kenia and tanzania

A 12h busdrive took us from jinja to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Laura’s uncle picked us up. He and his wife life in a beautiful villa inside an estate (the size of an average small Belgian village) with their 6 dogs and servants. We had a really good time there (nice food, good conversation, hot water and a bed,…). Nairobi is a very modern city, especially the business district. Downtown it all looks a bit more African.

Friday we left on a 4d/3n trip that we had booked in Nairobi. On the way to Lake Nakuru we stopped to enjoy the stunning views (at 2500m) over the rift valley. 8 million years ago mother earth tried to rip Africa in 2, but Africa bend but didn’t break. The continent battle scare runs from Ethiopia to Mozambique and forms a series of beautiful landscapes. It shows splintered volcanoes, mt longonot is one of the most impressive ones, tower over grassy plains, farmland and shallow soda lakes.

We went for an afternoon gamedrive inside Lake Nakuru NP which is famous for its abundance of flamingos. But due to low water levels there were only 30000 in stead of the 800000 flamingos left. It was still pretty impressive. Apart from the pink-white sea, the white rhinos were the highlight of the day. We saw at least 15 of them grazing. And a big male lion, very rare to see in this parc, was the cherry on a already great day!

At the break of dawn we drove into the rift valley and picked up some other people who were joining us for the 3 day Masai Mara safari. The MM savanna is filled with wildlife and its one world’s most famous game reserves (it forms one big park with the Serengeti in Tanzania about the size of a European country). We had one late afternoon, a full day and a half day of gameviewing (animals we saw: big prides of female lions with cubs, elephants, giraffes, buffalo’s, hippos, cheetah, male lions, baboons and a kinds of different monkeys, spotted hyenas, black rhino, crocodiles, zebras, warthogs, gnoes and about every antilope there is in the area ). The wildlife encounters really are up close and personal, because there is only one dirttrack so vehicles can go offroad wherever and whenever they like. And the drivers all have radio so they inform each other instantly on any interesting sightings.
Our campsite was just outside a parkgate and every night we enjoyed the bright skies, filled with zillions of stars (there is no light pollution here). The ones that have been in Africa know what I mean, it is hard to describe

Of course this is all Masai territory. They are one of the only tribes who maintained their ethnic identity and traditional lifestyle and ceremonies. The life in small communities all across the Kenya-Tanzania border with big herd of cattle (goats, sheep, cows,…). Both men and women were beautiful body decorations (necklaces, earrings, the have holes big enough to put a tennisbal through and that would make all piercing fanatics jealous, colorful dresses for the women and red or purple blankets for the man). They are not that friendly, probably because there have been many tourists coming into their area for decades. But laura visited a Masai village and when you pay they allow you to take pictures (they are quite the businessman).

When we got back to Nairobi we heard that nature struck hard at the coast. Rain, rain, rain and storms,… which caused bridges to collapse and roads to be washed away. It was still possible to get to Mombassa, Lamu would be a bit harder, but it would take a long time (and we don’t have that much time in Africa). So we decided to go straight into Tanzania and save the Kenyan coast for another time. This bordercrossing took us a more then 2 hours. We were travelling on a local bus and they had to wait for us to get the visa stamp (not so friendly faces when we got back in to the bus)

Life on Tanzanian roads is a bliss compared to Kenya. All the main roads are nicely paved and in a very good condition. In Kenya the roads were really, really bad. Most roads were severely eroded at the edges reducing it to a single line, which is usually full of potholes. Besides these, you mainly have dirttracks and rocky pathways so travelling was a very time-consuming and exhausting occupation.

On every bus so far, we were the only white faces, which makes us easy targets for all the touts ‘come with me, cheap transport, nice hotel, don’t do this, do that, looking for safari, trekking,… blablablabla’. In Arusha some touts really didn’t give up, not even when I asked (still politely of course, cause you cant offend them) him which part of NO he didn’t understand, the N or the O. After some shopping around and serious bargaining we booked ourselves a 2 day trip.

We had a whole land cruiser just for the 2 of us. The first day was spend in Lake Manyara NP. The NP is seethed in a beautiful area. The main attraction for us where the elephants. Laura just loves them. We saw dozens and dozens of them in al sizes and colors (eating, nursing, washing, playing, running, …), and really close. You could almost touch em. We camped on top of the hill, overlooking the scenery.

The second day started not so good. First off all we got company. Normally its great in a small group, but now we got on old typical Dutch guy joining us. He was partially deaf so he mad that up by talking constantly about all his trips. Since his retirement he started travelling (taking cruises) and had been to 99 countries (yeah, he counted them). Most of the time he just spend a few days in each one, I guess he just wanted to say he had been there. And at the end of the trip he didn’t even tip the driver and cook (which you do here).
Apart from that the weather was bad: mist, rain, cold, you couldn’t see anything. So as we were driving to Ngorongoro crater we missed out on the stunning views. Ngorongoro crater is about 20 km wide (one of the biggest in the world) and because you drive down into the crater it is fully surrounded. Inside on the craterfloor there is a wide variety of animals and vegetation (grasslands, swamps, forests, lake, saltpan,…). We spotted lions, hyenas, cheetahs and a lot more. The mist cleared so finally we could see the surroundings. It is an amazing and very beautiful place. The drive back to Arusha took 4-5h.

The next morning we got up at 4u45 and took the bus to Dar es Salaam. It took us more then 10 hours. From the bus we saw the Kilimanjaro, at 5896m Africa highest mountain (the trek to the top cost at least 1000 euros, so that’s for another time).
The next morning we took the slow boat to Zanzibar. After 10 days of sitting in a bus we need a holiday.
We have been here 3 days so far and gonna stay at least another 7 but more on that later. If I describe it, you all are going to be mad at me;-)

We are not able to put our Kenya and Tanzania pics on the blog so far. It never works. We keep on trying. One thing more. Laura changed her look dramatically, but you’ll have to wait for the pics…

Hope everybody is doing well and keep in touch

Have fun!!

XXX