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Currency: Tanzanian Shillings, 1400 to the pound
Cost of Diesel: 55p a litre
The Tanzania border was another easy crossing and once done we headed south and into the bush. This needs a little elaborating on. We stayed in a campsite in Nairobi, whilst the boys stayed with some friends of theirs. Whilst staying with these guys they heard about this excellent route through the bush. It started about 20km from the border, took you through the bush for about 80 km and then put you back on the main road to Arusha. This sounded excellent. It was going to be through real rural tanzania and also there was supposed to be lots of game. So we decided to sack off climbing Meru and do this with the boys. Well, it started off ok. We found the road and followed it for a while. We got a little village where we had to turn right. This we did, with lots of protests from the locals saying that we should take a guide as we'd never find the way to the next village. Rubbish, we said, we're uber map navigators! Magellan's got nothing on us. Pride and falls and all that! We didn't excatly get lost as we always had the gps to tell us where we were, we also knew where we wanted to go. We just couldn't get there. After about 1km the road disappeared and we ended up driving across the bush, literally, and often through the bush trying to find the road again. This we finally did to much relief after about an hour and after many fairly spectular dry river bed crossings. I know i love my landys but i'm even more impressed with what they can do now. Anyway, We found the road and because it was getting late we decied to camp and do the final 40km to Arusha the next day. Famous last words again!
We got up in the morning and got back on the road, after about 25km it disappeared again. Just totally turned into wild bush! On the gps we could see that we were only 15km from the road. Sod it, we though, we'll just go across country. The words 'what a mission' spring to mind. We went through rivers, up hillls, down gorges, through maasai villages that had never seen cars before, through trees, one managing to rip off our snorkel! All this took about 4 hours before we finally reached this set of 4 massive dry gorges. We somehow got across 3 of them but the 4th was too big. We tried everything to get down it but we couldn't. Loathe as we were to turn back (or advance in another direction to put it optimistically) we had to in the end. Finally we found this village, stopped to ask for diections, only to be told that the headmaster of the local school wanted to go the same way as us and if we'd give him a lift he'd show us the way. The walk normally takes him 4 hours so he was very happy to see us! We'd never have found the way without him so we were all happy.
We finally arrived in Arusha after about 7 hours of driving, having only covered about 50km, found that the place had a great bar and promptly got stuck in to the beers and gin!
Above, our 'road' throught the bush in northern Tanzania. Below, surounded by locals when we stoppewd to look at the view.
The boys and their bar! Attacked by a tree in northern Tanzania
Waking up the next morning we gingerly got the map out and looked at where we were going that day. Henry had also been told about an excellent drive down the west of Tanzania that took you through huge hunting blocks that were teeming with game. Although this would mean we had to drive about 900km south and then back again, we decided to do it because we wanted to spend a bit more time with the boys and also to see that part of the country. We decided to do about 300km each day and the maps showed the roads as being in a good condition. This was a lie. What should have been 3 days of about 4-5 hours of driving turned into 3 days of 9 hours of driving and we saw bugger all game! To top it all of we had decided to bomb it back to Dar on the way back to Moshi and go across to Zanzibar. This was to save us having to drive across Tanzania after we'd left Uganda. This was another 900km 13 hours mission of a drive! However, it was worth it because the centre of tanzania is the most beautiful countryside i've ever seen, probably even better that Ethiopia. Huge towering moutains, loads of huge green trees and bushes and unlike ethiopia stunningly blue skies and no rain! Although a 13hr drive is an arse it was worth it for the scenery.
We're now in Zanzibar after spending a couple of days in Dar Es Sallam, which seems like a really cool city. Very laid back and modern. Zanzibar is beautiful, a total sterotypical tropical island with white sand, blue sea and blue sky. We're heading to the east coast tomorrow to do some diving and then we'll do another update with photos from Moshi on sunday. Then it's off to do the mightly Kili with our parents!
