Thursday, September 30, 2010

Last night in Africa

This is almost the end of my trip. I yet have to fill you in on the last days, will do that a bit later. Tonight there will be some people over to taste local food that the maid prepared during the day.

My bags are packed and taxi will be here tomorrow morning at 5am to take me to the airport. Will arrive in Lisbon in the evening, staying overnight there and then to Tallinn via Helsinki, arriving on Saturday evening.

Toodles for now :)

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Inhaca Island - 27.sept

It was the most wonderful thing to not have to wake up to an alarm clock :) And not wake up to anything at all. All I could hear was wind, strong wind, blowing through the hut. Looking outside it was not promising - cloudy and very windy. Wind meaning no going to the sea :( No Portuguese Island and no snorkeling and no nothing :( Had my enormous breakfast. I have never eaten that much for breakfast ever in my life. I could even say it is a three course breakfast every morning. And all those eggs! Uuuh, lots of eggs every day.

At the breakfast started talking with the other people at the camp. I knew they are here to fish so wondered what are their plans. The same information that no going to the sea with this sort of weather. The others are from South Africa, there is 11 of them, most are co-workers at a law firm.

Biggest problem for me was that there was no sun either :(, which makes the air cold. Staying inside is not an option so I piled some clothes on, grabbed my book and set myself to read in a comfy chair outside. Soon enough the others were walking to town so I set off with them taking the way through the beach, shortcut as they said. Tide over here is really really large, I mean that the water recedes far far out and then makes its way back in the afternoon. So we were walking on the seafloor where there was no water at the time. Got to walk around ships waiting on the sand for some water :) There were also lots of crabs running around under the trees and millions of little holes where they hide. At some point during the night they would all be outside so the ground seems to be moving. Inhaca Island has an ecosystem one of the kind. In the mainland there are lower areas which get water in them, at some point the water is salty and other times of the year the water is fresh. They put lots of effort into research here to see how the plants and little creatures survive in such rare conditions.

Anyways, in town we headed over to a most wonderful seafood restaurant. Ate about 25cm long crayfish or a huge lobster, all grilled up nice and tasty. Food on this island is the best so far. Drinks followed, then dancing :) and heading back via a detour to the restaurant owner's land to check out the next camp site to be built. Fishing is the keyword and most of the visitors coming here would be here for fishing. Quite many arrive with their own boats, just like the group in our camp.

Headed back via the main road and the walk is not that bad at all. Passed by a local airport strip located right next to our camp. Yesterday there was a plane coming in and it scared the hell out of me as it almost touched the tree next to me :) Little plane, but still very frightening. Walking here is quite ok actually, probably just not suggested for foreigners ;)

Evening at the camp went on the name of wine, TV, eating and talking. It has been a wonderful and relaxing day in a very good company. Quite perfect actually :)

Arriving at Inhaca Island - 26.sept

Next destination - Inhaca Island, located 40km from Maputo, across the bay. Ferry to take us there covers the distance in 2 hours, leaves harbor anytime between 7:30 and 8:15 :). Ferry itself is quite small, with perhaps 70-80 seating spots or so. Luckily it was not very windy this morning so the ride was nice and smooth. Once arrived at the island we found few dolphins greeting us - how nice of them :)

There is no proper port so the ferry itself has to stay a bit behind while smaller boats come to take the goods and passengers on board to transport them to the shore. Quite a deal as you gotta purchase yet another ticket for the small boats helping you to the land. At the beach we were greeted by the local coast guard who gathered 200 meticals from us to preserve the nature on the island and off to Manico Camp we went. Dropped our bags off, checked the facilities - there are outside showers, toilets, little basic camp houses, kitchen, bar and inner court yard. All looks very nice and thought through although basic. All is fine as long as there is electricity at the hut, which there is :), so the movie night is on!

Initially it was planned that I stay here for two nights and my friend for one night, but due to the ferry logistics my friend has to return the same day and I still stay for 2 nights. At the camp we tried to see what is there to do - well, nothing really :) Can go diving, snorkeling, to the lighthouse and to a small island. For today we chose the latter. I don't dive, snorkeling has been done already, for the lighthouse they charge an unbelievably large amount of money, so the island it was. Zoomed by the small village by harbour to grab a sandwich for lunch, hitched a boat from the shore to take us over to Portuguese Island - boat ride took about 10 minutes. Really nice and handy way of getting to the beautiful beach of the tiny island. There isn't much else to do than to enjoy the sand and the sea. At least the weather was beautiful. 2 hours laying in the sun was quite enough to be honest, so gotta find something different to do for tomorrow.

Boat back to Maputo leaves at 3 so we had to arrive back at the main island a bit after 2 for my friend to make it. Lots of waiting around, a very very regular activity over here ;) and back to the camp I went. It is not possible to get around by foot unless one is staying by the overpriced hotel by the port, so camp is organizing transport for me to get back and fourth.

Rest of the afternoon I spent reading, had the tastiest fish for dinner at the camp and headed over to watch a movie. Could not even finish since I struggled to keep my eyes open. Went to sleep before 9 and got my 11 hours of sleep in - that is what I call vacation! I just hope they don't have any roosters or little kids here to start making noise at 6 am :)

Day off in Maputo - 25.sept

Got up at 8, could sleep more, but breakfast is planned to 9am. Getting up at 8 is a lot better than at 5 so I'm content, and besides, last time I got to wake up after 8 was in Italy. I'll sleep in sometime later, like over Christmas time or something :) Can't spend my vacation sleeping ;) No worries, tomorrow gotta get the taxi at 7am, so all good ;)

Good half an hour was spent on doing laundry and then walk over to a nearby Cafe de Sol - it is a beautiful place, had a local handicraft fair today with more beautiful necklaces and bags :) As soon as we sat down we were informed that there has been an electricity cut and no heated food can be ordered, were quite bummed to eat cold sandwich for breakfast.

Next project was going grocery shopping. For this we walked through a nearby neighbourhood to reach one local store and then Woolworths at the next block. Managed to gather everything needed for breakfast including cereal and yogurt - can't wait for this breakfast as I'm so sick of toast and eggs, have been eating English breakfast for the past 3 weeks, time for some yogurt! Picked up some fresh fruits and other items. Shopping like in any country I guess, only the selection is quite limited.

After dropping the food off at the apartment walked over to Maputo's fish market and to the beach nearby. Fish market was neat, so many different kinds of seafood types laying in neat piles or in buckets filled with water. One can pick the food up and then get it cooked right next door to enjoy at the spot. We decided to go for restaurant food this time, but it was really tempting and tasty.

Headed over to the beach. Here in Mozambique we get lots of attention, there is constantly somebody whistling or calling us, quite annoying I must say. In Zimbabwe and in Tanzania there was nothing like this. Already yesterday I was advised to keep my passport with as police can request it at any time, but better to keep the passport in a body belt under the clothes. I was also filled in on the streets to avoid and the roads not to take, where not to walk (by the presidents residence) and what not to take a photo of. Police here is quite nasty as I've heard. They look very intimidating with their automatic guns and they are always moving around in big groups. I hope I never have to talk to them ever :) Apparently whenever they stop you (mostly when you are driving) they simply ask for money, and you have to give them something otherwise things get ugly. Yeah, this is how bad it is. And I'd like to see who starts to argue with 6 policemen wearing Kalashnikovs, pointing the guns towards you while addressing you. Really scary.

Had lunch at a wonderful seaside restaurant with terrace and all. Met my friends friends from Finland, heard many interesting facts about EU, chatted for the longest time, had very tasty seafood curry and watched the tide move in. Absolutely perfect Saturday afternoon. As one lady is going away for few days then my friend is looking after her cat for those days, went over to pick up the kitty cat, smuggled it into the apartment (as there is a very strict no pets allowed policy) and got ready to head out to see more dance performances.

This time there were 2 local groups: 'Grupo Workshop de Luz' and 'Lulu Sala'. Second piece was called 'Caos na Identidade'. I liked both of the performances very very much. Concepts were good, choreography was interesting and the movements had depth. First performance was a bit shorter, perhaps 30 minutes, the other one went on for at least an hour and incorporated video and live music - it was really really good.

Zoomed by a jazz concert by 'Nasar Abadey & Supernova' - group from northern US. One of the reasons we went there was the fact that it took place in a train station, it is a beautiful building worth seeing. Concert ended up being without any admission cost so no harm done at all. Music itself was a bit too nervous or aggressive for me, no vocals, stayed for about 45 minutes then headed home and straight to bed. On our way got to see how the police stops people with no reason at all, so glad that we have gotten away with it so far.

Getting to Maputo, Mozambique - 24.sept

Taxi was waiting for us 5 minutes to 5am, drive to the airport was super quick thanks to empty roads and the fact that he ignored all the red lights at the intersections probably helped as well. Flight to Johannesburg went quick as I took advantage of the time and wrote up the texts of the past 4 days.

There is this strange thing they do here at the planes before they take off - they spray the cabin. Apparently this is bug spray or something, I suppose it is to prevent a free ride for a mosquito :)

Went on a shopping spree once in Johannesburg airport - they have the coolest necklaces here! And scarfs and cosmetics and all kinds of local thingies. I'm glad we have only limited time here and my credit card has a limit :) Second flight was short with the cutest flight attendant ever - seriously this guy was gorgeous :) Finished reading my book and was bored for the rest of the 20 minutes. Captain announced that the temperature is +37C in Maputo!! WOW :)

Getting of the plane and walking across to the terminal the heat set in. I'm not sure it was really 37, but it was nice and toasty and humid - like real tropics. I had this big smile on my face thinking I'm now in Mozambique :D

Staying with my friend here so we took a cab over to her apartment. Her home is really nice and cozy and I got my own room and a separate bathroom! Apartment is really nice with a big balcony and open kitchen. Had few hours to relax, unpack and shower (first hot shower in 8 days!!! oh did that feel good!). Quick visit to the internet. Yeah, I got access to the wonderful web now :) But the connection is too slow for uploading photos still :(

In the evening there was yet another try to get money out of my VISA - it is such a headache here. Finally one of the ATM's worked, phew. Then zoomed over to the contemporary dance festival. There were 2 shows today. First one was by a local group called 'Colaboracao artistica' performing 'In Kino' - concept was pretty neat, at first they were inside a cubicle and made the audience walk around it as they performed at one of the walls at a time. Later on they opened the cubicle up and moved to outside as well. It was something different, their movements were a bit raw though. Second show was by Swiss group called 'Foofwa' and the piece was called 'The Making of Spectacles' - oh it was sloow, they tried too hard to communicate with the audience and by the end of the show almost half of the people in the audience had left.

