop of floral wall-paper and heavy dark furniture.

Their performance was really rather gripping--during their dances they often would leap several feet straight up into the air. They used strange rhythmic vocalizations as their music instead of instruments. They clapped and stomped and twirled.

It was an energetic show and the hotel staff peeking around the doorway into our room appeared to enjoy it too.

And look at me in that last photo, these Masai fellows are all a head or more taller than me!

The Tea Plantation

2006-02-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

To get to the plantation where our Tea Tour took place, one strolled down to the end of a short dirt lane off the hotel grounds, past a magnificent Nandi flame tree and some nanny goats tied in someone's backyard.

Simon, a Kenyan man dressed nattily in tie and vest, was our guide. He waded right into the glossy yellow-green bushes to show us how the tea-pickers could move around among the plants, and answered our questions as he stood there suspended from the waist up in the tea-crop. Vicky, a woman in our group who once worked for the British tea company Unilever was informative too.

All around us, the tea fields rolled away on gentle slopes. Small grey cinder-block houses belonging to tea-pickers. dotted the fields here and there.

Tea is a part of my everyday life back home. I probably drink it twice a day, every day, and I have since I was a young child. I was curious to learn about something which is so common to me and yet something I know very little about. For instance, before today I could not have shown you what a tea-bush looked like even if I tripped over one. Now I have seen thousands of them.

Other things I learned about tea?

Well, it is a very fast-growing crop and new leaves can be harvested every month or so year-round. It grows ideally in sloping fields like the one we were standing in and is planted very close together. The workers pick the leaves and toss them over their shoulders to land in a sack carried on their back.

But the most memorable thing I learned this evening was that for the price I paid for this little half-hour tour(200 shillings or about $3), a man or woman working in this field would need to work a very long day indeed, tossing fifty to sixty kilos of leaves into that bag on their back at a wage of four shillings a kilo. It is an unhappy thought that bothers me.

Entering Tea Country

2006-02-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

By late afternoon we were passing through tea country under skies threatening rain.

As we approached Kericho, we saw fields filled with identical low white houses. These were the homes of tea plantation workers who spend their days picking tea for a living in the surrounding countryside.

We stopped briefly at a roadside store that sold tea. It resembled a big red metal box, like a jail cell with a barred metal window on one side through which a young man passed you the boxes of tea.

Jen bought half a kilogram here. It was a nice idea to have some tea from Kenya to take home, but I figured it would weigh our luggage down, and unfortunately Jen also came to that same conclusion, jettisoning her tea before the trip's end. On the bright side, we could sample African tea at breakfast every morning anyway.

We reach our pleasant campsite on the grounds of the Kericho Tea Hotel just as the sun began to break through the clouds with great fingers of light. We set up our tents in the hotel's grassy back-yard. We are very near to the sunlit green tea fields, and the hotel grounds have manicured gardens. Hornbill birds call and flutter in the trees and there is also a pool available.

More importantly, we campers are allowed to use the pool's shower facilities and there are westernized toilets, instead of squat toilets.

The shower is freezing cold, won't drain, and is so horribly clogged that one must either stand in five inches of soapy water or just stand on the outside and lean in to douse one's head. It doesn't matter: I still feel like a new woman with clean hair.

Before dinner I wander through the hotel gardens and admire the flowers.

Five children playing ball in the cement yard next door kick a soccer ball my way and call out to me: Jambo! Jambo! Come and take our photo!"

I go over to talk to them and introduce myself. The girl is Jaqueline, the little one is Gideon, the two eight-year-olds are Dennis and Nixon, and I'm afraid I've forgotten the last boy's name. They invited me to play ball with them. I thanked them, told them "maybe later", and pointed out where we were camping.

I had to get back to join a guided tour of the tea plantation which was just down a little dirt lane from where the children were playing. I waved to them next time I passed by.

The Road to Kericho, Part Two

2006-02-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The land grew greener and more lush the farther we drove. We left the dusty little towns behind and passed through farmland. It has apparently rained here recently.

We saw plots of maize and other crops, and cows and goats in the fields (and sometimes wandering on the road).

There were lots of people walking or bicycling by the road. Many people were loaded down with heavy-looking pails or are carrying enormous bundles of sticks on their backs. Some bicycles carry heavy loads too, the "cyclist" pushing the bike from behind.

We also see people having a more relaxed time, sitting and talking in groups on the grass outside their homes, or lying on a comfortable knoll and contemplating the clouds.

Other people sit by the road's edge beside piles of vegetables and other produce. They call to us to stop and buy their wares.

At one place the truck must have slowed down enough for some reason that the vegetable sellers took their opportunity to leap up onto the sides of the trucks, hanging off the window ledges and shouting and waving vegetables.

Wayne, who was driving at the time, did some shouting of his own. He was most unhappy at the vegetable hijackers' liberties. But we let Wayne know that it was okay, and money and bundles of carrots changed hands.

Along the Road to Kericho, Part One

2006-02-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

On our long afternoon drive today, I passed the time writing in my journal, studying the field guide to animals and birds in the truck's reference "library", and letting the breeze blow in my hair as I knelt on the seat to look out the window.

