Big Five Minus One

We are to be the last Oasis truck to get Lake Manyara and the Ngorogoro Crater included in the cost of our trip :) I’m back today after visiting two national parks and getting my fill of wildlife and beautiful African landscapes. Of the big five, we saw a Rhino, Lions, Buffalos, and Elephants. Such an amazing trip!

Lake Manyara: All of us got picked up from the Meserani Snake Park in Arusha, sorted ourselves into 4 4x4s, and were on our way. We saw a ton of animals: baboons, blue and vervet monkeys, giraffes, zebra, hippos, wildebeest, warthogs, bushbucks, waterbucks, ostrich, elephants, and buffalos. I’d never been in such close proximity to baboons before and their behaviors are so interesting! Females in heat look kind of diseased, and males like to show off their penises seemingly all the time! The way they groom each other is actually really sweet. Vervet monkeys also have bright blue balls, in case anyone is wondering.


Definitely a lot of of interesting observations about animal behavior but the highlight for me was the Hippo Pool. I realized I’d never seen a hippo out of water before and here lay at least 50 of them. Really amazing sight to see! Hard to imagine that hippos probably cause the most human fatalities because they are very territorial. Out of the water though, they look fat, frumpy, and move about pretty ungracefully.


Ngorogoro Crater: While game driving in the Ngorogoro Crater, I think many of us shared the same thought: This is Africa. Acacia trees dot the landscape and animals are visible en masse. At one point, our 4x4 was surrounded by literally thousands of wildebeest and zebra.


I can’t imagine places like the Serengeti or the Masai Mara that are supposed to have even higher concentrations of animals! Unfortunately, we did not see any leopards, and only saw a (black) rhino at a very far distance, but we enjoyed thousands of zebra and wildebeest, a lot of deer varieties (giselles, springbok, bush/waterbucks) and birds (cory bustards, white storks, fish eagles, guinea fowl), less, but numerous buffalo, some jackals and hyena, and exactly 14 lions. Game driving in the crater has been a once in a lifetime experience that I feel so lucky to have had!


I chose not to do the optional Serengeti trip (because the Great Migration had passed already, it was an extra $250 for one day after already visiting two national parks that weekend, and I like to think that I’ll come back to Tanzania with more time for the park and a renewed sense of wonder for wildlife) and I have no regrets!

Recovering now in Arusha, with Nairobi coming up tomorrow (Jun 28)! In approximately one week I will be gorilla trekking in Uganda! So excited!

A Holiday From My Holiday

Zanzibar is AMAZING. The northern beaches, in particular, are breathtaking and I was so so sad to leave. In case anyone is wondering, Zanzibar is technically part of Tanzania, but for some reason we had to show our yellow fever vaccinations and get stamped in. One of the guys got stamped in on his Ethiopian visa. Oof.


Kendwa: After the first night in Stone Town, I spent the majority of my time on the northern beaches in Kendwa; it really was a version of paradise. I think the beaches of Zanzibar are some of the prettiest beaches I’ve ever seen! The blues and greens that color the ocean are seriously unreal. I took hundreds of pictures, none of which do it justice. Even when it was pouring rain, the sun would sometimes peek through the clouds and shine pretty spectacularly on the water. The food in Kendwa was also amazing! For example, I had dinner of rice, chips, grilled steak, and grilled prawns for about $6 on the beach. In the village nearby, you could get seafood curry for a whopping $2.50. I will admit to having had two lunches one day (seafood curry/grilled fish and chips) that, with a coke, cost about $5. It was cheap and delicious – key to my heart!!


If you are ever in Zanzibar and are in Kendwa, go to the Kijiji Café! In all honesty though, I loved Kendwa and probably had some of the best days there in the last six months of traveling. If I had to pick, it’d be the first place I want to come back to in all of South America and Africa :)

Full Moon Party (in Kendwa): The first night in Kendwa was the Full Moon Party. This sounds more exciting than it actually was. One of the bars on the beach hosts a big party that pretty much everyone on the beach goes to. It’s owned by an American I think and he’s pretty much a genius. He throws this “Full Moon Party” and no other bar on the beach thinks to do the same. People pay admission to get in, stay at his bar the whole night, and buy drinks pretty much exclusively at his bar since they are already there.

