Courtney, Caleb and I had a no less interesting trip going from Moshi to Arusha. The man who owned our hotel got a driver to take us into town where the driver drove us around until he found one of the larger city buses that was bound for Arusha. He negotiated the price for us and then made the bus stop on the side of the road so that it could especially pick us up. The bus then proceeded to drive around until it was beyond its capacity of being full. Where there were three seats, six people and a chicken sat. It was a hot and memorable experience, to say the least. We made it to Arusha without issue and checked into our hotel before meeting up with the other students and exploring Arusha. The next day we had completely free to wander around Arusha. Highlights include: banana/chocolate milkshakes, perusing pirated movies, chocolate cake, bookstores, a market in town, Pizzarusha (a restaurant serving delicious homemade pizza - my first pizza since coming to TZ - Hawaiian pizza) and a visit to the Maasai market in town for some zawadi (gifts, called ‘jifties’ here). The next day we departed Arusha to drive to Lake Manyara with our Ecology professor. We drove through beautiful plains punctuated by giraffe, zebra, and Maasai bomas. Once at the park, we popped the tops of the land rovers and went on our first safari. Wildlife highlights include: lots of giraffes, huge baobob trees, storks, baboon troops, zebras, various ungulates, vervets, elephants, fish eagles, hornbills, a Hippo pool, herons, and much more. The next day we again went safari-ing in Lake Manyara with highlights of: hot springs, thousands of flamingos, baby elephants, and herds of zebra and wildebeest. The next morning we drove to Serengeti National Park. Along the way we drove through Ngorongoro after an incident at the offices: since it was Nyerere Day, the authorities at the park were not willing to accept our student permits without their boss, who, of course, was not there due to the holiday. Luckily we got through and made it to Serengeti for our first game drive with highlights of: ostriches, 2-week old lion cubs, lions walking less than 8 feet from our car, lion prides, many giraffes, zebras and other ungulates. We made it to our Dik-Dik campsite just before the sun set. After dinner by lamp light, Chaka (the director of our tour company) briefed us about the camp rules: don’t walk without a flashlight at night, otherwise you can’t see the predators stalking you; don’t go outside the camp unless you want trouble - like lion prides; don’t sleep outside unless you want your face eaten off by hyenas, etc. It is worth mentioning that all of these things are very real threats as there was no barrier between our campsite and the park animals. That night we fell asleep to the laughter of hyenas and the glow of their hungry eyes in the bushes….but seriously, this really did happen. I was never so glad as that night that I didn’t have to get up in the night to use the bathroom as I was in the Serengeti. Mat had vomited in the middle of the night and while he was vomiting, he could see the hyenas getting closer. Not to mention that his previous vomit was gone when he threw up later in the night. After breakfast, we stopped at the visitor’s center for a small tour of the stages of the wildebeest migration and video before we headed out on another game drive. While at the visitor’s center, we also saw lots of rock hyraxes (essentially huge, fatty guinea pigs). Game drive highlights include: a leopard sleeping in a sausage tree, lions, vibrant bee-eater birds, ostriches, hyenas, elephants, giraffes, and lots of ungulates. In the afternoon we drove to the Serengeti hippo pool where we saw at least 50 or more of the massive beasts ranging from baby size to the largest bull males. At night, on a visit to the choo (bathroom), I shone my flashlight into the bushes 15 feet away to see a set of hyena eyes glowing back at me. There were also bats in the squat toilets. And although I did not personally encounter bats flying out of the toilet as I squatted to pee, several of my friends did. More hyenas among the camp tonight as well as hyenas making a hill near to our camp. Another game drive followed the next day and we were able to get out of the rover to hike on rocks to see ancient Maasai rock paintings in a cave and the ‘musical rocks’ (a rock with worn down spots in it meant to be tapped by a large rock held in one’s hand to produce a variety of pitches). Other highlights include: almost hitting a leopard with our car, a cheetah, two male lions, a trip to the Rhino Center, an a sweet elephant herd at dusk that was off in the foggy distance of the Serengeti plains. We also saw a massive bull elephant standing on its hind legs to reach leaves and a leopard in a sausage tree eating an impala that it had recently killed. Today we woke up and drove back through Ngorongoro to Karatu. Along the way, we stopped along the crater rim and chatted with several Maasai men before stocking up on chocolate and cassava chips in the city. After Karatu, we drove to Tarangire to the campsite that we were to call ‘home’ for the next four weeks.
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