Me and my friend were both dead tired so headed directly home after the last show. There was a party afterwards with the coolest music mixing African drums, saxophone and techno music, but we simply did not have the strength to stay awake. Tomorrow we have a day off (almost) and can sleep in :)

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Overview of Tanzania

Here comes another summary of an African country called Tanzania, again, it is a summary based on the information in our travel guide 'The Rough Guide to Tanzania':

Tanzania's history covers two tales: that of the coast (including Zanzibar and Mafia) and that of the hinterland (Tanganyika).

Mainland Tanzania has been inhabited since the dawn of mankind, some 3.75 million years ago. Most of ancient cultures have disappeared long ago, two exceptions being the Hadzabe and Sandawe tribes in central Tanzania. Sandawe abandoned their ancient way of life in 1950's, but Hadsabe persist. Both tribes speak languages characterized by click sounds (again!).

First Bantu people arrived to this land as early as 1000BC in search of fresh land due to overpopulation of their people in homeland. Over time the immigrants split into distinct tribes. Common element to most Bantu societies is the knowledge of iron work. Nowadays Bantu-speakers comprise all but a handful of Tanzania's 129 officially recognized tribes. Second largest and most traditional are Nilotes, includes the country's most famous tribe Maasai. Their origins lie in the Upper Nile valley of central Sudan, from where their ancestors started faming out as early as 2000 years ago. Cattle defines all Nilotic tribes providing everything from food to clothing and shelter as well as social standing.

The first non-Africans to visit Tanzania, about 2000BC, were Sumerian traders from Mesopotami, followed a millenium later by the Phoenicians. In later centuries the East African coast became part of a vast trading network that included China, Malaysia and Indonesia. First outsiders to establish a permanent presence in East Africa were the Persians. Intermarriage with Africans and later with Arabs created Swahili civilization, reaching it's peak in the 14th and 15th centuries when its city states controlled the flow of gold from mines located in Zimbabwe to the port of Sofala in Mozambique. The main legacy of Swahili civilization is its language - Kiswahili, now the official language of Tanzania and Kenya.

The growth and prosperity of the Swahili came to an abrupt end following the arrival of the Portuguese - first to visit was Vasco da Gama in 1498. Within a decade the Portuguese presence disrupted the ancient trading network so badly that entire region fell into decline, opening a door to a new power in 1606 - Oman, taking over power in the region. Portuguese held on to Unguja until 1652, the last Portuguese stronghold in East Africa. north of Mozambique, Mombasas's Fort Jesus fell to the new rulers in 1698.

Rival dynasty Marruis seized Pemba island in 1744 but were unsuccessful in their attempt to take Unguja island. In spite of the rivalry Zanzibar's trade flourished, the key to its wealth being slavery, demand for which rocketed after the establishment of sugar and clove plantations in European-owned Indian Ocean territories. In 1811 Stone Town's notorious slave market opened, trading over a million slaves in the following 60 years.

The first Europeans known to have traveled through Tanzania were the German missionaries Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann in the 1840's. A train of other explorers and missionaries followed, many of them set out to locate the source of the Nile - whoever controlled the Nile's head waters would control Egypt and from 1869 also the Suez Canal. The "riddle of the Nile" was finally solved by John Hanning Speke who reached lake Victoria in 1858 and went to sail down the great river.

The partition of Africa was rendered official in a series of conferences and treaties in the 1880's, and in 1890 Germany took nominal control of Tanganyika, while Britain grabbed Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar. German conquest wasn't easy, during first years they saw many uprisings that took up to 2 years to crush. Proper colonization began from about 1907.

1890 Zanzibar was declared a British Protectorate, the sultanate was allowed to continue in ceremonial capacity, but the decisions were made by British. At the end of World War I, the British were given control of Tanganyika. They continued to extend railway systems and installed a sewage system for Stone Town.

World War II was a major turning point in the history of Tanzania and in Africa as a whole. Opposition to colonial rule sprang up right across the continent, and with the new world order now dominated by US and the Soviet Union, change was inevitable.

In Tanganyika, the independence movement was headed by TANU (the Tanganyika African National Union). From 1954 it was led by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who won the respect of the British, and became chief minister in 1960 free elections leading to Tanganyikan independence proclaimed on 6th of December 1961.

In Zanzibar the situation was more complicated, as there were effectively two colonial overloads: the British wielding political, judicial and military power and Omanis who owned most of the island's resources. 10th of December 1963, the Sultanate of Zanzibar came into being and a year later Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume declared himself Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Council of the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba.

1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar were unified to form United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar retained political and economical autonomy. Nyerere became Union president and faced huge challenges as Tanzania was on of the poorest countries on Earth. His vision to the solution was self-reliant, non-Marxist "African socialism". In practice, those noble ideas translated into "villagization": the resettlement of rural households, who accounted for over 90% of the population, into collective villages (Ujamaa). It turned out to be economic disaster where vast areas of formerly productive land were left unattended. This process did however create access to clean water, health care and better education system, as well as a strong and peaceful sense of national identity.

By 1985 the economy had collapsed, agriculture barely sufficed and the country was saddled with a crippling dept - Nyerere resigned, it was time for change. 1985 Ali Hassan Mwinyi won elections and ruled for ten years, he dropped Nyerere's socialist policies and one-party political system.

Things could have not been different in Zanzibar with bitterly disputed elections, withdrawal of foreign aid, outbursts of violence and political repression. Tanzania remains heavily dependent on foreign aid and corruption has been a constant theme.

Lake Manyara - 22.sept

Last day of our safari tour - exploring more of Lake Manyara in the morning and heading back to Arusha in the afternoon, arriving in town by 6-7pm. That was the plan at least ;)

Headed happily towards the hot springs at the furthest point in the park, some 37km from the gate, nice and early, yet again getting up at 6am. On our way we saw tons of giraffes walking around and munching away at the bushes, saw also lots and lots of elephants - they are everywhere here! Saw lots of all kinds of birds whose names I can't remember, amongst them many flamingos and pelicans.

So we made it to he springs, hot springs being truly hot with the water at about 80 degrees coming out of the hill. When turning back the car made a funny noise, guide gets out and looks under the car. Two guys get out as well and stare at the bottom of the car discussing. We all get out and have a look. We see a big pole or a pipe or a rod laying on the ground by the back wheels, still connected on the other end to the car by the front wheels. After a while it is figured out that this is the rod that provides four wheel drive and connects back set of wheels to the front ones :) Luckily there were other cars there to provide us tools and means of tying the rod to the car so we could keep going. It took about an hour or so to get it all done as they tried to first remove it and then tie it and then tie it one more time as the ropes where not holding. So finally start the journey back, slowly, so incredibly slowly.

All I could think of was us not getting stuck in a herd of elephants and not being able to drive away if things get dangerous. In the parks it is strictly prohibited to get out of the car as the wildlife is quick and they do attack. There have been numerous cases where people get out of the car nevertheless and are killed by lions or other animals - so no getting out of the car in the park! There are special picnic areas with facilities where we have lunch and can use the toilets. Ok, so on we go. We get to drive about 5km when the rod fell off with a huge clunk that made everybody jump on their seats :)

Our ride continued after a while with the front connection piece of the rod jumping up and down making loud noises. We continued on with less than 5km/h, stopping every time we encountered another car passing. Our guide telling each car our sad story which made our journey even slower. After a while, perhaps another 45 minutes, he found a car with right tools so he could remove the noisy connection piece. All of us being alert trying to spot any lions or other animals approaching the car while our guide is half way underneath the car pretending to be the mechanic.

Another problem was tsetse flies occasional appearance. They are quite a bit bigger than regular flies, they bite and carry a dangerous disease. Finally we were on a move again! This time with no noise so we got to go at a normal speed. In about 30 meters another part fell of the car with a loud clunk :D We had been driving in the park now already for more than 2.5 hours. Everybody was so indifferent by now that we did not even make a comment about the car falling apart. All we wanted was to get out of the park and back to Arusha as soon as possible. We were hungry and tired of the midday heat and fighting off the flies.

At least the car was miraculously still moving. We all hoped that there are no hills coming up as we had lost the four wheel drive and we weren't sure if there are any other parts about to fall off anytime soon. We made it out of the park eventually, guide drove to the closest village to fix the car. Meanwhile we looked around and had few cold drinks at a local pub :) Miraculously, 50 minutes later the car was all fixed and well, headed back to the camp, made the guides pack up in 20 minutes and started the 2.5h drive back to Arusha at half past 4. This time all went smoothly - arrived in town by night fall. We were all dropped off at our accommodation.

Farewells followed. Our group included 2 guys from Netherlands, one of them knowing all about the local animals and gladly sharing his knowledge throughout the trip - it was wonderful. One world traveler from Brazil, he had been traveling for the past 2 years and was planning to continue for another 2 years. And then a girl from Israel. That made total 6 of us. Have everybody's contacts to be able to keep in touch in the future.

We refused to stay at the same private hotel so we just picked the first hotel where we stopped the car and booked a room. Quick shower, dinner at a nearby restaurant and off to bed we went exhausted from this complicated day.

Arusha - 23.sept

Our flight to Dar Es Salaam isn't till 3:20pm giving us a whole morning to look around in Arusha. Slept in till 8, packed, showered, had breakfast, stored our luggage at the hotel, arranged a taxi to take us to the airport in the afternoon and headed for a walk in town.

My friend really wanted to check out the International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda. It was set up by UN in 1994 following the horrific hundred-day genocide that same year which claimed the lives of over 800 000 people. The tribunal delivered the world's first condemnation for genocide in September 1998, when former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was found guilty, but has been dogged by controversy for much of its life - not the least of which being the UN's characteristically lavish and ineffectual bureaucracy: over a billion dollars to the end of 2007, the last trials are set to conclude around 2012. Indeed, fifteen years after the genocide, the court has so far convicted just 34 people and acquitted six. Twenty-three remain on trial and eight trials have yet to begin. However, the successful conviction in 2008 of the so-called 'mastermind' of the genocide, Theoneste Bagosora,a colonel inthe Rwandan army, together with two of his cohorts, was seen as a sign thant the tribunal is producing results. All three were given life sentences.