The roads were much better in this part of Kenya than in the areas around Nairobi and Naivasha, and our truck travelled as fast as this kind of vehicle is allowed (about 80 km/hr). Compared to the hours of sidling around potentially truck-crippling potholes and jolting up and down in our seats with every bump like we experienced the other day , it feels like we're flying along.

I needed to sit on one of the side seats to write, keeping a good grip on my notebook as the wind blowing through was powerful. The people sitting along the back bench of the bus felt like they were in a wind-tunnel. There are technically plastic tarpulins that can be rolled down to cover the open sides in case of bad weather, but that would block our view. We were happier to just let our hair blow around.

We slowed down though to pass through many little settlements today, roadside shanty-towns composed of ramshackle buildings made of brightly painted wood or corrugated tin.

It was hot today and very dusty. On the truck we were glad of a cooler rattling around on the back shelf full of drinks purchased earlier.

The favourite seems to be Tusker beer, a tall bottle with a black and yellow label with an elephant logo on it. It seems that the brand was ironically named for the animal that killed the company's founder.

This afternoon we passed a building advertisng Tusker prominently, and to complete the advert here is a picture of Jen and Andy slaking their thirst with the local favourite.

I'm not generally a beer drinker myself, but I much prefer Tusker to Coca-Cola or Fanta which are the other choices other than water from the truck tanks.

How Are You? How Are You?

2006-02-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

After leaving Nakuru Town we had a long afternoon drive through rural Kenya.

There were always people by the roadside. The African children would get so excited as our truck passed by. They would come running out of buildings toward the road and shriek and jump and wave their arms in the air.

They would shout "How are you! How are you!" at the top of their lungs, or sometimes just " You! You! You!"

It was hard not to crack a smile at all their enthusiam. We waved back as we rumbled by. All afternoon we waved at people. Sometimes grown-ups would wave too, but it was mostly children.

"I feel like we're rock stars", somebody commented.

"Or the Queen", replied another.

A few times we were able to stop and chat for a moment with the children while we stopped to let Pete buy charcoal or vegetables from road-side vendors.

Lizzie gave a notebook and a pen to a woman sitting by the road on a blanket with her child and her cattle. I gave her daughter a candy. They were so pleased!

I asked if I could take their picture and they nodded and grinned some more, but first the mother said "Oh! My hair!" and threw a sweater over her head. Then she was ready for the picture.

It seemed my pockets were always full of treats on this trip. Bags of mints and gummy frogs and other sweets constantly made the rounds of the back of the truck. I didn't eat them for the most part; I saved them for the kids I saw. Well, okay, I ate the cassava chips...they were yummy!

At one stop this afternoon I leaned out the window and gave a small boy a few peppermints. He ran away and then came back, bringing a little friend with him. I gave his friend some treats too. They had the brightest smiles.

Now I realize candy is not great for the teeth, and I've heard the argument that one shouldn't encourage children in other countries to always have their hands out expecting something from visitors, but I think of the children I know back home who are spoiled beyond belief compared to the material poverty of the children we saw today.

What child doesn't appreciate a treat once in a while?

Bargaining in Nakuru Town

2006-02-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

After leaving the Baboon Cliffs, we left the animal reserve area and headed into Nakuru Town.

As we drove through a busy intersection of town, we stopped to let Jeff, Evelyn, and Vicky hop off the truck to help Pete shop for groceries and supplies at the Ghilani Butchery . They are "cook's helpers" today.

Everybody in our group takes turns helping with all the daily jobs that need doing. We have a list posted in the truck that tells us what days we'll be doing dishes, chopping vegetables, sweeping out the truck at night, etc. It's a very fair system and nobody seems to mind doing their share.

Once we are parked in the heart of town, I volunteer with some of the others for the first shift of Truck Duty. Basically, we'll stay on board for a little while to make sure everybody's belongings are safe. We truck guards spend some time chatting with the local merchants who have gathered outside to show off their wares.

The local market is located only a few yards away and so a big vehicle full of potential customers is quite a draw. The merchants hold up necklaces and cloth banners, bracelets and hand-painted cards. They pass the merchandise up into the truck so we can better admire it all. There are actually some things I quite like and so I promise to come shopping later at the tables of Vincent and Joseph and John. They are a friendly, talkative lot.

One of them gives me his simple business card with his name and his motto on it : " Strive to Survive" .

When Jeff and the others return from the supply run and have finished stowing everything away in the lockers and overhead shelves, Jeff and I leave truck duty to the next shift and go for a walk around the market. Wayne tells us that Nakuru is one of the nicer markets we'll have a chance to visit so this might be a good time to pick up small souvenirs.

But there is not a lot of extra space on board the truck. Our storage lockers are tiny. Unlike other trips we've been on, the emphasis on shopping is rather small. I'm glad of this, but I still have my eye on some small items today.

And also I am looking forward to haggling with the vendors. My time as a merchant myself at the flea markets back home has made me fond of the process.