Snorkeling/Scuba Diving (in Kendwa): Seven of us booked a Dhow trip to the Mnemba Atoll Reserve – a privately owned island that we were allowed to snorkel around, but not set foot on. Only six of us made it, however, as one guy was busy with a local girl and missed the boat. The snorkeling was some of the best I’d ever done – I think I counted about 90 different fish! The water was warm, corals were bright and beautiful, and the fish were just everywhere! Before snorkeling, we had dropped off the chef at a nearby beach and by the time we were done, lunch of grilled kingfish, vegetable stew, rice, and fresh cut mango and watermelon was ready. Delicious! It was easily one of the best days that most of us have had on the trip so far. Diving the next day on the Hunga and Mbwangawa Reefs was also amazing and quite possibly the best diving I’ve ever done! I had picked the reefs and the Scuba Do Dive Shop was incredibly professional and really accommodating with my choices. We saw lobsters, eels, crocodile fish, scorpion fish, trumpet fish, sea cucumbers, squid, tons of fish, and three sea turtles! One of the divers even brought mid-dive snacks! Win!

Stone Town: So Stone Town is nice enough, but I pretty much wouldn’t go back if I didn’t have to (to get to the northern and eastern beaches). Stone Town has some moderately interesting Indian and Arab-influenced architecture, famous doors, and a lot of winding alleyways wrought with people ready to sell you something for “cheaper price.” Stone Town is famous for its spices and after a tour of a spice plantation, I think I ended up buying spice mixes for about eight different curries + ginger tea and lemongrass tea for mom :)


Forodhani Gardens: After watching an unbelievably beautiful sunset over the water, you can wander over to Forodhani Gardens which basically hosts a nightly meat and seafood market. I went three times when I was there and it’s one of my Stone Town highlights. All of the vendors are eager to explain to you what is on offer (pretty much an unvaried selection of shrimp, fish, calamari, octopus, meat skewers, breads, etc) and then you pick one and pile your plate as full as you want. Each skewer/item has a different price but you end up trying to negotiate a price for the plate. After reheating everything on the grill, a plate of happiness is brought to you! There are also people selling Zanzibar Pizza and fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice. A Zanzibar Pizza can come in savory or sweet forms and both are awesome! For a beef and vegetable pizza, the chef mixed ground beef, cheese, veggies, mayo, and an egg on top of a chapatti-like bread that is then cooked over a pan. I kept going back to the same chef – he knew his stuff.


So there’s good and bad about Forodhani Gardens: The good is that there is a huge selection of meat and seafood and all at very reasonable prices. I had a plate with lobster, crab, and shrimp for about $9! The other nights I’d start with a calamari steak, a shrimp skewer, and two fish skewers ($6). The bad is that if you arrive too soon after sunset, the food does not look as fresh or appetizing in the light of day. Some vendors are also shady and change the price on you. And, while you are seated, you are harassed to buy a host of goods you probably have no interest in. One of my friends refused to buy something and was called a “Skinnyhead.” He’s white and bald – I think it was a mispronunciation of another word…

So the truck arrived in Dar Es Salaam on a Friday afternoon and after two hours there, I was on a ferry to Zanzibar without having to return to truck life for almost an entire week! The days I spent there were a true vacation, even though I’m technically on an 18 month holiday already =)

Next up: Arusha, Lake Manyara, and the Ngorogoro Crater!!!

Hello from Malawi!

Favorite country so far! The people are very friendly, the food is delicious, things are cheap, and it is so beautiful! We’ve spent a majority of our time on Lake Malawi – the third biggest lake in Africa – but all of Malawi has been kind of magical…

Bribing and Not Bribing: It was a rough start for some, but not for me :) Several people on the truck have two passports. Most of these people sent their second passports away to get their Ethiopian visas processed (keeping on hand the one with the Zimbabwe visa). At some point, all of these people were going to have to switch out their passports. Our tour leader decided that Malawi was the place to do it, with the hopes that the customs official would not look for the last country’s exit stamp. The customs official did, however, and not seeing the Mozambique exit stamp, initially refused to grant entry for all the people who had switched their passports. Our driver bribed the official with a coke and the switches were made! Moments later, the truck was stopped by a police officer for speeding – 64km in supposedly a 50km zone. The next thing I see is our driver walking out with a stack of Malawi Kwacha. I thought it was a bribe, but apparently there was a photo of the truck speeding and the driver ended up paying the fine of 5000 MKs (~$27).

