Altogether Now

Sat. 13th July 2013

After almost a year since we saw each other, we are at last reunited with Chris, Steve and Lucy after our various trips. Steve and I successfully climbed Kilimanjaro – it was an incredible experience with very beautiful and dramatic scenery as well as being the hardest thing that either of us have ever done. In fact, all twelve in our group made it to the summit and we were told by our guide that it is a once a season event to have a 100% success rate.

Janet, Chris and Lucy also had a fabulous time in the Serengeti and in the Ngorongoro crater and saw lots of animals including two leopard sightings (one of which was a mother with her cub). We’ve all made new friends and are ending our trip on a real high – in both senses.

I’m writing this on our flight to Zanzibar for the final four nights of our trip where we intend to spend most of the time chilling out by the beach and swapping stories as to what has happened to us over the last week and the last year. This is going to be a bit of a family holiday before we set off back to the UK on Wednesday and arriving home on the morning of Thursday 18th (to a completely empty house and garage).

We will be writing up blog posts covering our time on safari, on Kilimanjaro and in Zanzibar but they may not be the day by day record that we have used for the rest of our trip. Posts are also likely to appear at irregular intervals for the next little while.

We are really looking forward to getting home and catching up with everyone and their news but it may take a while as we have to unpack all our belongings from storage, get some wheels (and not a bike!!), celebrate at Steve’s graduation next week and sort through a years post and try to find a new routine for our lives. Oh yes, and we need to start working again too!

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It’s Kili And Serengeti Time

Thur. 4th July 2013

We’ve arrived safely in Arusha back in Tanzania and have been joined by Steve, with Chris and Lucy following in a couple of days time. On Friday 5th July, Steve and I start our climb of Kilimanjaro and we will return to Arusha at some point on Friday 12th July. Janet, Chris and Lucy will be on a camping safari in the Serengeti whilst Steve and I are on our mountain.

As all of us are ‘proper’ camping with limited kit and no electricity (let alone Internet) our laptop is going to be left behind in Arusha and we’ll have no opportunity to update the blog for the next week. We will be making notes while we are on our trips and it is our intention to publish posts describing our experiences – though this won’t necessarily be a day by day description.

Check back sometime on or after 12th July to find out how we got on!

Janet & Dave

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Day 324: Hyena Day

Wed. 3rd July 2013

Our little side trip into Kenya ends today and we are heading back into Tanzania and to Arusha where destiny awaits and we get to catch up with our family. We do, however, get to have a final morning game drive through Amboseli on our way to the border. It seems to be our day for hyenas as first we spot a lone one walking along parallel to the track, then another couple and finally a whole pack feasting on a carcass surrounded by vultures.

Paul thinks that it must be the remains of a hippo judging by the size of the rib bones that are clearly visible – apparently, they aren’t just scavengers but can kill large animals too when hunting in packs. Unlike the big cats, they don’t kill their prey with a throat bite first but just take chunks of flesh one bite at a time and the poor animal just bleeds to death. I think the moral is ‘don’t mess with hyenas’!

The vultures are waiting patiently in a circle around the hyenas. When they get too close they are chased off. We watch for a while, fascinated by the dynamics of the group – who gets to eat what and when, and why are there other hyenas just sitting in a muddy pool nearby not trying to get their share? We do need to move on however, as strictly speaking, we seem to be off the track and Paul might get into trouble if we are caught. As we head on through the park, we are still on the lookout for cats of the spotted variety without any success.

Amboseli is not a very big park and we are all too soon at the gate at the other end. While Paul signs us out we sit in the Land Cruiser, smile and say “no thanks” to the women selling us tat. Their English can be quite good but they clearly skipped class when it came to understanding what “no, thank you” means. Formalities complete, we continue on the dirt road toward the border and shortly we come across another Land Cruiser stopped at the side of the road with the occupants peering at the undergrowth at the base of a tree.

They say that they saw a leopard in the tree which has just climbed down to hide in the long grass. We peer and peer and even take the Land Cruiser off road and drive in a circle around the base of the tree, to no avail. They’re good at hiding and they’re good at slinking off unnoticed. Still no leopards and that was probably my (though not Janet’s)  last chance to see leopards in the wild. Later we did get to see the decidedly weird Gerenuk, a giraffe-necked antelope that will sometimes eat standing on its hind legs.