Jambiani beach and the view from our hotel room
Friday 27th October
We left Stone Town in the morning to head towards Jambiani beach and the Red Monkey Bungalows. Having rented a crap Suzuki escudo (a car I have never even heard of before, let alone seen) we set off for the east coast. The directions were remarkably precise for Africa. Head down the road for 6 to 6 and a half minutes and then turn left, then proceed for 45 – 47 minutes etc etc. Of course all this went out the window after 30 secs when we encountered a huge junction he’d neglected to mention and so we made it up and winged it (as usual). We found the beach, which seeing as Zanzibar is a small island isn’t something to be overly proud of I suppose, and continued until we found the Bungalow. We were paying 30$ for this place and although that is a lot of money for a room out here it was well worth it. The place was beautiful. These little bungalows, surprise surprise, are about 5m’s from a pure white beach and blue sea. The place looked exactly like it should be in the Caribbean. We sorted out our diving for the afternoon and then went back to the place to relax. We were even lucky enough to see the rare red colobus monkey. A handy tip when looking at monkeys in trees. Don’t stand directly underneath them as should they decided to do their ablutions you are in the firing line. We managed to avoid being hit but there were some pretty close calls.
To do our dives we headed to the outer reef. The east coast has 2 huge reefs running pretty much the length of it. The inner and outer reef, remarkably original names if you ask me. The outer one is about 3 miles offshore and is what protects the coastline and beaches. We headed out to this one to do a sort of drift / reef dive and it was absolutely amazing. We didn’t see any reef sharks unfortunately but saw literally millions of other fish. I can also safely say I found Nemo (well what looked like him). In fact not only did I find him I also got attacked by him. If you swim too close to where they are hiding the male comes out to fend you off and when they see their reflection in your mask they go for it. It has happened to me before with male cuckoo rass in Ireland but is always quite amusing to have a little fish head butting your mask.
Amy on Zanzibar
That evening we headed to the bar to meet up with a really nice English couple we’d dived with and to have a few beers. It was a great evening. There is a small population of rastas that live on the island and they ran the hotel / bar we went for a drink in. Every evening the light a fire on the beach and everyone sits around it drinking beer whilst they play the bongos and sing. It’s a wicked. They also smoke huge amounts if drugs with is a little weird seeing as Zanzibar is one of the most strongly Muslim places outside of Saudi! (Men and women even have to stand in separate lines when waiting to board the ferry, just in case they bump into each other when queuing!). We met this total idiot of a South African bloke (unusually because all the other South Africans we’ve met have been cool.) He was this fat, bald accountant in his late fifties who’d gone to Zanzibar for a holiday and was now never going back. When we met him he was wearing a kikoi (a type of skirt that all the East African men wear), some beads and nothing else. He was also smoking an enormous spliff. He told us he was buying a house next to the bar and would never go home. When we asked him how long he’d been there he replied with something along the lines of “man, I’ve been 5 days and I’m never going back. This place is like good for the soul man. I’ve found my place in the world, man, and I ain’t never going back to your way of life again, man.” He was spouting all these hilarious hippies lines that sounded so totally stupid coming from someone who looked like him it was pure comedy. He also thought that he was ‘in’ with the rastas because they shared their drugs with him. What he seemed unable to see, but was obvious to the rest of us was that they just laughed in his face. He provided them with great amusement and also spent a lot of money on beer in their bar. The other thing that was really annoying about him was that because he felt that he’d had some sort of cathartic experience in the 5 days he’d been away we were obviously inadequate because we hadn’t. the more he drunk and smoked the more obnoxious and rude he became about how we were arrogant and imperialistic because we couldn’t just let people be (by we I mean the British, a race he seemed to have decided had caused all the worlds problems). He kept going on about why were we in Iraq and why did we always have to tell other people what to do etc etc (he probably had some good points to make but was fairly incoherent at this point). When it was pointed out to him that South Africa didn’t exactly have the best record of not interfering and telling people what to do, especially with Human rights, he replied with “I just can’t talk to these people, man” and went to sleep. In the immortal words of my mate, Dodge – knob!