Lilongwe: I don’t have much to report on Malawi’s capital city as we only spent one night there and really only had about 2.5 hours to enjoy the city. Random 1: SIM cards are sold in packs of two, with all but one number the same – perhaps this is so that two people in one family can both have numbers similar enough to make it easy to remember? Random 2: I gave a vendor a 500 MK note for 200 MK worth of credit. I walked away, not thinking about my change. He called me back to make sure I got it. :) Random 3: The local Malawi beer is Kuche Kuche. It tastes awful but it’s a great label to have for my collection! Carlsberg is the other popular beer on offer.

Kande Beach: We spent three sleeps at Kande Beach on Lake Malawi. It’s a small paradise and I really, really like it here. We were camped pretty much on the beach and most people had a few days to relax and enjoy the sand and sun. My personal down time was minimal because I was busy getting my Advanced SCUBA Certification – success! I had a lot of new diving experiences as I had dove neither in fresh water nor at altitude before diving at Lake Malawi. Dive #1 was a 33 minute dive at a depth of about 80 feet. Nothing really notable about the dive itself, but when I surfaced, my vision was blurry for 10-15 minutes. A little bit scary actually, but I think it had something to do with wearing gas-permeable hard contact lenses and all that pressure…. Dive #2 was a navigation dive: My skills navigating underwater are pretty much as horrible as my skills navigating when driving. Dive #3 was a night dive! Night dives are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced! It’s definitely not an experience for the claustrophobic because except for a pretty weak torch, you cannot see anything but black water around you. We took the boat out during an amazing sunset and by the time we were geared up and in the water, it was dark. It was surreal to look up and see the moon shining down on me and scary to think about what creepy creatures I might discover as I shined my light around. Luckily, the most malicious creature in the lake is a crab, and only if you poke at it with your finger. Dive #4 was a fish identification dive, moderately useful because Lake Malawi is home to approximately 1000 species of cichlids. Though I wrote down descriptions for a number of fish, I never did manage to look them up. So it goes. It is also really hard to write on a slate underwater when the current is mercilessly bouncing you around! Dive #5: DPV (Diver Propulsion Vehicle) Dive, James Bond Style. Each equipped with a Seadoo DPV, four of us powered around Kande Reef. You don’t go quite as fast as they do in the movies, but my motor powered me a bit faster than one of the other divers who weighed twice as much as me :) Five dives later, I’m certified Advanced and exhausted! I still managed to get through a round of Power Hour (for the first time ever!) and close down the bar that night with truck mates. :)

Livingstonia: While camping at Chitimba beach, I went on a 16+ mile “guided” hike to Livingstonia. The town is not known for much other than being a successful community with good schools, and all because of the missionary established there in 1910. Notable sights include a church and a museum. The museum housed some pretty quirky exhibits like a plate with a cup stacked on top and an accompanying description about the Zambian president eating in Livingstonia once. A lot of the children were really lovely, waving and smiling at us as we passed. Some of them simply demanded goods: “Give me money!” “Give me a pen!” “Give me your water bottle!” All in all, the hike was actually pretty miserable. Although I got some good exercise, I started at 6am and arrived back in town 9.5 hours later exhausted, blistered, and dispirited. I was following someone else’s pretty grueling pace the whole time and our guide basically had zero information to share with us. I think I just felt gipped and grumpy and tonight’s vegetable curry dinner won’t make it any better. *sigh*

But things are, on the whole, great! Though I’m trying to keep the whining down to a minimum, it seems to have given me the most desired result possible: Theo has bought a flight to Egypt and will be joining the truck in Aswan! So incredibly excited!!! And, next on the agenda is Tanzania! We cross the border tomorrow (June 15) and after two nights camping, we’ll be in Dar Es Salaam to catch the ferry to Zanzibar!! Hope everyone is enjoying summer at home, miss you all!

Zim-Bab-We

Great Zimbabwe Ruins: Who knew that Zimbabwe had ruins? Supposedly they are proof of how sophisticated the people of Great Zimbabwe were at the height of its existence. They build great stone structures and Zimbabwe actually means “Great Stone House” (Zi = Great; Mba = Stone; Bwe = House in Shona). The King was rumored to have 200 wives – that in itself certainly requires some savvy. I think because I had really low expectations for the ruins, it ended up being great! Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of Great Zimbabwe and made our 2.5 hour exploration of it a good one. He referred to us as “Good People” (e.g. “Okay Good People, let’s move on to the conical structure…”) and had this quirky habit of ending each sentence with “Right?” as if questioning the validity of information he had just shared with us. While on our tour, we saw some baboons running amock and some people later exacted their revenge on thieving monkeys by shooting arrows at them. (Several people acquired bow-and-arrow sets at a nearby craft market and were testing them out. They almost always missed.)