As we get closer to the Tanzanian border we start to see signs of civilisation and a town called Namanga, that seems to straddle the border. We’ve seen some busy border crossings but this one is really hectic with people, cars and buses everywhere. There doesn’t seem to be any logic in the queues within the immigration hut either – some people are clutching familiar looking blue forms but we can’t find any blank ones. Here experience comes in and we know that these are departure forms and we eventually find blank ones and by the time we’ve filled them in we’re at the front of the queue ready to hand over our passports and completed forms. The keys (as ever) are smiling and having a polite chat with (and laughing at the jokes of) the immigration officer.

Once we’ve completed the formalities of leaving Kenya and re-entering Tanzania (fortunately without having to buy new visas as we are entering from another East African country) we need to say goodbye to Paul and to the Land Cruiser as we transfer to a normal people carrier and another driver. We’ve got to know and like Paul over the last week and are sorry to say goodbye. We haven’t seen any leopards but we’ve had some unforgettable experiences (e.g. the cheetahs on our roof) and have seen lots of other animals. All in all, we’ve had a great week in Kenya.

The road is in much better condition on the Tanzania side of the border and we are able to make much faster progress toward Arusha – apart from the couple of police checkpoints where, unusually, they want to have a chat with us as well as the driver and to check our passports. Arusha turns out to be a sprawling town for locals (rather than tourists). We struggled to find a mid-price hotel in the town – there seemed to mostly be either 4/5* luxury hotels or backpacker hostels. The Outpost Lodge is one of the exceptions (as well as being the departure point for Janet’s trip) and it provides the basic, no-frills but clean accommodation which we’ve been looking for.

Leanne from Acacia is in town and so we arrange to meet up at a nearby restaurant. Its great to see her again and to thank her for arranging our Kenya excursion. We also get to hear about how the group we left on Sabie in Dar are getting on. Unsurprisingly, they partied long and hard in Zanzibar. Whilst we miss them, we doubt that we would have had the stamina to keep up with them had we stayed on Sabie.

The only piece of bad news is that we find out that there has been a mix up with Exodus and that I need to buy a kit bag for my Kilimanjaro trip (the porters don’t/can’t carry my backpack). Leanne is not optimistic about my chances as there are no outdoor shops in Arusha, as Moshi rather than Arusha is the usual starting point for Kilimanjaro climbs. She does, however, offer to drive me to the only luggage shop in town and there I have the choice of precisely one kit bag that would cost £10 at home but (even after haggling) costs £40 here. At least I’m now sorted and subject to Steve bringing out some key things (like warm gloves) I’m kitted out for my climb.

We walk back to the Blue Heron (where we met Leanne) in the evening for our last night together as just a couple. Tomorrow, Steve arrives and we get ready for our separate adventures. I try not to think about what I’ve let myself in for. Confidence, David, confidence!

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Day 323: It Is All About The Elephants

Tues. 2nd July 2013

Both pachyderms and the one we are not talking about, Mount Kilimanjaro which looms above us wherever we go. The climb is now getting real for Dave and in only a matter of days Steve will be with us. The view is clearer today with a good view of the snow at the peak. Trying not to think about it, we head off to search out the elephants that Amboseli Park is famous for. The landscape is quite barren with a few clumps of grass but apparently it used to be covered in trees until the elephants felled them all. This combined with climate change means that it looks to be heading to be a desert.

On the way to the swamp area we spot many birds. The most impressive was the crested crane and we also saw some secretary birds, which are the biggest birds that can fly. These latter are so named because their cry sounds like a typewriter in action. We even saw an eagle but I cannot remember what it was. Our cameras are just not man enough to do them justice but Dave’s SLR will be here soon so Chris can take pics in Serengeti.

There are certainly elephants here in greater numbers than the Mara and they seem to be many families of elephants. They enjoy wallowing in the muddy water drinking as well as splash it all over themselves. It was fun to see a young one trying to emulate his mum. More serious was two male elephants fighting each other, luckily not ferociously but the younger one just trying it on to see if the elder was weak enough to beat. The answer was no, so it then picked on a younger male before giving up and moving on. We also saw many little ones which are always cute and the youngest was only about two months old.

