Pictures are at the bottom of the posts

Just scroll down. I redated the Jan 1, 2007 so that they would be at the bottom.

Home again

Its been a week since we left Africa, and I think I may never get back to a normal sleep schedule.Eleven hours is a big time change.
We departed from Dar es Saalam after a last beer in the New Africa Hotel. It was hard saying goodbye to Steve and John after spending so much time together, and we were disappointed that Simon didn't show up. We were already on the airpot shuttle when his smiling face appeared, so we jumped off the bus and had another round of hugs. The airport was a shoppers delight, especially after the let down in Dar. We managed to get rid of alll our Tanzanian shilllings, More necklaces and t-shirts, one just can't have too many. Then overnight to Amsterdam, and Africa was behind us. we will never forget this trip, though, even after the red mud has all come off my boots, and the coffee we brought home has all been drunk. This will be my last posting on the blog, so I will try to sum up a few impressions of Tanzania. First in my mind will always be the beautiful people there. They have so very little, and yet they are warm and friendly and a smile seems to be their natural expression. They work so hard, everything is done manually and in great heat. The enormous fields are cultivated by hand with rough hoes, and the women carry the firewood and water miles a day. They carry themselves with such pride, with a serenity that is enviable. Seeing all the animals was a thrill, but I think that seeing the Masai going about their daily routines, and all the childrens happy faces will be the images I return to.

Our trip could not have been better. Joanne and I are god travelmates, we never had a cross word or an unpleasant moment. Imaginative Traveller, our tour company, knocked themselves out to ensure that everything went smoothly in spite of the last minute changes after the Kenya crisis erupted. Marylyn, our travel agent at BCAA, was so helpful and did all the hard part of the preparation for us.

So thanks your interest if you are still reading this. Joanne is editing the photos now and will be posting a selection of them soon. Stay tuned. Bye now, Muriel

We head back tonight.

Mom looking at the map, you know we are in trouble when...

Well, believe it or not this is our last evening in Africa. We are in Dar es Salaam. Bloody awful town if I may say so myself. I wanted to do a bit of last minute shopping and there are NO shops in this city of 1.5 million. Everyone wants to accept our tourist dollars except here. bahhh. Sorry, less necklaces than anticipated. My last hope is the airport. It cannot live up to Nairobi though.

I don't have much time so I will skim over the last couple of days and then edit when I get home. You may want to check this thing is a week or so. I will be adding pictures and any other stories I remember. Read from the start of the trip.

So, let's see. I last posted from Morogoro, not a town for tourists either but we forgave them as we were the only tourists for 100s of miles.

Morogoro

We stayed in the nicest hotel in town which cost $20/room so you can imagine the quality. We were getting quite used to the luxury of those $500/night rooms in the lodges. But troopers that we are, we still enjoyed ourselves. The red curtains gave it a certain ambiance and the 50 year old air conditioner was a blessing, since it was the only one that actually worked on our entire trip. Dinner was excellent. A chinese/Indian menu.

When we got to town, Mom and I decided we needed to do a bit of a shop. We had been wearing the same clothes for 3 weeks now and we just couldn't face the them for one more day. So we set off to find the market. John came with us. We were trying to find Nancy's Fashion Boutique. We saw it as we were driving in and we thought the name was hilarious considering the town and that we could see sparkly clothes in the window.

Nancy's Fashion Boutique

John took us in the right direction and got us to Nancy's but I think that shop convinced him to leave us to our own devices so he left us to check his emails. I felt pretty confident about where we were and managed to find the market without too much difficulty. Mom bought a couple of tank tops. Then we found the American clothes markets. There are tons of stalls just filled with Western clothes some of it still with the Value Village tags on it but generally good condition. I found one stall with women's tops so I bought one. I told myself it is faded red but I have to admit it is actually pink. But I was dying for a splash of colour after all of my khaki outfits I would have taken anything.

Joanne at the Morogoro market

Morogoro market stalls

After shopping we stopped and did a quick blog update and headed back to the hotel. Well, any of you who know us, know that there is no way Mom and I could ever wander around a new town without getting lost. Every African city is built around a clock tower round-about. Well we couldn't remember which street of the several choices to take. So we asked someone. He sent us off down one of the streets. It didn't look familiar but we never trust our directional judgement so we started off. After a few blocks we were sure we were going the wrong way. So we stopped and looked at our useless map (a map is only helpful if the streets have signs). All of sudden, the guy who sent us in this direction appears and assures us we are going the right way. Well, we weren't. We asked someone else and he said yes, yes, keep going. Well, what they failed to mention was that we were going one of the possible ways but it was a shortcut where we had to follow the railroad tracks and then intuitively veer off onto a path that led to the hotel. Believe it or not, we eventually made it back to the hotel without dehydrating or being hit by a train. On the bright side, we got to see parts of town not normally viewed by tourists.