There are court hearings there daily and are open to the public so we went to see one. Sat there for about 30 minutes, listening to the hearing from behind the glass via radio transmitters providing direct translation to English. Hear the person answering questions like "where were you on the 5th of September in 1994", "who else was at the house", "what time did so-and-so arrive", "what did you do on the following day" and so on and so on. It all seems so unbelievable to me that they are putting the pieces in place through such long and painful and slow methods. I guess that is the best there is. Also I could not understand if the guy being prosecuted had any legal assistance or not, did not see anybody with him there. Seemed strange to me that a simple person needs to answer all those vague questions all by him/herself.

Later on walked around in the town, just to see the life on the streets. Got in trouble again taking a photo of a builing :) This time simply erasing the photo did the trick. Had quick lunch in a nice cafe by the post office and headed back to the hotel to catch our ride to the airport.

Stared at Mount Meru that was rising out of the ground right across from the airfield. It is Tanzania's second-highest mountain (4566m) after Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro rises over 5km from the surrounding plains to a peak of 5892m being Africa's highest mountain, the world's tallest free-standing massif and one of the world's largest volcanoes covering some 3885 square kilometers. Got to see the peak from an airplane window later on.

To our suprise the flight took a detour through Zanzibar, making a quick stop there to let most people off and let others on board. Yea, we were wondering why the flying time is so long :) We were tempted to get off at the stop as well - Zanzibar was just so nice and inviting :) Arrived safely at Dar Es Salaam. Luckily we got to stay over at P&M's house again. Went out to dinner with P and her friends at a great Italian restaurant. Met a Swedish girl who lives here, girl from Boston who has been in Africa close to 4 years by now and 2 Italian ladies. It was a wonderful evenining meeting new people and exchaning our trip details. My tuna and spicy salami pizza tasted so delicious as well. I'm missing those loads of pizza that I got to enjoy in Italy on the first week of my vacation :)

Ngorongoro crater - 21.sept

Today is the day to explore Ngorongoro crater and the conservation area, headed towards it at 7am. Conservation area covers 8288 square kilometers of volcanic highlands between the Great Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plains. As our guidebook knows to tell this place is a product of the volcanic upheavals that accompanied the formation of the Rift Valley and its varied habitats virtually guarantee sights of the "big five" animals of Africa -- lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo. I'm missing just rhino, all the rest I've seen.

For animals this place is a heaven, for tourists it's something close to heaven. At the center of this 600m deep and 19km in diameter crater there is Lake Magadi - it is shallow alkaline lake, home to so many flamingos that all you see is pink :) Besides the lake one can find swamp areas as well as grasslands, glades and forests.

They do promise to see rhino here, but we did not get that lucky. Instead we saw lots of lions once again, this time they were finding shade in the cars observing them, laying out on the road and not locking many cars to their positions without the ability to move because a tail of a baby lion would be directly under a tire :D Saw buffalo, tons of flamingos and other birds.

Just some 20 minutes before leaving we spotted a cheetah! It was doing its best to stay invisible in the tall grass between a flock of zebras, gnu's and impala. It was fascinating to see how the animals could sense or smell the dangerous predator and they all froze to their places with heads up. There were at least 100 animals standing alert and staring at a single spot in the grass, the air was dead still and felt like they were all holding their breath :) For a while we lost our cheetah but a while later found it again and kept observing it's quest. Cheetah is a very elegant animal, has a smaller head than leopard but looks just as good with it's spotted body. Apparently the hunt can take hours and we were running out of time so we did not get to see the chase unfortunately.

Once at the camp we got to witness how effective the tour guides can be when they are in a hurry - the tents were pulled down, packed, gear collected and car loaded in just about 10-15 minutes. So when they need they are able to move and organize themselves! Africa :)

For the afternoon we bargained another game drive instead of sitting at the camp for hours. We headed out of Ngorongoro and towards Lake Manyara. First dropped our things off at the same camp where we stayed the first night - Panorama Safari Camp located on top of a hill looking down at the lake, a beautiful place. Quickly unloaded the car at the camp and headed over to Lake Manyara National Park for a quick 2h game drive.

This park is famous for it's tree-climbing lions, seen resting up in the boughs of acacia trees. We did not see lions up in the trees, but we did see 3 cups playing by the stream. It was the cutest thing ever! Must have observed them for at least 20 minutes, everybody taking at least few hundred pictures of them :)

Watched the sunset in the park by hippo pools and headed back to the camp after 30 minute drive, arriving in the dark. Once out of the car I headed directly to the showers. I was covered in a thick layer of dust from head to toe, even my hair has changed color to this reddish brown hue of the dust, it is ridiculous. The showers are a joke here though - water was cold and it was barely dripping from the pipe so I basically washed myself under a tap. Oh well, it did the trick and I got most of the dust off.

Today was the most effective day yet, our time was well used and there wasn't whole lot of sitting around waiting around. It was good use of our costly time, I wish that every day would have been that productive on this safari trip.

Getting back at the camp we discovered that they had set us up in the luxury tents this time! There were actual elevated beds in them, tents were bigger and had a view directly to the lake down below - it was gorgeous!

Leaving Serengeti - 20.sept

Today got to do another early morning game drive leaving the camp at 6 after quick morning tea. Mornings are suppose to be the active time for animals so I was quite looking forward to it. Saw the beautiful sunrise and some hot air balloons starting their journey of looking at wildlife from up above. All this was quite scenic on its own. As for the animals, we saw some buffalo, giraffes, hippos, lots of birds and many antelope types. Happened to find few lions having breakfast, munching away on some antelope. But not that much was going on this morning. Back to the camp at 11, packing and off towards Ngorongoro we headed. There was some misunderstanding about another game drive to take place in the afternoon, but due to 24h licenses they issue for the parks the game drive was replaced by yet another fast drive on the bad roads with lots of dust.

The drive was long again. Got to see endless fields for hours again, local Maasai villages, local roadside villages, but otherwise not much was out there. Getting up yet another little hill our car suddenly stopped :) Engine would not start again :) For the first 5 minutes there was confusion as nobody understood what had happened, then all was made clear - no panic, we have simply ran out of gas :D How nice :) In the middle of nowhere :) All the cars carry canisters with them and naive us we thought it is filled with gas for occasions like this, but no, those are empty so that when the car does run out of gas they can go and get some from a gas station. Luckily we were not too far from town so our driver hitched a ride to the nearest gas station and was back in a bit less than an hour. Meanwhile we got to have a long photo session on the hill :)

Arrived to the next camp site above the crater right before dark so we barely managed to set the tents up in the dim light. View at the campsite is very beautiful! Tents are standing on a hillside, looking down at the crater. This campsite has some electricity not like the last one, there are cold showers and toilets like in all the previous ones. As the facilities have only a number of tables and as we were late with our arrival we had to wait quite a bit before we got to have dinner.

By now we are all quite annoyed with the tour operator and their poor planning skills. There is quite a bit of complaining going on and the phrase 'but this is Africa' does not cut it for us anymore. Had a chat about it with our guide as well that it is not acceptable to skip a whole afternoon of safari because of some permit that he did not purchase for longer period. Running out of gas in the middle of nowhere was a bit of a shocker as well. The only relief was that at least the car did not break down. I hope things get a bit better from now on :)

As it does get dark quick and there is not much to do at the campsites and we have to get up quite early every morning we also go to bed quite early, around 10 or even 9. This suits me well :) Tonight we got to share the darkness with a group a zebras who were doing their best at keeping the grass as short as possible. They did not seem to mind the tents too much, or all the people taking photos of them in the dark with the flash. I guess they are locals :)

Arrival in Serengeti - 19.sept

Early wake up call at 5, breakfast was supposed to be served at 5:30 and departure to happen at 6am. We were quite unhappy to find the guides only starting to load the car at 6:30 :( Could have had another hour of sleep instead of waiting around by the kitchen. Finally hit the road, picked up another person to be fit into our already cramped car. Plan was to get to Serengeti National Park by the afternoon. For this we needed to drive all the way through Ngorongoro National Park. Fist the guide informed us that it will be about 3h ride, well, it ended up being 6+ hours. With a long stop at the border of two parks getting out of one and into another. We all tried to laugh it off and use the phrase 'african time' :) Little did we know of how right we were :D

Drive was long and bumpy AND so incredibly dusty! No more of good roads (at leas in the park areas which was most of the time for us today) - I'm not sure how my liver is going to handle all this beating. It felt like driving on a railroad tracks with a car and going 90 km/h :D I have no clue how those cars keep going after months of driving on those roads. And the dust!! Oh incredible. I kept my sunglasses on to protect my eyes from all the dust and I basically had to wipe them once in a while to be able to see out. There will be some photos of my beautiful face covered with dust as well ;)

Due to our delay in the morning we headed for the game drive immediately at entering Serengeti National Park without stopping at the camp located at the center of the park in between as originally planned.

Here comes a quick overview of the park from our guide book again:
Serengeti National Park is Tanzania's oldest and largest national park covering 14 762 square km. It is one of the world's best known wildlife sanctuaries. Serengeti lies in the center of the world's largest and most impressive wildlife migration areas. Serengeti also contains the highest concentration of mammals on earth.

Now about the migration. It is annual 800km migration of over 2.5 million animals, the largest mammalian migration on earth. This movement of animals is prompted by a seasonal search for fresh water and pasture dictated by the rain. It literally means millions of animals of different sorts walking across the planes in herds. Migration takes them to Kenia's part of the park via easternmost route and back to Tanzania from the other side, western side. Animals would reach Kenia in August, stay there till middle of October or beginning of November and then start moving back from the other side. Currently most of the animals would be gone with the migration, but since there are so many of them it should not make a huge difference.

When I talk about national parks then here it means that an area has been defined to preserve the animals (probably that is the whole point everywhere). But basically this is where the animals are protected from locals setting traps or strangers killing wild animals. It does happen that animals wonder off the park area though since there are no fences or anything. As I have understood though the parks are big enough (for an example the size of Estonia) for most of them to be safe and not have the need to wonder off at all.