We did finally spot some hippos out of water and it is hard to believe that they can run pretty fast if the need arises – such as when chasing humans. From the plains rises a small hill known as Observation Hill, with a short footpath to the top but it is not much of a climb compared to the one we do not mention. The views over the lake are quite impressive and we can see in all directions despite it being quite an overcast day.

We return to the lodge for a three course lunch which reinforces my decision to leave dieting until I get home! The afternoon drive again started bird spotting and we see two types of vultures which were quite different, one brown and the other much darker with a pink head like you see in cartoons reminding me off the Jungle Book.

In the distance we saw some vehicles stopped so went to investigate and saw two very fat lions lying in the open, which were either recently fed or pregnant! We drove back the way we came and saw a hyena walking in the grass. When it sat down it was almost completely hidden and we could occasionally see an ear twitch. He would have been in the grass as we passed by first time without seeing him and we wonder how many more were hiding that we did not see?

In the swampy area we saw many elephants and hippos wallowing in the muddy water and reeds. Later we saw a whole family of hyenas, meaning we saw more today than the rest of the week put together. They were just on the prowl which reminds us that we have not yet seen a kill, maybe tomorrow.

We headed back to the lodge as the sun was going down but as it was still cloudy we were so glad we took sunset photos yesterday, as it was nowhere near as good tonight. We reflect on Amboseli, which was amazing but feel we would have enjoyed it more if we had been here before we were spoilt with the sightings in the Masai Mara. We also decided that Kibo camp (where we are currently staying), although bigger than J K Mara was more comfortable, but the downside was the buffet where the food was plentiful but still buffet standard.

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Day 322: Is This The Way To Amboseli?

Mon. 1st July 2013

I think I now know how Frodo felt as he approached Mordor. My date with my own Mount Doom (or Kilimanjaro as the rest of the world calls it) is getting steadily closer. Today we drove to Amboseli National Park and we are now in sight of Kili and it is starting to weigh heavily on me – it does look to be a big old mountain capped in snow. This is, however, jumping ahead to the end of the day…

It is a transfer day today and we have about 500km to cover back into Nairobi from the Masai Mara and then out again down (south and east) to Amboseli. As we leave, we have one final drive through the Mara – we would dearly love to see a leopard. There are plenty of the usual suspects – wildebeest, zebra, gazelle / antelopes of various flavours and I’m sure some giraffe and elephant – but we’re not interested. Whether it is a sign of leopard fixation or a desire to keep moving as we have a way to travel, I don’t know but there are no photos of that last drive through the park and the leopards remain in hiding.

The drive to Nairobi is the exact reverse of the drive here three days ago – bumpy unmade road for an hour or so and then tarmac as we drive across the Great Rift Valley and then up the escarpment. At least when we stop at roadside stalls to use the toilet or grab a coffee and we get inundated with folk trying to sell us some of their trinkets, we are able to say that we bought some on the way down. What we try to focus on is the view from the escarpment which is just as stunning as we remember and more amenable to photos as it is less hazy than last time.

Fortunately, we don’t have to go all of the way in to Nairobi and the traffic is not quite as horrendous as before. Instead, we stop in the shopping centre where Peaks & Safaris (who put together this package for us) have their offices. We are treated to lunch in a cafe and Sara from P&S comes down to check that we have had a good time. A nice little piece of customer care. Then it is back into our Land Cruiser for the drive down to Amboseli.

Again, the roads are pretty decent and we are able to roll along, mostly with brain firmly in the off position. Amboseli may be closer to Nairobi than the Masai Mara, but it still takes us all afternoon to get there. As we get closer, we get our first views of Kilimanjaro and it is an impressive sight. It is now so much more real once you can see it and the penny drops that I start climbing in only a few days time. First though, we are going to have a couple of nights at Kibo Safari camp. As we turn off the main road and head down the track to the camp, the sun is starting to set behind a row of Acacia trees. This is an image that I will now always associate with Africa – and a great addition to our collection of sunset photos!

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