Us in Stone Town and the beach at our hotel
Saturday 28th
After a rather late start and feeling somewhat groggy we headed back to Stone Town, where, because we were 30mins late getting the car back we had to pay another 10$ to the bloke. The fact that he wasn’t there when we turned up didn’t seem to bother him, rather annoying. We then went into Stone Town to wander about again. It’s such a wicked place that you could just wander about for hours and not get bored. Eventually we ended up at the seafront and went for some food at a cool bar called Livingstone’s. This was right on the beach and gave us a brilliant view of the sunset. Unfortunately, the one and only cloud in the whole sky decided to plonk itself in front on the sun and not move until the sunset was over, bloody typical. Still, we’re heading to the beach again later this month and will hopefully see the sunset over the water then. After this we went to a place called Fordohani gardens, which is this kind of market that opens up at sunset. They have hundreds of little stalls selling freshly cooked food etc. There were all sorts of fish like octopus, squid and barracuda which we tried. It is lovely food and we grazed our way ruminant style around this place for about an hour!
Sunday 29th
Leaving Zanzibar on the ferry we both decided what an amazing place it was. It is like the Caribbean was 20 years ago. There are no big hotels on the island, all the accommodation is either in small guest houses or bungalows. This means that it pretty unspoilt and once you are out of Stone Town there are few tourists. The Town itself has been designated a World Heritage Site which shows it must be pretty special. However, everyday the power was switched off for 4 hours. This was due to the huge amount of hotel building that they had recently started and the grid couldn’t cope. So they had to turn it off whilst they upgraded it. I hope that this doesn’t mean that the island gets over commercialised and spoilt. However, I have the feeling that the temptation to milk Zanzibar for all its worth will be too much for the government and thus the island will get spoilt, I’m just glad that we went there before it happens.
The boat was late leaving Zanzibar and to make up for lost time the captain decided to boot it back to the mainland. We went off like a rocket, ignoring that fact that the sea was actually very rough that day. We bounced and crashed our way back to Dar. By the time we got back at least half the passengers had been sick and both Amy and I were feeling, and looking, a little green. We were both extremely pleased to see dry land!
Sunset on Zanzibar (you have to pretent the cloud isn't there. Kids playing on the beach at Stone Town.
Next stop was to pick up the car, get petrol and drive the 550km to Moshi. We had no cash and went to a petrol station with a visa machine. I checked it was working and so filled the car up, went to get some money, only to find that in the preceding 5 minutes all the visa machines in Dar had crashed! Oh joy. So now I owed the petrol station about 100$ and had now had no way of paying, we also had to leave Dar within the next 30 mins if we were to have any chance of making it to Moshi, setting up camp and then meeting our parent’s plane at Kili airport. Sensing a bit of an impasse the manager said we would have to drive around Dar with him until we found a machine that worked. This we did and it took about 45 mins. Finally we got money and had to drive like a loon to get up to Moshi. We managed to do this, find a campsite, put the tents up and get to the airport just as our parents were coming through the arrivals gate! Talk about timing!
It was great to see our parents, however, the first thing my mum said to me was: “you look like Captain Birdseye”. Now, I reckon that means that my beard is reaching some pretty mighty proportions. Not sure whether he had ginger beard though, maybe it was ginger when he was young! I am rather proud of my beard now, when combined with the wolverine hair I look like a bear! When I go to the supermarket people are starting to shy away from me! Another 6 weeks until we see that family at Christmas, I’m looking forward to scaring some more people in the mean time.
We got back to campsite with our parents had a couple of beers to celebrate and went to bed.
In the bush, northern Tanzania. Sunset at Livingstone's Bar, Zan.
Stone Town beach and plam tree on Jambiani beach
Tuesday 31st October.
We arrived at the Mountain Inn in Moshi yesterday. The place is excellent and we had a very nice dinner. Today we spent sorting all our kit out because tomorrow we go up the mountain. My mum brought us out loads of things for the car and kit of us. So we spent pretty much the whole day getting our kit sorted. We have a 15kg limit on what we can get the porters to carry and trying to get al our kit to fit under this limit was a bit of a struggle! Finally we managed it and spent the rest of the day lazing around.
Wednesday 1st November.