We got truly truly lucky on our game drive today :) As one of the first things while driving towards our camp we saw bunch of hyenas. Usually they can't be spotted during the day as they move around mostly in the dark. Well, for us they were right next to the road and once we stopped they came across by our car and checked us out :) We got a nice close look at them. After a bit we drove on. Here at the parks tour guides chat to each other when cars pass, of course they speak in Kishwahili so we can't understand a thing. At some point after another chat our guide just hit the gas and was quite determined to get on. For our question of what is out there he just said with a smile on his face: "something special" :) He took us to a leopard! Seeing leopard is nearly impossible as I've heard so we got super lucky. And what a show she put on:

At first it was just laying on the rocks, was a bit difficult to see it. Usually we were quite patient in observing the animals, same this time, we simply waited and once more it paid off very well as the kitty went for a walk after about 10 minutes. By this time there were hoards of cars all piled up to have a look at this beautiful spotted elegant creature. For the walk trajectory the kitty chose first the field with high grass so all we could see was her back, at some point it turned towards the road and headed straight to our car :) out of about 15 cars the kitty passed right by ours and then followed on by the road all the cars moving along at the same speed and trying to get the best spot to view the animal. To all our surprise the leopard didn't even seem to notice all the cars. After a bit it headed up to another set of rocks, had some salad in form of green grass and was walking up and down for a bit before taking a seat on top of a large rock. She placed herself to the center of it and sat down elegantly. Next thing we know is that she is making weird movements like wants to let something out of her mouth - surely after few gags the kitty vomited :) I got proof in form of photos. It has been a strange strange experience here seeing animals doing all sorts of unusual things right in front of our eyes like vomiting and mating.

Seeing a leopard was definitely the highlight of the day. It is not allowed here to drive in the dark as this is when all the animals are on a move and driving gets dangerous. Sun sets around 6:30 so usually this is when our day at a safari ends and we arrive at the camp. Next is the usual routine of setting up the tents, getting settled in the tent, eating and going to sleep. This time the camp is situated in the middle of the national park and there are no fences around it :) I guess this night will be spent next to lions, hyenas and elephants, how about that? Fancy going to the toilet in the middle of the night, in the dark, all by yourself :) ?

Right in the middle of the dinner it started raining, raining heavily :( Luckily our tent leaked only a little, two guys from Netherlands were not that lucky and they had soaked mattresses and bags. Took them few hours to resettle and secure the tent so that water was not pouring in. It rained half way through the night but everything was very damp and cold in the morning nonetheless. I truly hope this is the last time I see rain here, it is not even a rainy season yet!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Yet another status update

I'm back in Dar Es Salaam already. Spending the night here and tomorrow flying on to Maputo, Mozambique via Johannesburg. I haven't had time to write the last 4 days stories yet :) Tomorrow on the plane I'm planning on spending few hours on it so stay tuned!

Tarangire National Park - 18.sept

First and most importantly - today is my dad's birthday :) :) Happy happy birthday dear dad!

Morning started with packing as every day :) Breakfast and then off to town to meet our fellow travelers for the next 5 days, how exciting! Car got packed up by the tour operators office, met the other 3 gentlemen, drove through town to gather food and do the groceries. It was quite a sight to see the market and early morning busy streets. Finally started towards the park all packed up and ready. We have 5 of us tourists plus our driver-guide in one person plus cook. So 8 people traveling. Car was quite badly packed so at first we could not even imagine how we could even do the game viewing in it. Solution was that the cook got off at some point to go directly to the camp and we just rearranged the car ourselves to clear out the floor.

It must have been about 1h drive to the park I'm guessing. Now here the park is more like the one in Zimbabwe, not so green that is. There is plenty of space so one can get some very good views. As my friend was saying, the ones she has been in have been quite bushy, so it is difficult to see the animals. Here there is quite a bit of planes as well so all good. On the planes there are 'baobab' trees scattered here and there, those are most strange looking trees ever :) Apparently they can live for several thousand years, trunk grows to 10 meters after only a century and keeps expanding even afterwards. All in all the landscape here reminds me of one Estonian artist works - so I would call it Navitrolla landscapes :) The skies, the horizon, the trees, the giraffes, the colors even :)

It seems that all our hard work in previous attempts to see wildlife were rewarded today :D Because we saw all kinds of fun stuff. We saw ostriches, warthogs, wildebeest, dikdik, vulture and so on - this is all quite regular and ordinary, but now to the more interesting animals:

First we saw elephants - 6 of them, with 2 young ones. Animals have certain tracks they follow daily, as we saw the elephants quite far away the car was parked a bit ahead so we just watched the animals coming closer. Turned out the car was parked right by the track and we managed to see the elephants passing the road like a meter from the car! It was amazing! Guide did warn us thought that if they have young ones with they get quite protective so it could be dangerous (he had the engine running if the need would come to escape :) ). So this was the first awesomeness of the day. Later we literally ran across another male elephant, he was huuuuge, really really huge and was heading somewhere while passing behind our car again. Was quite scary of how small the car and us in it felt when he passed. He did not even look at us though, just went its own way.

As our guide was telling yesterday the most dangerous animals to humans are hippos (of all one could never guess that), since they have very strict moving capabilities because of their short legs and big belly. So if you happen to be on their path when they get from the water to their food or vice versa you are definitely dead as they move quite fast and they just stomp over you.

The animals concentration is awesome in this park. There are so many different animals and they are everywhere. There was barely a time when we did not see a thing. Mostly when taking a photo of some animal there was another type of animal on the background. Quite amazing! Saw lots of giraffes, zebras by herds of 20-30, lots of wildebeest, many eagles and other big birds, antelope types (can't remember the names of all) and then and then.. guess who we got to see??? Guess!??!!?

We got to see many lions! Apparently it is nearly impossible to see lions elsewhere (as I've heard), but today we got to see many of them. First one we saw up on a hill, perhaps some 200m away, he was graciously lying down on a rock with his paws hanging over and looked down at the zebras, was probably picking out his dinner :) Then next we saw 4 (or was it 5?) lions sleeping by the tree across the river. Must have been about 100m away this time, but they were really boring ones as they were just like carpets flat on the ground. Still, lions, many of them, just lying there in the shade turning sides every now and then. Quite impressive. AND THEN!! Then we drove through a loop and there were 2 lions laying by the road under a tree! It was a male and a female, female seemed to be sleeping but the male was laying down with his head up. They were so close to the road that once we parked the car next to them it was just about 2 meters between us. Strangest thing is that they were not disturbed by the car a whole lot. Briefly looked at us and then turned away. So there we were staring at them and taking photos for at least 20 minutes. At some point the male did get a bit upset though and growled at us :) My heart rate jumped to the ceiling as a result, but then he came down again and all was good. Soon we found out as well why they were separated from the others - they were there to mate. Juuust like discovery channel only in live ;)

Had lunch at the park in a beautiful viewing platform with many elephants and giraffes running around down below. Monkeys did their best on snatching our food as well as those beautiful small blue birds. Left the park in the evening around 5:30 and headed over to the camp site 1.5 hour drive away by lake Manyara. Dinner was served, acrobat show presented, tents set up, cold shower taken and off to sleep up on the hill we went. Tomorrow the wakeup call will take place at 5am so getting to sleep at 10 is a must :)

Arriving in Arusha - 17.sept

Up bright and early, breakfast at 7, spent about an hour writing my blog (read: used our amazing free internet) and packing. Taxi picked us up before 9 and took us to the airport. We had 2 flights - first to Dar Es Salaam and second to Arusha. Saw all sorts of planes on the stretch and I was getting a bit worried of what sort of cubicle we would have to get in, but everything turned out to be quite good. Planes were new, had at least 20 rows with 2+2 seats in each row. First flight was about 20 minutes and second 1h 15 minutes. As luck would have it we had a bit over half an hour between the flights and first flight was late 20 minutes :) Good news was that the second flight was late almost 45 minutes so all worked out nicely, as it usually does.

Tour guides were at the airport to meet us. Next 1.5 hours we spent driving around Arusha, getting to the office to clear out our stay in the national parks, our full agenda, figure out the payments and to get lunch. For today we still had Arusha National Park planned so rushed over there around 3 pm. So the park - it is a lot greener here than in Zimbabwe. Can't imagine elephants walking around in such lush grass and breaking their way through all those green bushes. I must admit it is quite a bit cooler as well. I'm guessing it is about 15 degrees here during the day. Don't know if it is because we are a bit higher up or because of the cloud coverage - either way, I'm surprised of how cool it is here. Zanzibar was warmer, but now we are quite a bit closer to equator.

Ok, but about the park - I saw buffalo!! And monkeys and giraffes, giraffes are smaller here than in Zimbabwe. I don't know a whole lot about giraffes, but there must be many different types in Africa - so that was the smaller type :-P Saw also zebras and some antelope kind and warthog. Got to visit some beautiful viewing platforms, saw tons of flamingos from far away, the whole water was pink :) Parks close here 6, so had to rush out quickly, which was unfortunate, but that is what you get when planes are late :( Our guide promised that this is the last time we need to rush while here in Tanzania :D

Evening went in the name of sorting out the rest of the payments, me calling to my bank few times since there seemed to be some problems with the internet bank. All got sorted out and we finally got to go over to our accommodation. The tour operator that my friend found here have such a deal that they arranged a tailored trip for us and will put also the group together. We pay once and then everything is included like accommodation, food, park entrance fees and guides and cars and everything.

First nights accommodation was a bit freaky though :) First of all we got lost on the way, it was dark and apparently we took a wrong road somewhere. There is no lighting apart from the main streets. Finally we arrived behind tall tall stone fence, once let in it seemed like somebody's mansion. Rooms were quite bare, just white walls and few pieces of furniture. Seemed like it was a residence built with extra rooms to accommodate people as well. View was quite nice though as it was on a hilltop. Dinner was served, tea at the balcony and off to sleep we went.

Our guide and a driver stayed at the same location so we had dinner all together. During the conversation at some point he goes: "so how many tribes do you have in Estonia?" :D Anybody knows the answer?

Discovering island Unguja - 16.sept

Zanzibar is known for all the beautiful beaches hence the plan for the was to check out those miraculous beaches and go snorkeling at the reef.