I didn't haggle very hard for my first purchase, a bracelet made of wood, white seeds, and black beads. At 100 Kenyan shillings, or about $1.50, I was happy with the price.

But I bargained harder for my three little olive-wood animals: a rhino, buffalo, and an elephant.

The merchant would scribble a number on the palm of his hand in ballpoint pen, then I would make a counter-offer, and then he would scribble again. The number on his hand got lower and lower until we shook on 350 shilling for the three animals. That's down from the initial price of 1400 shillings for two of them.

At another merchant's table at the other end of town, I added a zebra to my figurine collection and sealed the deal by offering a pen. I remember this trick from Morocco--if you throw in a pen or plastic comb, it's just as good as offering cash sometimes. One of the girls in our group bartered a trashy British tabloid in one of her deals today.

I also bought some home-made banana-leaf cards in Nakuru. It sounds like I purchased a lot but all of it fit in a very small space luckily.

Jeff and I also walked a few blocks away from the market to explore the town . The buildings are square and modern and unlovely here, but I liked photographing the hand-painted signs in front of businesses. They seem so different from the plastic and neon world of storefronts at home.

The streets were dusty and we saw a lot of litter, but hibiscus bushes and the colourful clothes women wore brought a splash of beauty to the town.

While we were having our pleasant walk, Jen and Jeff's mom were using their time in Nakuru to check and send emails from an internet cafe and to relax at a tea shop.

Jeff remembered to tell me that while shopping at the butchery ( seems to be another name for grocery stores where you can buy meat), he noticed that one of the other customers, an old man, had enormous stretched-out earlobes. He wondered at the size of earrings that one could put in a hole that size.

Lunch Stop with Lizards and a View

2006-02-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Around eleven o'clock, we stopped for a camp-lunch at a look-out point overlooking Lake Nakuru called the Baboon Cliffs.

There were no baboons in evidence, but there was a gorgeous view over the game reserve and lake below, and bold little lizards scampered over the warm rocks.

I took a piece of watermelon and my journal and found a rock to perch on while I wrote. While I sat there, happily sunning myself, two bus-loads of chattering uniformed African schoolchildren pulled up and gathered at the overlook with their teachers and some solemn-looking chaperons.

Listening in on the field-trip lecture, which was given animatedly in perfect English, I was treated to a vicarious nature lesson on the wildlife of Nakuru. For instance, I learned that the lizards on the rocks were called agama lizards and that the drab brown ones were females while the splashier blue and orange ones were the male of the same species.

Later on, I said hello to some of the school-girls who appeared to be around twelve to fifteen years old. One of them, less shy than her friends, said she would like me to take her picture.

From up here on the cliffs, we could see for miles. We could see the narrow dusty roads we'd travelled on earlier stretching across the plains. We could see far over to the other side of the lake where there appeared to be a whirl-wind or sand- devil of some kind forming a shifting smoky-looking cloud on the shore. Since returning from Africa I have learned that it most likely was that, but it possibly could have been a gigantic swarm of flying insects.

Hopefully it was a whirlwind. I'd rather not meet a swarm of mating flies that looked like that.

From above I could also see a strange formation of flamingos extending into the water. It almost looked like they were forming a little flotilla.

More Rhino and Giraffe Gawking

2006-02-02T22:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The plains around Nakuru Lake proved to be the best spot on the whole trip for seeing the animals I love best: rhinos and giraffes.

At one point we were so close to a group of rhinocerous that we could hear them breathing . They completely ignored us. Perhaps to them, our blocky, lumbering vehicle resembled nothing more than a strange distant cousin.

So this post is largely for those of you who want to see more photographs of those amazing animals. I took lots of photos because you just don't seem them roaming around back home like you do here.

Oh, and I'm throwing in a great picture of a tawny (or possibly Marshal) eagle that Jeff's mom took. And a graceful antelope with the lake in the background and a peaceful family of buffalo sharing the shade of a tree.

The Flamingos of Nakuru

2006-02-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Approaching Lake Nakuru, we could see shifting masses of pink birds as far around the lake as we could see. It reminded me of the artist Christo, encircling islands in auras of pink plastic.

The population of flamingos at Nakuru has long been an ornithologist's dream. Depending on the season and the algae (as at Crater Lake), the number of birds varied, but it was estimated that hundreds of thousands, and perhaps over a million, birds were feeding here today.

We drove down to the beach and were first met by a large flock of pelicans and Egyptian geese. A couple of brooding marabou stork huddled with the other birds, sticking out like sore and sadly ugly thumbs.

We walked down the broad desert-like beach crunching over sand that was crusty with white soda and a layer of bedraggled flamingo feathers and bird droppings. Birds waded and squabbled, jostling for the tastiest slime one presumes. Their numbers were doubled by pink reflections in the water.

The sound of all those birds was enormous. It was like an enormous droning hive of bees crossed with quacking ducks. It's hum and buzz I'll always remember when I see those tacky pink plastic flamingos on a suburban lawn.

As we left the lake-shore we saw a lone African fishing eagle perched majestically in a lone acacia tree. It seemed like the sole tree on this whole barren soda plain.