Preparing for Safari in Serengeti- Arusha, Tanzania

Allen, the least cool Aussie you'll ever meet



As a funny side-note, clothes in Africa are marketed differently than in the States.  In Africa, women’s skirts and pants are displayed on wire hangers that bulge in an exaggerated fashion at the hips, giving the appearance of a very full-figure.  I laugh every time I see it- hubba hubba (big girls are seen as sexy- it means they are healthy enough to avoid malnutrition and wealthy enough to eat well).  Aside from one dress, I haven't been tempted to buy clothes here.



I doubt this display is sells well to Western women

 

4 types of bananas for sale: mini, eating, cooking, and red

Our Land Rover, loaded and ready for the Serengeti

Arusha's Clock Tower, the Center of Africa

Maasai warriers tending to their goats and cows

Mt. Meru, view from just outside Arusha

In total, we spent 8 nights in Arusha, the gateway to the Serengeti.  We hadn’t planned to spend that kind of time in such an armpit town, but that’s the way it worked out.  The first 3 days were spent committing to the idea of spending $795 for 3 days in the Serengeti.  The next 3 days were for safari company research, ATM withdraws, and safari standby arrangements.  The last 2 days were laundry, internet, and travel days.  Slowly, Arusha grew on us.  By the time we left, we knew where to find all the cheap eats in town, and the majority of touts left us alone as we passed by the clock tower to the Hot Bread Internet Café.

Focus in Africa, the company we decided to safari with, checked out with the Tourism Office (they have two booklets, one that reads “Recommended” and another that reads “Black List”), so we made arrangements with Gideon to be picked up around 8:30am February the 20^th.  Mark and I weren’t sure how to pack because when we asked about temperatures, Gideon ambiguously stated, “It’ll be hot; it’ll be cold.”  Our day packs were bundled accordingly, and we drove to Select Safari (a sister company to Focus in Africa) where we met our new travel mates: Claire and Olivier from Quebec, Canada, and Allen, an I.T. mining contractor from Australia.  We instantly hit it off with the French-speaking couple as they were roughly our age whereas Allen quickly became the least cool Aussie we’ve ever met.  Allen, a classic narcissist, demanded the cook’s front seat citing previous motion sickness disasters which may or may not have ever taken place (we infer this because he later cited allergies as he was eating said allergens).  Allen, an annoying flibberty-jibbit, craned his neck to the backseat of the jeep where he spewed biscuits and the occasional spittle as he filled the vehicle with anti-climactic stories and back-door-brags about “got-to-see” travels.  Mark and I lamented being relegated to the backseat of the Land Rover with its low windows and a safari cook, Paulo, crammed in between us.  We tried to console ourselves; we were on our way to safari with the outdoor creatures of the wild Serengeti.

To save costs, we opted out of the Lake Manyara National Park game drive, so while the other 3 went on safari, we got dropped off with our gear at Sun Bright Campsite in Mtowambu.  The camp consisted of a restaurant/bar hut, showers, and proper toilets.  It was Sunday, so church was in session on 3 sides of the campground.  To the sounds of preachers waxing revival style, we opened our picnic box lunches to discover a calorie-laden spread: a triangular sliced veg sandwich on white bread, a canoli-shaped meat pocket, a sugar juice box, a cellophane-wrapped crepe, a cold hamburger, a banana, a hard-boiled egg, a green apple, and a small sleeve of peanuts.  Just a few hours in to this safari and I already felt obese.  Mark and I fell into a semi-coma in our open tent.  Biting ants crawled over my skin as we talked about how we had enjoyed the past 2.5 months in Africa and were now ready for a change.  We had planned on going through the Middle East, but fellow travelers were telling us it could be expensive, and the place was exploding with political protests.  I threw out the question, “What if we could go ANYWHERE in the world?”  South America was next on my list.  “What’s Peru like this time of year?”  Places like Australia and New Zealand were mentioned, but eventually the conversation came back to Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East.

After a few hours of conversing, we emerged from the tent and Mark hired a local teen to retrieve a coconut from a nearby palm tree.  The teen tried to collect $5 for his services.  Instead, we paid $1 and some left-over sandwiches.  We wandered into town with our cameras and heard more church services in session.  As we walked in the shade of trees parallel to the town’s main road, Maasai warriers peddled by on bicycles.  I loved the contrast of these cattlemen in their traditional red and black checkered one-arm Scottish togas and tire sandals using the modern technology of cell phones on their bicycles.  A local man showed us around his shop and took us on a tour of fruit trees behind it.  Shopsmen invited us in to see their children’s paintings, wooden carvings, and bananas for sale.  Men walked beside us with handfuls of necklaces for sale.  Kids held our hands and walked beside us with smiles.  We stopped at an outdoor café for a 35 cent glass-bottle of coke.  At this point, we’d been in Tanzania for almost a month.  We were enjoying it immensely, and were looking forward to our last Tanzanian hoorah- a safari in the Serengeti.