Our hostel arranged shared transport for us to take us up north to a village called Nungwi. Shared transport means just a minibus picking up tourists around the town to provide a means of cheap transportation as an alternative to the local bus called 'daladala'. Local bus means heavily crowded small vehicle that is in awful condition and where one can not even dream of breathing. I must admit that most of the vehicles here are in a horrible condition. I keep wondering how they still move :)

Anyways, to get to Nungwi we drove for about 1.5 hours, the road took us through local villages and fields. Roads have been rather good here so far, mostly nicely paved and this one happened to be even nice and wide. Traffic is hectic as usual, everybody drives way too fast and makes dangerous passes whenever possible. Our bus was no exception.

Our plan was to arrive at the village and then see what can be done during the day. Wanted to go snorkeling and walk around on the beach, have lunch and just take it easy for a day. On our arrival we were quite quickly arranged on a tour for the day to Mnemba island and atoll for a snorkeling trip. The way our pickup by the boat was arranged was more than bizarre - the boat was about 50m from the shoreline and we had to literally swim to it and climb on the board. We tried to walk to it, but ended up getting in up to our shoulders once the waves hit. Still don't understand how the guides got our bags on the board all dry :D Seemed to me that all the other 20 people on the boat had started a bit earlier from the other side of the northern tip and our pickup on this lonely beach was arranged on the fly. But we made it on the boat alive and well only a tiny bit more wet than originally anticipated :)

Snorkeling trip was planned for the most part of the day, including lunch and arriving back at the village around 4 when our pickup would take us back to Stone Town. Boat ride was absolutely wonderful. On one side there was bright blue-green sea and on the other side tall palm trees and white sand. We went along the coast for about 1.5 hours arriving close to Mnemba island where whe had 2 hours for snorkeling. Whoosh to the water we went with our masks, snorkels and fins on. Unfortunately it was cloudy at that time which made our swim rather chilly. I'm guessing the water was about 19 degrees, which all in all would not be a problem when swimming, but while snorkeling you are mostly floating on top of the water doing nothing besides staring to the sea floor. It was max 30 minutes in the water for me, climbed out all blue from head to toe. Reefs - weeeellll, I've seen so much better :) After Great Barrier Reef there will never be anything like it ever again. But I guessed that and did not let that disturb me.

Had wonderful lunch on a white sanded beach, fish offered was absolutely delicious. I even went back for second round :) Had about an hour to relax, look around and go for a swim. By this time the sun came out as well which made the air quite hot immediately. Back to the boat for another 1.5 hours on this beautiful sea. The boat ride was truly lovely.

Once back at the village managed to take a quick shower before getting into the car to head back to Stone Town. Car ride back went smoothly. We had private transport this time for some reason so we quickly tried to find out if there is anything worthwhile visiting on the way - there surely was, the overly touristic spice tour area :) Of course they charged us extra for this small detour and everybody introduced to us expected generous tips (hence the overly touristic). But we did get to see all sorts of plants like pepper tree, cinnamon tree, muscat tree, lemon grass plant, clove tree, ginger and many other. The whole area was set up just to show samples of the plants - historically Zanzibar is known for the trade of spices, even now had quite remarkable spice market, but in reality plantations are located on Pemba island a bit up north or even in Arusha area inland.

Another nice dinner in town, drinks on the beach and yet another day has planned. Getting back from the town we used the local bike-taxi :) It was a much better alternative than walking the dark and empty streets.

Arrival to Zanzibar - 15.sept

In the morning the girl we stayed with dropped us off at the ferry terminal that would take us across to Zanzibar, to Unguja island. She helped us get the tickets as well which was quite helpful as we only had 10 minutes till the ferry would leave. We thought ferry departs at 7:30, but came out the departure took place at 7:10. Ferry itself is quite similar to the smaller ones going from Tallinn to Finland for an example. We as foreigners were sent to the VIP area where we found 2 awesomely comfortable bean-bags to lay in :) It took about 2 hours for the ferry to go across. As Zanzibar is autonomous, we needed to go through customs on our arrival which meant filling in another set of forms. Did not take a whole lot of time luckily to get the stamp into the passport, once through the gates we managed to fight through the overly helpful and aggressive 67 taxi drivers and walked across to our hostel just 3 blocks away.

The plan for today was to look around in Stone Town. Here comes a short overview of Stone Town from our guide: the historical part of Zimbabwe's capital. It's Arabian style labyrinth of narrow streets, bustling bazaars and Arabian and Italian style mansions, most of them constructed on the back of the 19th century, during slave trade era.
Here are some highlights we got to see and discover (lot of facts from the travel guide again):

First of all we got lost multiple times in the narrow streets and emerged in a totally wrong side of the city. Maps ar quite useless here :) Found the Old Dispensary which is one of East Africa's finest and most beautiful landmarks, it is very nicely restored and well cared for. Looked around there for a bit, currently it is used as an office building but still got to walk around on the balcony and in the hallways.

House of Wonders was one of the first buildings we discovered - Zanzibar's most distinctive landmark, now housing the Zanzibar National Museum. It was completed as a palace in 1883. For the longest time it was East Africa's tallest structure and was also the first to have running water, electric light and an electric lift. Forodhani Gardens are right in front of the museum, by the waterfront. This was the place where slaves would be landed before taken to the market further south. The gardens are at the best after sunset when street-food market opens and all the people gather towards the busy tables offering local specialties.

Tippu Tip's House we found by accident, it is currently a resident for many families. Tippu Tip was heading slave caravans of more than 4000 men and over the years became king-maker of slave trade. House represents all the wealth and luxury of the time.
In the afternoon found also Anglican Cathedral and the site of Africa's last slave market. Slave market closed in 1873 due to the pressure from the British. Got to go into the tiny slave chambers as well, apparently they would stuff 75 people in each chamber. Just check the photos to see how tiny they were. Inside the cathedral there was a red circle marking the position of a post to which slaves were tied and whipped to show their strength & resilience before being sold. How ironic though - they did that in a church right next to an altar.

It took us couple of tries before we found the Hamamni Persian Baths from the maze of the streets - it is said to be slave-financed luxury commissioned in the early 1870's by Sultan Barghash.

We criss-crossed the Stone Town multiple times, walked by Hurumzi street, stopped at many craft shops, had most wonderful tea at Coffe House, went by the local market where they had lots of spices and then one of the highlights of the day - 1h massage and body scrub at Mrembo spa. Oh that was a treat we both needed badly!! Service was wonderful with welcoming tea and meditative music.

For dinner we picked Monsoon Restaurant and to our pleasant surprise they had a live-music show with local instruments at 7 when they started to serve dinner. It was strongly meditative and highly enjoyable. In Zanzibar one can find a lot of Muslim culture around so quite many restaurants don't offer alcohol. Picked a nice beach restaurant for an evening drink. It was a wonderful and a long day :) So far Zanzibar looks most wonderful. Tomorrow we will try to head to the northern most point of the Unguja Island.

Long day taking us from Zimbabwe to Tanzania - 14.sept

Long day and not much to tell about. Had two flights - first from Harare to Johannesburg and second from Johannesburg to Dar Es Salaam. Layover in Johannesburg was about 6 hours too long :) Tried to exchange some Tanzanian shillings, but Estonian VISA was not accepted by the machine in the exchange bureau :( Dunno how I'm going to get the money out from the card, I've heard that credit cards can not be used in Tanzania in general. Oh well, there have to be banks there at least :) Will see. Currently I feel quite moneyless :D

So during the layover got to look around in the shops, have a huuuge lunch and type up some notes taken earlier. Flights went all quite well. Was a bit nervous about getting across the border in Tanzania, but all went quite smoothly. Had to get a visa from the border and the whole process was quite hectic - them collecting all passports and documents in huge piles, 2 ladies looking them through and 1 guy stamping and then announcing names through tiny window. I managed to get my documents filled in quickly and was about the 5th person to receive my passport back. There were total 3 big planes coming in so I got quite lucky I guess. Once at the airport the first priority was a visit to ATM. Got to withdraw 200 000 in local currency - the numbers are quite scarily big here :) Rate to USD is 1 to 1500 :)

We were spending the night at my friends-friends place somewhere on a peninsula. Taxi ride there was quite interesting. Locals don't seem to speak whole lot of English here. Official language is Kiswahili and English is quite secondary as I have understood. In Zimbabwe everybody spoke quite good English, it was so easy to get around thanks to that. Anyways, how it ended up being was so that taxi driver took us to a known spot and from there he was instructed via a phone on how to get to a gate of the house we needed. We were warned that traffic can be quite bad and the ride could take up to 2 hours (it was some 15km or something), but we were at the house in less than an hour.

Chatted with P&M for some time. It is so fascinating to meet new people and see how they live and what they do and so on. They are both learning Kiswahili and speak it quite well by now. Here is a sentence I can put together by now 'jambo mambo' :) 'jambo' means "hello" and 'mambo' means "what's up" :) My first sentence in Kiswahili :D

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Way back to Harare - 13.sept

Not a very interesting day all in all - sat on 2 buses totaling 12 hours :) First bus left at 6am so got to get up already at 5 in the morning (I'm building up a comprehensive sleep deprivation here :D ), this bus took us from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo. It would stop about every 30 minutes to see if any of the 30 people standing by the roadside would like to get a ride - some did and some got off so the little bus was basically always full, us being the only white people in there. Some were even taken on board when there was nowhere to sit. As far as I understood this was an expensive bus, saw many smaller minivans driving by where there would be at least 2 people per each seat and more on the floor as well, more affordable for the locals I'm sure.

In addition to the roadside stops this bus was making there was every now and then police on the road checking papers and collecting money - very typical here as we have learned by now. To top it all off the bus broke down when we had about 20km to Bulawayo :) We had 1.5hrs to our next bus that would take us from Bulawayo to Harare so that was not very good news for us. Luckily Dave from Miombo lodge (where we stopped while visiting Hwange National Park) was on the bus as well and he managed to arrange a pickup for himself and we got a ride with him to town. Everything eventually works out somehow :) Now we have a plane, a car and a bus break down on us. I don't want to know what is the next item playing tricks on us.

Anyways, we got to Bulawayo nicely without any hassle. Stopped by the ticket office, got a ticket to Harare and even managed to have a quick lunch before getting stuck in the bus for the next 6 hours. This was quite a bit different bus service, bus seated 48 people, there was a nice TV system and full service with water and a stop for afternoon tea and sandwiches, all inclusive. Quite a different story from the other bus services we have seen here.