We left the Inn at 09.30 after breakfast for the driver to Marangu, which is the main gate for Kili national park. Here we had to pick up our porters and guides etc. Whilst we were waiting for them this little weasel faced bloke came up with some chameleons on branch. My mum took a photo and the bloke then asked for 5$ for the photo. This was ridiculous and we refused. I started to barter with him, trying to get him down. I took my wallet out and looked for 1$ to give him and whilst I was holding my wallet he grabbed a 10$ note out of my hand and legged it. With a suitable roar and various expletives I went after him. I chased him down the main street of Marangu, with people diving out of the way, whilst shouting at him. As those that have played rugby with me will know, pace is not something that god chose to bless me with (we won’t go into details about all the other things he also neglected to put into the mix) and after an embarrassingly short distance he was well away. I spent then next 30 mins stalking up and down the town looking mightily pissed off and scaring all the children, but he had well and truly buggered off. Some blokes came up and asked what was wrong so I told them what had happened. They said they’d go and find him and I told them that if they did they could keep the money. It was only afterwards that I realised that I’d probably gone and put a contract out on this guy! Still, serves him right for stealing money from me. Anyway, the porters soon turned up and we drove to the start of the route up. The road was pretty standard for African roads, but by the time we got to Rongai (the village where we were to start) both our parents and the other tourists looked shaken to bits and kept saying how bad the road was. I guess we’re a bit immune to it now, Amy even managed to fall asleep on the bus!
We got to the town at 13.30, had some lunch and started the walk at 14.00. This was an easy 2 hour walk up through the forest to a place called Cave 1 (we never saw any evidence of a cave though!). This was at 2800m and had some excellent views of the mountain. The porters had all gone ahead of us and set up camp and so when we arrived we sat down it the mess tent to tea, biscuits and pop-corn. Totally not what I was expected but very gratefully received none-the-less! Seeing as it gets dark at 18.30 and there is nothing to do we all went to bed early.
Leaving the Mountain Inn on the first day. Kili crater from Cave 1, our first campsite.
Amy and her dad at the start of the climb. The path up to Kibo crater
Thursday 2nd November.
We awoke to see that it had snowed heavily in the night and the Kilimanjaro crater was covered in snow. It was very beautiful and made the mountain look like it does in all the pictures everyone has seen. It was also our first proper view of the mountain because all the other times it was covered in cloud. All I can say at that point was that it looked bloody big and bloody far away!
We set off at about 08.30 for a 6 hour 12km 1000m ascent walk and the going got a bit tougher. We got out of the forest and started walking through heath, moor land type scenery. It was very stunning and as we got higher the vegetation became less and less and the landscape strewn with rocks and boulders. We stopped for lunch at the second cave (3450m) which, incidentally, did have a cave and then did the final 3 hours to cave 3 (3900m). This had some amazing views up to the crater summit and you could also see the ice cap that is on the top of the mountain. It was at this point I took my first tentative steps towards stardom! All will be explained shortly.
Again we had our tea and popcorn and whilst eating noticed that there were 3 blokes there taking an awful lot of photos on cameras that either marked them out as pretty anal amateur photographers or as professionals. It turned out to be the latter. They were 3 French journalists doing a piece on the impact of global warming on the snows of Kilimanjaro. There is a UN conference on global warming going on at the moment in Nairobi and the French wanted to do a piece to air before they covered the conference. I was chatting to the bloke, who was a really good lad, and told him that I was a geog teacher and that we’d also climbed Mt Kenya recently. We chatted for a bit and left it at that.
Our mess tent and us on the climb
Friday 3rd November
I was lying in the tent at about 8am when the French guy came up and told me that he’d been thinking about it and, if it was ok with me, they’d like to interview me to get my views on the impact of global warming on Kili and, more specifically, to compare it to Mt Kenya. They must have been pretty bloody desperate because:
a) It was first thing in the morning, never a time when I’m at my best
b) I have a ginger beard
c) I have enormous electric krusty the Klown hair
d) My nose was pretty sunburnt from being at altitude.
Still none of this put them off and they did a 5 minute interview with me. This was to go out on the French equivalent of the BBC1 6 o’clock news, just before their coverage of the UN conference! The guy is going to send me a copy of the piece and depending how interesting (for want of a better word) I look I may show it off. It may also get buried for ever, with me extremely glad it didn’t go out on British TV! Still it is a claim to fame I suppose.
