Safari in Tanzania

I’ll be honest, if we hadn’t made plans with our friend Kim from NYC to rendezvous for safari in Tanzania, I’m not sure we would have made it to Tanzania at all.  After four long months of travel through the developing world, with not-always-clean hotel rooms, constantly muddy or dusty feet, and a daily mission to avoid food poisoning, we were growing weary and ready for some rest.  If not for Kim, we would probably have thrown in the towel and spent the rest of our time eating olives and drinking wine in Europe.  But I’m so glad we stuck with our plans to make a final dash through eastern Africa, because our Tanzania safari was an unforgettable splash-out way to end our around-the-world trip. 

We booked our safari through the helpful folks at www.Fortes-safaris.com.  Aruna, the woman who patiently answered Mohit’s countless emails was wonderful.  We booked a five day, four night safari through Lake Manyara Park, Ngorogoro Crater, and Serengeti National Park.  We had our own private 4x4 jeep with a top that popped up so that we could stand and get eye-to-eye with elephants and giraffes.  Our driver Abdul was the strong silent type- though he didn’t talk much over the five days we spent with him, we slowly learned bits and pieces of his life in Arusha; his two sons, his desire to pay for them to attend international schools where they would learn English, his purchase of a plot of land and plans to build a larger home for his family. 

I had no idea that we’d be able to get so up close and personal with the animals!  Or that we’d see them in such incredible abundance.  Without planning to be, we’d lucked out and were smack dab in the middle of the zebra and wildebeest migration.  As we drove across the endless plains of the Serengeti, we’d frequently drive right into the middle of a herd of thousands and thousands of animals.  They’d scatter in front of us, dashing across the road.  When Abdul turned off the engine to let us take in the scenery, the silence was broken by the endless grunting and bellowing of wildebeest talking to each other.  We noticed that the zebra like to stand in groups, each animal resting its head on the back of another animal, so that it looked like they were hugging. 

We watched an elephant use his trunk to tear apart a tree a mere ten feet from our car.  He was happily crunching on entire branches despite the fact that they were covered in inch-long thorns.  I had no idea elephants ate so much wood, I always pictured them eating leaves and grass.  His skin was thick and wrinkly, and hung in folds around his knees.  He waved his huge ears to swat away flies.

After a few distant lion sightings using our binoculars, we finally got to see a male lion up close and personal.  He was lying in the grass in the shade of a small tree, and we were so close to him that I could see his chest rise and fall as he panted in the late morning heat.  Flies buzzed around his eyes and around the bloody trampled grass a few yards away.  Lying next to the lion was a half-eaten wildebeest carcass.  We could smell the sweet-rotten smell of the fresh meat from where we stood in our jeep. 

I could hardly believe the lion had killed a beast bigger than us a few hours earlier and that he now laid there there so sleepily, hardly noticing that there were three safari jeeps carrying a dozen people crowded around him.  Thanks to a particularly bad movie that I watched on the only English TV channel available at one of our hotels in Guatemala (starring Bridget Moynahan and called “Prey”), I imagined what I’d do if he suddenly jumped on top of our car and reached his huge paws through the open windows, deciding that he was ready for another snack.  Later, we found a pair of lions, male and female, sleeping off their full bellies in the branches of a tree.  Abdul also pointed out a lion sleeping in the shade of a huge boulder. 

Just after leaving our safari lodge to head out one early morning, a giraffe surprised us at the side of the road as we turned a corner.  He was standing in the fog, bending his head down and curling his pink tongue around leaves to rip them off a bush.  We stopped the car, turned off the engine and whispered to each other but the giraffe still stopped chewing to turn his head and stare straight at us, looking annoyed that we’d disturbed his breakfast.  I wondered what we looked like to him, this boxy white animal with black rubber feet and three tiny little heads on its back?

We parked beside a shallow hole filled with water the color of chocolate milk.  There were grey bumps in the water with little pink nostrils, and every once in a while one of the hippos yawned wide or rolled over to wave four stubby legs in the air. 

We also saw ostriches and gazelles grazing, tiny little deer (the size of a rabbit!) called dik diks dashing off to hide in the trees, circling vultures, grunting warthogs, skulking hyenas, far-off rhinoceros, three different kinds of monkeys, pink flamingos, buffalo, a leopard sleeping in a tree, a pair of cheetahs moseying through the grass, a  baby crocodile, and a whole pack of some ferret-like rodents.  