Once in Harare, caught a cab to the hostel, quick shower and across the street to the only restaurant open on Monday evening in the whole town. Yeah, dunno what the story is but apparently all the restaurants are closed on Monday evenings here. Met up with Claire and her husband for a drink, chatted for some time and then back to the hostel to get some sleep. Tomorrow is yet another early morning, taxi will pick us up at 5:15 to take us to airport - goodbye Zimbabwe and welcome Tanzania :D

Whitewater rafting at Vic Falls - 12.sept

We took a whole day rafting tour. They just opened the first half of the river 4 days ago so we are getting the full experience. During high water the first half of the ride is closed as it is too fast and dangerous. There are total of 21 rapids, 10 of them we'd do before lunch and rest afterwards.

Got picked up from the hostel before 8 in the morning, drove by few other places and gathered more people. Briefing took place on a scenic little house on a cliff overseeing the river and historic bridge right next to Victoria Falls. Went through all the basics here, made us sign a paper that we do it voluntarily and then off to the rafts we went. Everybody got the mandatory life vest, helmet and a paddle. Now the tricky part was to get down to where the rafts are :) Tricky because the river runs between cliffs and the way down had to be at least 500m if not more. I'm guessing it took us about 30 minutes to get down there :) It was steep - very very steep. There were metal stairs built for most part but later on when we were going on the same level with the water it was a different story, then it was kinda like rock climbing :) Imagine doing that with a paddle in one hand and sunscreen in the other, wearing a life west and a helmet :) It was quite a challenge to many I must say. Eventually we all made it down there, about 20 minutes of waiting for the rafts to get ready and off we went.

Mandatory practice round to see if everybody knows the commands and we headed towards the first rapid. I was positioned to the front left side and there was 6 of us in the raft plus the guide. Before every rapid the guide goes (just an example): this is rapid number 2, level 4+, we try to take it from the right side, if you fall into the water it will be about 5 seconds before you make it to the surface, keep calm while underwater, once on the surface try to keep to the center or swim back to the boat if you can.

I can't remember if it was rapid number 3 or 4, but either way the guide goes: if you fall in it will be about 10 or 15 seconds before you get back to the surface. It must have been at least grade 4 rapid or perhaps even 4+. And so we get to the edge of the rapid and basically immediately I get thrown off the raft. It happened so fast that I could not even comprehend what happened. I managed to get hold of the rope by the raft, but the current was dragging me underneath the raft so I just let go. And what happened - the longest 15 seconds of my life happened :) I was like in a washing machine going round and round not understanding where the top or the bottom is. So there I went and at some point I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and stuck my head out of the water. The guards with their canoes where right there and instructed me to grab on to the boat, so I did. I was taken to the closest raft and the journey continued. After a bit I was let back to my home raft :)

The first half was way more challenging than the second, second was like a walk in the park ;) Got to look around and at some point even got to rest as the guides were pulling as around. There was only one boat in the afternoon as all the others did a half-way tour.

In the afternoon, on one of the easy level 2 rapid the guide gave an option to take it swimming - sure thing, so me, my friend and another guy jumped in. We were instructed to form kind of a train where we hold on to each other's life jackets and keep the feet up by the hips of the person in front. Oh that was fun, went through the whole thing nice and smooth, took us about, well, 5 minutes maybe... until... the guide from one of the boats yells that we must get back to the boat immediately, I also heard the word crocodile. The rapid was over but it was quite nice in the water so I figured I won't hurry as they are probably kidding anyways. But they were yelling really loud and waving with their hands, I look over to the guide in the kayak closest to me and his eyes were triple in size. Then I got the point - there really was a crocodile close by and we must get out fast. 50m sprint up the current towards the boat was quite fun - had my sandals and a helmet on and was wearing a life vest. Oh uh :) Turned out the crocodile was just laying a bit further away on the rocks, but I guess it is not very safe to swim with them ;)

At the end we had another magnificent climb with our whole gear straight up the cliff, little bit of waiting, 40 minute bus ride back to town and we were dropped off at our hostel. The day was fun :) We were both so tired so just went over to the backpackers to watch the video the company had made of the day. I was so disappointed that there was no photographer :( They said that usually there is, but just today there was only a video taken. Quick dinner, back to the hostel to pack all our things and to bed we went.

Victoria Falls - 11.sept

The night was really warm - had all the windows open and it was too warm for a blanket, even just a sheet was almost an overkill. Apparently 4 hrs closer to the equator makes a difference, probably the fact that we are closer to the sea level plays a role as well. The hostel we are staying at is quite small, it has only 5 rooms :) But it is quite modern and has lots of space, there is a swimming pool in the garden and there are many huge balconies. Have found few problems though - something is wrong with the water pump so occasionally there is no cold water, need to go downstairs and ask the guy to turn it back on. First time this happened to me was just when I was covered in soap from head to toe :) Happened to my friend twice this morning while she was taking a shower :D Fun huh :D Anther thing is that the rooms don't lock too well :( They gave us 2 rooms for some reason but only one of them can be locked :(

Anyways - breakfast was served on a deck by the pool, it was super nice. Right after breakfast we headed to town to take care of gazillion things like getting bus ticket to Bulawayo on Monday and booking our sunset cruise and whitewater rafting for the weekend and stopping by at the Internet spot and so on. 1.5 hours later all was done and we headed over to Victoria Falls National Park. The falls measure 1.7km across the precipice and the peak flow takes place in April. Victoria Falls is the largest curtain of flowing water in the world, twice the size of Niagara Falls. The amount of water depends on the rains in Zambia and Angola. Credit for discovering the waterfall in 1855 goes to Dr. David Livingstone, during one of the expeditions he followed Zambezi tribal reports of 'Mosi oa Tunya' - 'the smoke that thunders', he employed local Makololo tribesmen to take him by dugout canoe to the waterfall. It was not until 1960s that cheap air travel allowed Victoria Falls to grow into one of the premier tourist draws on the continent.

There is no point in describing of how beautiful and magnificent it was. Once I get the photos up you can see yourself. The way it is set up here is that you can walk alongside of the falls, basically on the same level as the top of the falls are - quite perfect setting. It is about 1 km walk down and then back through a rain forest. It is beautiful setting. At the moment it is a dry season and there is not as much water as at the peak time, but as we heard now is the best visibility as when there is lots of water all you see is mist. I took probably more than a hundred photos of the falls and the mist and the nature - it is amazing.

Our sunset tour starts at 4 so we walked over to Victoria Falls Hotel for a snack. It has been suggested by many to visit the hotel cafeteria and get an afternoon tea served. This ritual started at 3 so we had almost 2 hours to kill, which was not a problem at all in this gorgeous place. This hotel is huge, it has 180 rooms, as far as I could tell the rooms were only on 2 levels so one can imagine how much of the area the hotel would cover. It is a very luxurious hotel - dress code applies at the restaurant, only suits and dresses. Cafeteria side was quite a bit more relaxed, it was located on a terrace with a wonderful view to the Victoria Falls historic bridge. Whole hotel is like an open history book with the paintings and furniture and all little fancy details and courtyards - truly beautiful place. Had a light lunch - for me that was a Caesar salad with crocodile meat :)

Suggested afternoon tea was a very nice little ritual. Basically one would buy the tea and all the little sandwiches, scones and muffins are complimentary. Serving was beautiful, there was a whole pot of tea for one person and the butter for scones was whipped like it should be! A wonderful afternoon in a picturesque location with fabulous food.

Can't remember how much I have told about the temperatures here? Anyways, the nights and mornings were quite cool in Harare and Bulawayo, but up here in Vic Falls the nights are warm, I'd say at least +17C. During the night it does get a bit cooler, but not a whole lot. I'm guessing the days are about +27C in the shade and well above 30 in the sun. I've seen clouds only once during the last 8 days and then it was only partly cloudy for few hours. Weather is nice here and it is supposed to get warmer and warmer every day with October being the worst - it is called a 'suicide month' here as it gets very hot. Summer or the rainy period starts from November which will make it all humid as well.

We were picked up in front of the hotel at 4 to attend a sunset cruise on the upper part of river Zambezi. About 20 minute drive up the river and about 30 to 40 people were greeted by local dance session and guided to a two level open ferry. Sun sets about 6pm here, so we had about 1.5 hours to go up and down the river looking around and enjoying a much advertised open bar. Everything is a safari in this land :) We saw some crocodiles, a lonely and hungry elephant very close up, lots of hippos in the water, birds and monkeys. Cruise was beautiful and relaxing, sunset was even better. Sun gets really dark red here right before it hits the horizon, apparently that is how it goes here.

Had another activity planned for the evening - dinner at Boma restaurant. This whole setting was a bit too touristy, but then again the food was good and it was quite well organized. Entertainment program was thorough - dance sessions were set up every now and then, for the last performance there was an African drum session where the crowd was invited to join in as well. I must admit I quite enjoyed it even though there were a bit too many people and too much noise. Did I say the food was good :)? I ate more crocodile meat, namely tales this time :) I also tasted warthog and buffalo meat - both were very tasty, first being nice and tender and second a bit chewier. Also lots of different snacks like bananas in cinnamon cream sauce, avocados, crepes, pumpkin, mushrooms, peet and so on. All was good and I must have ate at least 4 plates of different courses all mixed together :)

Tourism is set up quite nicely here in Victoria Falls, it is run professionally and is running like clockwork - buses pick you up from the hostel in time and all goes by the plan, customers are cared for and well informed. There are many many activities one can do, basically anything one can wish for and see in Australia for an example - bunji, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, helicopter rides, elephant rides (probably not available in Australia even ;) ) and so on and so on. Instructors are very competent and equipment is up to date as far as I have seen. I'm impressed to be honest :)

Painted Dog Conservation & Dete village - 10.sept

Breakfast at 8, transfer to Painted Dog Conservation after breakfast at 9. Painted Dog's are a bit smaller than wolves, they have big round ears like mice and they have many colorful spots all around their body - hence the name, they really do look like they are painted. This conservation camp has a very good overview of their life, exhibition was truly impressive. There are about 200-300 wild animals in Hwange National Park area and around it. Oh, did I mention that Hwange National Park is roughly the size of Belgium :), so just a bit smaller than Estonia :).