After Morogoro, we went to Ruaha Park, again over some terrible roads.

A flat tire from the brutal roads to get to Ruaha Park (note that the guys are changing the tire while mom and I took pictures)

But it was worth it, as always. We stayed at the most beautiful lodge ever. We had huge cabins that were open to the breezes. Our deck jutted out over the shallow fast moving river so we had the sound of rushing water all night long. It was easily the nicest place we stayed in.

Our room at Ruaha River camp

Our deck at Ruaha Park Lodge

Ruaha River, the view from our deck

The shower stall in our bathroom, it was like a waterfall with all of the rocks.
But completely exposed to the window as I discovered when the Masai guide came by the tent to walk me to dinner before I was quite ready.

That first night we all met in the restaurant for dinner. As meal time approached, we could see the bugs getting thicker and thicker around the lights right above the tables. Long story short, we had bugs in the soup, bread, main. they cleared by dessert (tennis biscuit - chris you have to make this for me - yummmmy). It was so bad that we actually dreaded going to dinner for the next two nights. On the third night, they moved us outside of the lit area. There were the same amount of bugs, we just couldn't see how many we were eating. By that time, we were resigned to the extra protein.

Another beautiful sunset

This park was amazing. Elephants everywhere. There was Baboons to the left, Baboons to the right (for Paul). We had two full days of game drives with endless sightings. But no leopards and no wild dogs. A bit of a let down but the park was so beautiful and different from the northern parks.

Herd of Elephants in Ruaha

Elephants

Giraffe at edge of Ruaha River

A jackal

A dik dik, a tiny antelope about the size of a large house cat

One of the mornings we did a 6 am game drive. When we left it was still dark. We interupted some hippos walking back to the river, they forage at night and can walk up to 10 miles in search of food each night. We were hoping to find a leopard or wild dog during prime hunting hours but again, no such luck. But we did find 3 lions lying in the road. Unlike the NG lions, these ones acknowledged our presence. One of them just sat on the bank beside the road and watched us watch her. She actually met our eyes. It was amazing. She would have sat there all day but we finally had to drive away in search of other animals. Beautiful eyes though.

The not-shy lion in Ruaha

Yellow Babboon and baby

Last park was Udzungwa Mountain. no roads go into the park so it is all hiking. I will add to this but it was steeeeeep. And just to add to the challenge, Steve's boots were eaten by some dogs at Muller's lodge so he only had flip flops to hile up the mountain. It was so slippery that he had to take them off within the first 5 minutes and walk the entire way up in his bare feet. It made it hard for me to complain about how hard the hike was. But we made it to the top of Sanje waterfall which is amazing again. Pictures to follow. It poured the night before we went up so the trail was muddy and slippery. The rain was torrential but we lucked out and it didn't rain on our hike. Barely any birds and I am disappointed to report we were in the wrong part of the park to see the Udzungwa forest partridge. But as a consilation prize (I know that is spelled wrong) we did see the red collubus monkey which is only found in this park.

Steve washing his flip flops in the river at the top of the waterfall

A red colobus monkey

The third tier of the waterfall

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The second tier of the waterfall

The top tier of the waterfall, I will spare you yet another picture of me at the top of a mountain, but rest assured, one exists.

Baskets for sale on the side of the road to Dar es Salaam

See everyone in a few days. Feel for me, I will be at work on Thursday morning. And of course, I have had a steel stomach until just this morning. It is going to be a long flight.

a hippo in our yard

It has now taken me over 10 minutes to sign on so this has to be short. We had our goodbye dinner with most of our group in Dar es Salaam. the dinner was very Mexican if I had to catagorize. The pre-dinner entertainment was pirated DVD salesmen doing the rounds. They did a brisk trade but Mom and I held out. Dinner was bbq, i had chicken and mom had fish. We both left still hungry but it was fun. We went back to the hotel and some of us (the girls, me, Steve, Brian) stayed up and had a few more beer and tried out the casino. that was the girls idea and money. None of the rest of us were willing to put our money on African odds. it was a fun night and we didn't leave the casino until after 3 am.