And most improbably, we almost ran over two of the most deadly snakes in Africa (a black mamba and a puff adder), one trying to swallow the other in the middle of the road.  Our driver Abdul was so nervous about being close to the black mamba that the minute the snake started to slither to the side of the road, he threw the jeep into reverse and screeched off down the road backwards in a cloud of dust.  Kim was  paranoid for the rest of the day that the snake had somehow found its way into our car and was waiting to slide out of a door panel…

We also visited a Masaai tribe.  The Masaai live a semi-nomadic  life and cling to the traditional ways in which they’ve lived for millennia.  They build their homes out of sticks and stucco them with cow dung.  We went inside one hut and the blinding midday sun disappeared- it was extremely dark, with just one small hole in the roof for smoke from the cooking fire to escape.  We sat on a low bench covered with a smooth cow hide that served as a bed for at least four people each night. The homes were arranged in a circle around a shade tree, and the complex was ringed with a fence made from a tangle of thorny branches meant to keep out lions and other predatory animals.  We gave the village a generous donation, but I still feel bad remembering the wide-eyed baby swaddled on his mother’s back in a sling, staring at us as flies crawled over his face.  In choosing their traditional ways, the Masaai are missing out on many of the benefits of slowly modernizing Tanzania.

Since we were visiting the parks during low season (rainy season?  I think the endless blue skies were interrupted by only one brief passing shower), we were able to splurge and stay at the “luxury” Serena lodges located right inside the parks.  We paid a fraction of the price that the lodges demand in high season.  We enjoyed an afternoon swim in an infinity pool with a view out over Lake Manyara, we ate too much each night at the dinner buffet, and we enjoyed two evenings with bottles of South African wine watching the sunlight in Ngorogoro crater disappear. 

Finally, four and a half months after we left, we boarded a return flight bound for Boston.  

Zanzibar, Tanzania

We landed in Dar Es Salaam and then took the smallest commercial plane ever (an eight-seater with a single propeller)  for the 20-minute hop across the Indian Ocean to the Island of Zanzibar.  Just as we were dropping our bags in our steamy hotel room, the skies opened up and a soaking deluge began that lasted the rest of the day.

The rain turned the streets into gushing rivers and mocked our useless umbrella and poncho. At first we thought we'd wait it out before venturing into town but after awhile our hunger won out and we waded through the streets (knee-deep in water) to find lunch.
  

By dinnertime the inundation had settled down to a light drizzle.  We found a lively smattering of food stalls set up in Forhani Garden, a park at the ocean's edge.  We sat on a stone wall to eat a dinner of lobster skewers, toasted onion bread, grilled plaintains, and a dessert advertised as "banana chocolate pizza" that was more like a nutella-stuffed spring roll grilled in butter over a charcoal fire.  We fed our scraps to the kittens sitting attentively at our feet.  One of the local men kept shouting at us (and the other white tourists, who were British) "Yo!  Welcome to all you Obama people!"

Zanzibar reminded me of southern India.  There’s the hot steamy weather, the palm trees, and the muddy streets.  There are tons of Indian families on the Island, so many that Mohit kept getting mistaken for a local, and our lunch was delicious channa and saag paneer with homemade lemon pickle and sugary thick chai.  We could see the colorful rooftop of a Hindu temple from the terrace of our hotel.

The mosquitos thrive in the rainy season weather, so we were extra diligent about taking Malarone pills, smothering ourselves in DEET, and tucking in the mosquito net around the four-poster bed.  There was a green lizard watching us from the ceiling of our hotel room, and I hoped he was filling his belly with bugs after we turned out the lights.

Our second day in town Mohit ventured out in the rain with a British guy we met at our hotel.  They hired a wooden boat to head out to Prison Island to do some snorkeling around the coral reefs and to hang out with giant tortoises.  

I opted for a relaxing (and drier) morning on the rooftop terrace of our hotel, reading and catching up on email.  Even as it rained, I listended to little boys on the street below riding their plastic big wheel back and forth, giggling and shrieking.  The boys were wearing long white shirts and caps on their head- a uniform for their madrasa school, I assumed.  The people who live on Zanzibar are predominantly muslim.

I decided that the island must be beautiful in dry weather.  Richly vegetated with plam trees and tropical flowers, the water was clear and a perfect turquoise blue when it finally reflected the sun.  The mildewy old buildings looked tropical and exotic once they started to dry out.  

Mohit returned just as the skies were finally clearing.  We settled in at an open-air restaurant overlooking the beach and decided to order the Swahilii dishes on the menu.  Mohit’s yummy grilled kingfish was topped with a spicy mango salsa and my prawns were served in a tasty tomato and coconut broth with rice pilau spiced with cardamom and peppercorns.

In the last few hours of rain-free daylight we wandered the streets dodging puddles and mud.  All the doors that had been shuttered to the rain were thrown open to reveal shops selling colorful fabrics, carved wooden animals, and bowls made from tiny glass beads and wire.  We stumbled upon a thriving local market and then ended up at a waterfront bar for dinner named after Freddie Mercury, who grew up on the island. We watched boys playing soccer on the beach until the sun faded into darkness.

Our visit to Zanzibar, was short, wet, and steamy (and itchy! So many mosquitos!), but definitely memorable.  I’d definitely recommend a stop if you’re visiting Tanzania, but would think twice about returning during the rainy season…