Back to the Painted Dogs, so this conservation serves many purposes. Mainly it is a hospital for them - injured animals are brought here where they are cared for and then there is a whole program on how they are released back to the wild. Basically they can't be released alone since the only way to survive is in a proper pack that needs 7 to 15 dogs. At the moment they have 6 dogs ready to be released so they are training them in for being a pack. Dogs need to know their roles in pack and to appreciate the other members. For this the conservation has 35 hectares of fenced area so that the dogs can truly feel like they are in the wild. Human contact is kept minimal so that no domestication happens. There is an elevated track built crossing the fenced area taking visitors to the hospital area. Tried to spot some dogs from there but we were warned that this probably won't happen.

Another grateful deed they do here is that they educate children. They would bring 6 graders from all over the region into the conservation, kids would spend a whole 4 days here (there is a special accommodation even built for that purpose). 4 days would include many educational programs, including computer introductory course, kids would also be taken to the national park and educated on Painted Dog's life.

Then there is the research done on the dogs. At least 1 or 2 dogs from each pack is wearing a special belt that protects them and also has a radio transmitter on it. Protection is against the traps that locals set to catch wild animals, those belts are also reflecting so that in the dark drivers spot them on the road.

On the way back the car broke down :) All the cars here are in pretty bad shape, the doors don't open, there are no windows, none of the speedometers work, seats are falling apart and the noise they make is quite loud. Our driver did not have mobile either so cars who were passing by stopped and took our message to next place (which was the Painted Dog Conservation) so a call could be made and another car would come for us. So we sat there in the middle of the road passing time :) Took perhaps 30 minutes or so when we were rescued.

Quick stop at the lodge and on to Dete village we went. Last night the lady from US was telling us how there is a orphans feeding happening today at the Red Cross building and if would be interested we could go to the village as well. So we did. It is about time that I see the real life as well, not only hostels and safari cars. Ride to the village was not long as the village is only 3 km from our lodge - so I took the 'back seat' of a truck (was sitting in the open trunk :)

Village itself was quite different - a typical Zimbabwean village as far as we would know. There were houses with glass windows and all and then there were clay huts as well, houses would obviously be for better off families. Each house or a hut would have a small yard to grow vegetables. Some yards and houses seemed to have even water pipes, but mostly the water had to be carried by hand from across the village. Yards were very neat and orderly, yards and streets were all wiped and quite clean. Occasionally we would see laundry drying outside and all would be bright white and clean. Even the clothes the people wear are quite clean, they would be worn out, but clean.

Families are big here, the more kids the parents have the brighter future they would have. Many kids don't make it, so if one would have 5 to 6 kids they would hope that at least 2 to 3 of them would make it and care for them in old age. Also, kids are the ones to help grow food and to clean and so on. Basically kids are social security and the hope for better future. Took a stroll around the village, peeked into the yards, talked to the locals a bit and wondered around for about half an hour. Zimbabwe is a former UK colony so most locals speak English in addition to their own language - this makes it easier to communicate with them.

Orphans feeding started around noon. The ideal plan is to provide basic warm meal for orphans 3 times a week. But the reality is that there has not been a feeding since March :( There hasn't been enough food to carry it through. Situation here is quite complicated. It is not even only money that is the problem, it is also the politics and natural causes. For an example to fight starvation one could expand the land to grow more food, but to do that there needs to be a special permit to allow this and then there is the water issue - there is no water for the land. Just complicated all around. Sat at the Red Cross for a while and saw all the kids coming in. Food they made should feed about 150 kids, apparently there is a need to feed 300 of them. There are many orphans as AIDS is a huge problem. Often you see an 8 year old taking care of his/her brothers and sisters who are between 2 and 6 years of age. it is quite sad. I asked about their health checks, apparently there is a Red Cross person going through all the homes 3 times a week checking on the kids and elderly and providing basic health care.

As our bus to Victoria Falls leaves at 4 we had to head back to the lodge, ate our lunch, packed our bags and got on the transfer to be taken to Halfway. Bus was supposed to be there at 4, but just as expected it was an hour late. This time the bus is a bit bigger and more comfortable, they even have a TV and they are playing a movie :) Refreshments are offered and there is an attendant as well. While driving through the countryside we see many cars and buses (!!) in the ditch by the road - so scary. Some cars have been there for years it seems like as they are rusting an all doors and other moving parts have been carried off. Bus arrived at Victoria Falls just a bit before 8 in the evening. Taxi drivers ran us over as soon as we exited the bus, so we got a cab to our hostel, picked out a restaurant offering local food and had a nice dinner in town.

Or accommodation is located in the residential area so basically we need a taxi each time we want to get to town. Our wonderful taxi driver even promised to give us special deal if we keep him for the whole duration of our trip - so be it we said. After dinner we asked him to take us to a bar where we could have a drink or two, it is Friday night afterall :) He took us to a lively backpackers lodge :) Well, the crowd there was definitely lively and it did not take long until locals surrounded us. It was fun though :) A bit before midnight when we left the whole crowd moved on to some other hip bar since this one closed down, but for us it was sleep time.

I just gotta mention that the beds are nice and firm here. I was a bit afraid of what the beds are like, if they would be too soft I would not be able to cope with the back pain, but all is good :) Tonight I opened my mosquito net as well :) Hung it up over my bed - what a wonderful invention, why don't people use it at home? I think I will start to use it during summertime, it is quite perfect actually!

For the closing note - bit more about the names :) So the story is about Previous, Obvious and Innocent :) Previous we met on the bus from Bulawayo to Halfway. Obvious was our tour guide at Painted Dog Conservation center. Innocent took us from the lodge to Halfway. With him it was funny as once we entered the car he goes "I'm innocent", my first reaction was that I didn't say anything or accuse you or anything. I guess he read it out of my face as he just looks at me and says "That's my name" - RIIIIGHT :)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

I have made it to Tanzania!!!

I have arrived in Dar Es Salaam :) !!! All went very smoothly - entering the country and getting the visa, even our luggage arrived without any delay and damage. All is good so far. Except for the fact that Estonian VISA cards didn't work at the currency exchange place in Johannesburg airport so I'm slightly moneyless at the moment, but I'll fix it tomorrow - banks should be able to help :)

As you have noticed there are no photos up yet - as the internet access is so difficult here and also very slow I won't even try to upload the photos. Photos have to wait till I get back :)

So tomorrow morning we are heading over to Zanzibar for 2 days.
I have seen all your comments in my blog, but have not managed to reply, sorry about that :) I hope I will be forgiven!

Take care!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

In Victoria Falls

Just wanted to update you all that I have made it to Victoria Falls :) We are just about to walk over to see the wall of water!

As you have noticed, the updates are coming quite rarely. It probably won't get any better either. Once a week internet access is probably the best it will be :)

Take care! ... and lots of hugs to all of you!

Safari at Hwange National Park - 9.sept

The goal of the day is to spend a whole long day looking at wild animals on a safari. There are few options, either to go from 6am to 9am or from 3pm to 6pm since during the lunch time it is too hot and all the animals are hiding. Well but we wanted to take a long day to get the most out of it and to avoid driving back and fourth and to avoid paying entrance twice. So, we started at 9, our guide was waiting for us with safari car, our lunch was packed, planning to get back no sooner than 6 in the evening. The plan was to spot some wild life before noon, have a picnic at the park and then do more game drive in the afternoon. Plan was good :)

The day ended up being long and not very productive as far as game spotting goes. We did see giraffes on quite many occasions. Somehow they always go around in threes :) Saw them far and close and in the bushes and on the roads. Then we saw a big herd of blue waterbeests or also called gnu. Then 2 ostriches, whole lot of baboons, we saw zebras, then steenbock, impala, kudu, sable, jackal, crocodiles, one lonely elephant, warthog. There was one hippo hiding in the water, but they don't come out of the water during the day. Now, the most exciting of all, there were lions - but they were too far away to spot them properly, all we saw was a yellow spot under a bush far away. Supposedly there were 4 lions around the bush, 2 male and 2 female, people at the viewing point had been following them since this morning. We were hoping they would get thirsty at some point and come closer to where the water is, but that did not happen :( And again we did not see any rhino :( nor buffalo :( All this has to wait till Serengeti park in Tanzania then!

This long day ended with a beautiful sunset on our way home. Quick shower in our treehouse and another 3 course dinner followed. At dinner time an older lady from Alaska joined us. She is working here as a volunteer for couple of weeks and she filled us in on the local volunteer work around here. Oh it all sounds so interesting. Tomorrow we will try to go to the village and visit the Red Cross volunteer camp there.

After dinner we went to help the volunteer lady who is laying salt out for the animals at the water pond behind our treehouse. She first lays the salt on the ground and then sweeps all the traces so in the morning they can check who has visited the site during the night. Apparently the animals need salt because this is hard to get naturally and they need it due to such warm weather. Lady knew to say that last night there were 4 buffaloes and hyenas there. Just last week they had some lions visiting and elephants are quite common as well.

Just as I'm writing this there is an elephant walking around in our back-yard :) It is dark so I can just hear it, tried to spot it as well under the light but no luck. It must be about 20 meters away, but it is too dark here to see it. And yes there was one local guy with me, my heart rate jumped to the skies when I heard the noise and I would not have dared to go out checking all by myself.

But now off to bed as tomorrow will be another productive and challenging day ahead :D

Bulawayo and getting to Hwange National Park- 8.sept

Had the whole morning to look around in Bulawayo, our bus leaves at 2pm so we would have plenty of time to walk around in this beautiful town. Up at 7, breakfast at 8, tour of Bulawayo club right after and then headed to town. Bulawayo seems very friendly, buildings are old and big, streets are wide, people seem polite and all seems safe. We wondered around for few hours - National Art Gallery and Natural History Museum. Both definitely worth visiting. Looked around at the park, tried to grasp all the beautiful architecture and lively streets.

Bulawayo is Zimbabwes second largest city and the capital of Matabeleland, home of Ndebele people. Town is located 1350m above sea level giving it a bit cooler climate than in the rest of the country. There are 2 important names to mention that are connected to this region:
King Lobengula - the son of Zulu king Mzilikazi, leader of a breakaway faction from South Africa's Natal that was to become the Ndebele nation, based in this area.
Cecil John Rhodes - an influential colonialist with ambitions to bring the whole of Africa under British control, while increasing his already phenomenal personal wealth.