Indulge me a few pictures from our last night together.



Our last night as a group, dinner in a real African restaurant. From left: John, Brian, Trevor and Carol



Lisa and Alan



Phillip

Francios



Tanya and Katrina outside of the Casino at 2am

The next morning I was feeling pretty worse for wear but I figured the day was going to be spent driving to Selous park. it was supposed to be a 7 hour drive. Well nobody mentioned that it was the worst roads in Africa. Now I know why the south isn't visited by tourists very often. Yikes. We were actually lifting off of our seats. It was pretty funny but I was dying, hung over and dead tired. We eventually got to the Rufiji River resort. This river is remote but gorgeous. We were so wiped that we just had dinner and went to bed. We couldn't face any activities. The resort has tents for rooms. They were very nice and the bathrooms were first rate believe it or not.



Our tent at Rufiji River

A Vervet Monkey, they live right in the camp.

Mom writing in her journal in the dining room at Rufiji River Camp

We were not allowed to walk around camp after dark. We had to have a Masai escort. It seemed a bit contrived on the first night when we were escorted to our tents but during the night we could here the hippos in the river right by our tent. Mom woke up to hyenas in the area. Simon at the other end of camp had a hippo looking at him when he woke up. And the next day he was face to face with an elephant. The drivers get the cool yet dangerous end of camp.



The Hippos were right outside

The next morning we took a boat tour where we happened on a mother elephant and her small calf. We are still excited about elephants so we took a million pictures again until our boat almost bumped into her. She left at that point. But we saw lots and lots of birds (18 new ones) and hippos, hippos and more hippos.



Mother elephant with her baby at the river's edge



Steve and Mom on the boat for our river safari



Crocodile



Fish Eagles



A yellow billed stork



view from the boat

Meals here were much more simple. You got what you got. But dinner always started with a pasta course and lunch with the best soup we have had at any resort so far. We did an evening game drive where we saw little. The next day we did a morning walking tour. I don't have sufficient time to properly describe the experience. We saw some giraffes etc but the best part was the guides. We had a young guy as our official guide and then an older guy as our ranger with the rifle. But he wouldn't let the young guy talk. And he kept quizzing us. And not letting us continue until we got the right answer. I now know way to much about giraffe dung. He would as these obscure questions and we would guess at an answer. We were pretty much always wrong and he would give us this look like we were pitiful fools. Then he would wait for us to guess again. It was so funny that we started just guessing wrong for the entertainment value.
Mr. ranger also took a shine to me so there was alot of keeping me back so we could discuss bird trivia. We may actually be engaged in the culture. I hope he doesn't have access to my sign in forms. Yikes.



Joanne with the creepy ranger



Giraffe watching us on our walking tour



A Thompson's Gazelle on our walking tour

By the way, on our last night, there was a hippo right ourside our tent. Freaked us right out but it was fun. Still didn't keep me from sleeping.

Another evening game drive, lots and lots of animals but still no leopards or wild dogs. We are running out of time for them. Oh well. I feel bad for Simon, he seems to be taking it personally that he hasn't found one.

Mom was always looking for the perfect African sunset, I think this is the best one from Rufiji River.

Another gruelling day in the car today to leave. we are currently in Morogoro. I really can't tell you where it is, some mountain range or other. Just for the night and then we head on to Ruhua park.

1 minute to go, I will try to post this.

Usumbara Mountains aka Little Switzerland

Well, we are in Dar es Salaam for the night. Our tour breaks up today as only 3 of us are continuing on to the Gems of Africa portion (south TZ) of our tour. I am sad to see everyone go but also looking forward to having only one car with just the three of us, Steve and our driver/guide. We were supposed to lose both Brian and Simon and get a new guy. I think I mentioned that the guide company uses guides specific to north and south and our current guys are north but something happened and the south guy baled so we get to keep Simon. I am happy about that. He is the better birder of the two although, I have to say, Brian is very good looking. Priorties...

Let me try to remember what has been happening. When I last posted we were back in Arusha for a couple of hours. Just a stop to pick up some luggage for the girls. They have so much stuff and are so unworldly, Mom has taken to calling them Paris and Nicole. But they are sweet and kind so we forgive them their follies. Man, can they shop though! They must have a hundred necklaces and earrings each. Mom and I spent about 20 bucks in Arusha and they spent $600.