Chimanimani: Next stop, Heaven. We spent two nights staying at the Heaven Lodge in the Chimanimani Mountains. The lodge itself had its heyday about 10 years ago and when we arrived, there was no running water and the bathrooms had been padlocked. Dollar beers provided some solace but they also attracted a lot of already inebriated locals to the bar. Apart from a rather bad first impression, you can picture how wonderful the lodge used to be – truly a slice of heaven. It’s set against this incredibly beautiful mountainous background and everywhere you look there are strikingly vivid flowers growing.


Some people elected to hike in the Chimanimani National Park, I chose to go with a separate group to do the Pork Pie hike. The national park was relatively expensive (~$25 for entry fee, guide, and transport) when Pork Pie was rumored to be free. We were told that Pork Pie has stunning panoramic views of the mountains and valley below. It did not disappoint! Six of us enjoyed a picnic lunch at the top of Pork Pie with beautiful views of the town of Chimanimani and the mountains.


On Food: After the hike, some us went to the Msasa Café for Lunch #2: Sadza, Spinach, and Stew (beef). It was $1 for some really great food! Sadza is Zimbabwe’s version of mealy maize porridge and they do it the best of all the countries in Africa so far. Msasa Café claimed to have Mexican food, but when Falcon pointed to the chalkboard menu and asked for a quesadilla, the server didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Going on six months without Mexican food, I continue to miss Papalote and Chipotle very much. As for Lunch #3, I had heard great things about a roadside shack’s $1 Sadza, Spinach, and Chicken:


Yes, I was already full, but I mean $1! I don’t quite understand why things were so cheap in Chimanimani, a fairly remote and out-of-the-way town, but I also walked away with 10 delicious oranges for $1 that day! (In Harare, for instance, Sadza, Spinach, and Stew cost about $5 and beers were $2.)

Harare: Lonely Planet says that there’s not much in Zimbabwe’s capital, and to me, that’s a pretty accurate assessment. We spent four nights in Harare mostly to sort out visa issues. Two highlights of our stay: Chinese food and soccer. Chinese food from King’s Take-Away was awesome because they had massive portions and sold a variety of random things like eggroll beef curried samoosas (pronounced samoosa all throughout Africa so far) and various teas: “Sex Tea,” “Constipation Tea,” Hypertension Tea,” etc. As for soccer, we had the privilege of attending a qualifying map for the Africa Cup between Zimbabwe and Mali. It was the most exciting game I’ve seen so far! Fans were shouting constantly and would hoo and hum based on play action. A lot of the shouting was in Shona but when the guy next to me wanted me to understand his frustration, like when Mali scored, I distinctly heard a “that’s bullshit.” The game itself: Zimbabwe scored late in the first half after two goals invalided by offside players. Mali tied it up early in the second half. Towards the end of the game, the crowd suddenly went wild and I didn’t understand for the longest time that it was because Zimbabwe got a penalty kick pretty much right in front of the goal. They missed. But then! One of the Mali players moved too early so we got a re-kick. Goal!!! Zimbabwe won 2-1. I’m not quite sure what happened but sometime in there, the Zimbabwe goalie got a yellow card and the guy he was perhaps taunting got a red card. One of our more vociferous companions would yell “Zim-Bab-We, Zim-Bab-We” over and over and at one point, galloped around the stadium to rally everyone in the stadium. In town the next day, no less than two people saw him and shouted “Zim-Bab-We!” Such good fun :)

Mozambique: Unfortunately, this beautiful country only gets a paragraph because it was but a blip on my overall Africa radar. We left Harare, got our Zimbabwe exit stamps, and then waited about four hours at the border for our transit visas. They speak a version of Portuguese in Mozambique and I found I had enough skills left from being in Brazil to converse a bit with the customs official. We bush camped just one night and then the next afternoon, we were getting our Mozambique exit stamps and entering Malawi. I have heard amazing things about Mozambique and really hope I get the chance to actually experience the country one day.

Next Up: Beach, beach, and more beach: Kande Beach, Chitimbah Beach, and Zanzibar!!! So excited for the sun!

I Love Mom

Good tidings! Thanks to Mom, I am no longer passportless! On Monday, June 6th, all the passports arrived safely at the DHL office in Harare. They are back much sooner than expected and now we find ourselves with some extra days for Zanzibar! The passports also arrived early enough that we were able to get our visas for Egypt. Thank you, Mom! Love you!