Those two figures were the leaders of two sides fighting over the land (late 1800's - around 1894), finally peace negotiations took place. 1920's saw the introduction of municipal electricity even before it was in London. In 1931 the first aerodrome opened to service the Imperial Airways London-Cape Town route, and in 1941 Bulawayo was granted city status.

Right before heading back to the hotel I managed to offend a statue :( Full story is that I took a picture of a building and in front of the building there was a statue that was all covered up and two policeman were guarding it (with guns!). And so they were on the photo as well. One police (a lady) walked over to me and asked what did I just do. I explained that I took a photo of the building. Well, the whole conversation took at least 5 minutes me explaining that I did not mean any harm and it is just a photo and I can delete it if that would help at all. But no, the harm had already been done, photo was taken and deleting it would not help at all. They would take me to the central police station where they would then see what to do with me as this is a very very big offence and I could go to jail (yea, they were serious about it). All was sorted out and I was not taken anywhere, but this was quite tense. So lesson learned - not only is it forbidden to take photos of government buildings, but also of police.

Quickly got back to the hotel, packed our things, checked out and took a taxi to the bus "station". There was no station really, the bus was parked just in the middle of the street and that was it :) One bus was facing one way, going to Harare, the other the other way, going to Victoria Falls. Had to get on the last one (we are getting off earlier though, at Halfway, going to Hwange National park for 2 days). For the longest time we were just standing there waiting for our bus from a different company, only to find out that existing bus is actually the one we need - some confusion right there, but I'm glad we caught on early enough otherwise we would have just missed the bus and would be still standing there probably :-P

Bus was packed, it was a minibus with about 17 passenger seats and additional 4 pull-down seats at the isle. I think they put 20 people on the bus :) No air conditioning (did I mention it is about 27C here during the day?) but it was possible to open the windows. They handed out water and also fast food dinner. There was an attendant from the bus company who said a prayer with everybody once the bus started moving :D We were about 40 minutes late getting out of Bulawayo, but we got to our destination 1.5 hours later that originally planned :) One of the reasons were quite numerous road blocks where police would pull the bus over and ask all kinds of questions from the driver.

Bus drive was pretty good though. Even though my chair turned into a rocking chair at some point and the sun was burning hot and the windows had no curtains - it was all good. The crowd was fun :) There were two local guys at the bus sitting close to us and we managed to get ourselves laughing so hard at some point that I got tears running down my cheeks :) Bus ride was about 3 hours. Once at Halfway the others continued on and about 5 of us stepped off. Our accommodation organized a pick-up for us, another 40 minutes in the bus and there we were - in a small quiet camp where housing is arranged at elevated tree-houses :) There are no walls really, just some shades. It all looks very comfortable though: there is a big bathroom with a shower and water toilet, there are 2 comfortable beds with mosquito nets hanging over them. This place is really in a deep deep bush, closest people are in a village 3km away.

They have a habit to serving cereal and a full English breakfast here in the morning and a 3 course dinner in the evening :) Dinner was super nice also in this accommodation. Right next to the open dinner area there was a bonfire lit. Rest of the evening went in the name of Zimbabwe wine, talking, staring at the fire and gazing at the bright stars up above. The stars are amazing here since it is so dark - just beautiful, clear and bright stars.

Bulawayo club hotel - deserves its own chapter!

This place is a colonial era hotel - most wonderful and truly posh. Check the photos as well to see all the different rooms and settings. Club itself is from 1895, it was founded as gentleman's club where they would socialize and do lots of business networking. This club has some very strict rules, quite many of them still being enforced. About some of them you can read down below. But this particular building was built 1935, at the time it would strongly show their capability and resources, to be able to build such a big and fancy building. It was turned into a hotel just a year ago - there are 16 very nicely decorated rooms on the third floor, rest of the house would be club member rooms, restaurant, coffee rooms, dining area, bar areas, conference room, balcony and so on.

Now a bit more about our evening. Got back from Matopos at 7:30. One of the nicest things here is that you are always approached and asked how are you doing and how the day has been :) It is all very sincere and nice. Once few sentences are exchanged they sometimes also get to the point, this time to ask what time could they expect us downstairs for dinner so they know to set the table :) How wonderful is that? Now the dinner - menu is just for a week. There is a complimentary soup served for all guests dining. There are 3 main meals in the menu (pork,chicken and fish) plus a desert. Food was first of all very pretty - the way it was presented was fancy. And of course it was very delicious as well. Sitting at this table one would forget that he/she is in Africa. It could easily be a restaurant located in London or in New York. At this beautiful setting we had the most interesting discussion about social and economical problems in the world, developing countries and the history of Africa. Those are the kinds of conversations I would like to have more often, those are the talks that get my thoughts running in different directions and afterwards I feel like I have just read 10 books in the last hour :D

Now about the bar :) We were warned previously (already in Harare) that the bar in this hotel is only for men and women are not allowed in there. We just could not believe it and we wanted to see how and if they actually would make us leave, we figured we play innocent tourists who know nothing about the rule. So here is the story of two white females in Bulawayo, the year is 2010:
We walk into the bar area, there are 2 white guys sitting at one of the round tables talking. All the staff is black. We approach the barman asking if there is a separate drinks menu and if we could have a look at it as we would like to have a drink. We make ourselves comfortable on the stools behind the bar. He finds the menu for us and steps a bit back. Nothing else, he does not say anything or make funny expressions or anything - so we figure all is fine. We order our drinks and he disappears to the back room/kitchen area. Few moments goes by and another black young guy comes towards us, leans over the bar and says quite quietly that unfortunately we can't have a drink here tonight. Now the conversation goes something like this:
him- ladies, unfortunately you can't have drinks here tonight
me- tonight? what is so special about tonight?
him- it is gentleman's night tonight
me- so if we come here tomorrow evening we could have a drink here?
him- no not tomorrow, but on Fridays and Saturdays you could
my friend- oh so no women allowed today is that it?
him- correct, no women allowed except on Friday's and Saturday's
my friend- so where do women have their drinks then?
him- there is another bar upstairs, but at the moment it is closed
us just looking confused- where should we go then?
him looking around- well, since it is past 10 already and the bar is closed you can just have your drinks here no problem (but don't tell anyone!)
my friend- but you know there are civil rights and gender equality nowadays!
him- but in this place are different rules and those will never change, never :)
Then the next 10 to 15 minutes we heard about the other rules of the club and what is done here and how it all works and where he is from and all sorts of interesting things :) It was a good talk - I learned a lot about the traditions and about the history. Ah the wonders of traveling and talking to locals - me loves it!

Matobo National Park in Bulawayo - 7.sept

Up nice and early, at 6, quick breakfast and second try to get a flight out of Harare. Got to the airport nice and early, checked in and had a bit of spare time. They did not ask our ID or passport once when doing the check-in or getting on the plane or getting off :) Wonders of domestic flights :) Got all nicely seated at the plane, plane was quite full to my surprise. Perhaps because they crammed 2 flights on there - yesterdays cancelled flight and then the regular morning flight that we were on now. Anyways, got all seated and plane even made it to the runway when we turned back to the terminal house. Lady announced that the plane has a technical problem that needs attention. Oh uh - not very assuring I'd say. Few men in bright yellow vests ran around one of the wings, more people gathered and they seemed to have some sort of meeting :) We did not get more information and we were left sitting in the plane. Hour later we returned to the runway and the journey started :D No update on what was wrong or what got fixed - the plane just took off :D Luckily we all landed safely 45 minutes later in Bulawayo.

Bulawayo airport is under construction so there was a very minimal temporary terminal up and running - but it all worked without a big hassle, we got the luggage quickly and all was good. Found nobody there waiting for us though. Later found out that they were there at 9:30 already but then got told that there is a delay and never got any news of how long the delay would be. Anyways, got our transfer and got dropped off at our hotel - Bulawayo Club. This place deserves it's own chapter so look at the next entry after finishing this one ;)

Dropped our stuff off at the room and hurried back down to take a trip to Matobo National Park (Matobo is the correct name, but Matopos is used more often). Our guidebook knows to tell that at 425 square km it is one of Zimbabwe's smallest national parks, yet it is second only to Victoria Falls National Park in terms of visitor numbers. Apart from the spectacular landscapes and the hundreds of examples of rock art, which together have given the park UNESCO World Heritage status, the very special Matopos habitat carries the greatest concentration of leopards in Zimbabwe.

First we visited one of the rock paintings at White Rhino Shelter. The paintings are faded, but it is supposedly one of the fine examples of line drawings, probably the best in the country. There are hundreds of rock shelters and caves around this rocky area which have been decorated by descendants of the world's most ancient peoples. This is one of the few areas in the world proven to have supported continuous human occupation for over 40 000 years.

Next stop in the park was at the View of the World (Ndebele, who are the local people, it is their sacred place known as Malindidzimu, meaning 'place of benevolent spirits') and Cecil Rhodes' grave (read about him in the next entry). Rhodes found this place while negotiating peace with the locals, called it 'View of the World' and chose this as his burial cite. He died 1902 in Cape Town at the age of 49 and was buried here. The view is of course beautiful, also the colored rocks here are something that will take away your breath.

The rock formation here are beautiful, our guidebook calls them dramatic rock landscapes :) Granite is the building material and weather the artist as it writes. One can find the balancing rock 'kopjes': huge angular blocks of granite piled on top of and beside one another, forming pillars and stacks. Most dramatic in scale, however, are the massive, bald 'dwalas' or 'whalebacks', grey granite hills rising from the surrounding woodland and criss-crossed with fault lines.

Last but not least our search for wild animals started - game drive. It is really really difficult to spot a leopard, so did not even dream of that. We were prepared to see rhino, buffalo, elephant or hippo, but did not see anything! Only 3 zebras after many hours of driving around. All the wild animals must have taken a day off or something. Our guide even said that this is his first time when he does not see any game at all. We were a bit disappointed about missing all the animals - this being my first safari and all. But the rest of the sights were beautiful. On our game drive we passed through Togwana Dam, being the prettiest reservoir in Matopos.

Just this past weekend they had a huge fire here at the park and we could clearly see the damage it had done. Apparently the ground burns here a lot - it helps to clean the bushes up and is totally natural. While driving around the ground was still smoking from many places and I'd even spot live fire here and there (just very small flickering flames). Our guide informed us that in 2 weeks it would all be green and it would be the best time to spot many different wild animals munching away at the tasty fresh food.