The girls in their 'hiking outfits'. But you have to admit they looked good

After Arusha we went to somewhere, that I have completely forgotten. check my itineray, I'm sure it was beautiful. hmm, that's not good. I will have pictures though.



Mt Kilimanjaro (which I didn't climb)

After that place (?) we headed off to the Usumbara mountains. We climbed and climbed. We headed uphill in the cars for hours. You wouldn't believe what these people will farm on. The steepest hills are tilled and planted. People were walking up the roads that would have killed me and they had buckets of water or massive bales of who knows what balanced on their heads. It continually amazes me what Africans do to survive on a day to day basis. Stuff we wouldn't consider ever. I have a new understanding of the tale of the Three Pigs. We see straw houses, stick houses and brick houses. The drivers have explianed that they don't have banks so people put their money into houses. They live in a mud hut with a straw roof until they can afford wood and tin. All the while they are slowly building a brick house somewhere in the area. Those are the ones with some money.



An example of a mud house, with boy in front



Another house, this time with goat in front

Usumbara mountains: we got to what seemed the top of the world to get to Muller Lodge. It was lovely again. They have chosen the best accommodations. This place had little row houses so all the singles were in one chalet and the marrieds in another. Again, an excellent view and the climate was so nice after the hot dusty drives. It is quite temperate and green. We actually had to put on jackets in the evening.



View from our room at Muller's Lodge



Muller's lodge

Our full day here was spent on one of two optional walks. I chose the hard walk. After missing out on the Kilimanjaro walk (oh yeah, that's were we were) I refused to wimp out again. So off we go at 9 am with Francis our guide. I liked the look of Francis cause he was tiny and looked slow. It turns out he is 73 and could kick all of our asses, but I digress. We start up a road and Francis is being very nice and slow and stopping often to point out various trees and such, a few monkeys. all good. We walk for 90 minutes or so when he asks if we want to take a short cut. I don't think we answered fast enough cause off he veers into the jungle, down a goat path, over streams, and then up. No, I mean UP! We finally get to the top of the shortcut and then we see a staircase cut out of the hill. Oh my god. I thought I was going to have a heart attack but I was so insistant that I go on the hard walk I couldn't complain. But I made it and I kept up with the big boys. At the top, there was a little lookout and a beautiful view.



The group enjoying the view from the first peak



Joanne in a hut at the top of the first mountain

So we sat around for 20 or so minutes, quite proud of ourselves and saying how we finished the walk early when Francis points out a peak about 3 mountains away. We all admire it until he announces that that is our next stop. I know you don't believe me but it was so far away we could barely see it in the distance. So down we go. Goat path is too kind for the down path, it was scrabbly with volcanic shards of rock. It is amazing no one fell and was impaled but we managed. Francis was no longer stopping to identify things so we were moving at a good clip. Then we crossed miles and miles of corn farms and villages and colonial plantations that had been taken over during the 'revolution' but which were subsequently abandoned.



Francis showing us the abandoned house on the coffee platation. It was completely empty except for two tubs.

Long story short, we made it, were very proud of ourselves and took lots of pictures of the view. The top of the second mountain is called Islenes peak, I think.



Ok... Look at this picture from the top of the first mountain we climbed. The small mountain peak second from the right is the second peak we climbed. I told you it was far away.



Another picture of Joanne at the top of a mountain (the 2nd peak of the day)



Simon mugging for the camera after our long hike

I sprang for another 30 minutes so I guess I will mention the clearly unmemorable Kilimanjaro.  It is unmemorable because I opted not to climb to base camp with Steve and the boys.



Another view of Mt Kilimanjaro

We walked around the villages in Marangu where we were staying. Our hotel was lovely again. It was a hundred year old colonial house and out buildings. The gardens were amazing. They even had a bird list in all of the rooms of birds seen on the grounds. There were over 220, but i only saw about 4. I'm not trying that hard anymore but once we go south with Simon, I am back on. Anyway. When the boys got back they said that the hike up the mountain wasn't that hard but the air got pretty thin. I really am kicking myself but who knew. I didn't want to slow the long legged ones down. I am all about the self sacrifice, don't you know.

Tonight we are going to a goodbye dinner at a restaurant chosen by Brian and Simon so that should be interesting. Our one African meal was delicious so I have high hopes.