Today was our acclimatisation day and so all we were doing was resting and then doing about 90mins walk further up the mountain and the coming back to the camp to spend the night. However, as the day wore on we all started to feel pretty ropey. Amy’s dad, Glyn, felt sick, my mum had a headache and I felt like I had flu. I’d been feeling a little rough for a couple of weeks, just a bit run down and I reckon it all hit me then. I don’t seem to suffer from AMS (acute mountain sickness) too badly and this didn’t have any of the symptoms of it. So I took some antibiotics and went to bed at about 13.30. I didn’t really wake up again until 8 the next morning and thankfully felt fine. Amy felt absolutely fine all the time, which was really encouraging because she had suffered with AMS on Mt Kenya and this time it didn’t seem to be affecting her.
Cave 3 campsite. Kibo peak in background
Mawenzi peak, 5250m. Me!
Saturday 4th November
Today was going to be our longest day yet. The plan was to rise at 7, leave at 8 for the 4 hour walk to Kibo hut at 4750m. Here we would rest for 2 hours and then do another acclimatisation walk up to 4900m and back to Kibo. Rest for another 7 hours and then do the 6-7 hour walk up to Gillman’s (5685m) and hopefully Uhuru peak (5895m). We started up the slope towards Kibo and it was pretty hard going. The keyword on the mountain in Pole Pole, which means slowly slowly. It can get a bit frustrating at times because your really do plod along. Normally at about 1.5mph. However, it is the best way to help you get up the mountain. We plodded for 4 hours until we finally reached Kibo hut. This is at 4750m and is high, bloody high. It was really cold up there and it was snowing. This was proper blizzard snow, I don’t know what the temperature was but it was low! We rested for a while, all the time looking up the crater to where we could see Gillman’s. It doesn’t actually look that far away. It is only about 3km away, however, in that 3km you ascend 900m, all of it up scree. We did a bit of a walk up it in the afternoon and all of us realised that it was going to be a slog to get to the top. Still we all had to have a go. We got back to the tents and rested until 23.00. We got up, got dressed had something to eat and started walking for the summit at midnight. What a bastard of a walk is all I can say! We did it very slowly. However, it was dark, it was snowing and when I took my glove off to help my mum with her hood my fingers were so cold within a minute that I couldn’t move them. It is reckoned that it can be as low as -15 to -20 at this point. It certainly felt pretty cold! We plodded on for hours and hours, slowly passing William’s Point at 5000m, then the Hans Meyer Cave at 5250m. My mum was finding it pretty hard and at one point said that she’d had enough. However, we rested for a while and ate some biscuits and she decided to carry on. Amy started to feel pretty rough at this point as well. For the moment Glyn, although he felt sick, and I felt pretty strong. We continued until we got to about 5550m when the guide said that we were taking too long and that my mum had to go down. Glyn and I could carry on with the other guide to the top if we wanted but mum wanted to go down. I’m really proud of my mum, she’s 61 and has never down anything like this but somehow she had the strength of mind and character to push herself to within 100m of the top. She would have made it there had we had time. I think that it is pretty bloody impressive. I’ve got mates my age that wouldn’t and couldn’t have got that far so I think that she deserves a pat on the back. So she went down with Amy, and Glyn and I carried on to Gillman’s. It was an absolute slog but we got there and had some amazing views of the inside of the crater and of the ice cap on the other side of the crater. Unfortunately due to the weather closing in and time constraints the guide wouldn’t let us go for Uhuru peak, which is another 90mins away. So I guess I’ll have to come back and have a got at that at some point. Still, I am pleased to have got to Gillman’s. It is hard work and certainly something to feel a sense of accomplishment at having achieved.
Getting down is excellent fun. You ascend the scree through a series of interminable, mind-numbingly endless switchbacks. You descend by running straight down. It took us 8 hours to get up, 90mins to get down! Once down we rested for 2 hours, ate some food and then, to top the day of, had a 10km walk down to the next hut, called Horombo.
Top left, snow on our tents at Kibo Hut. Top right, mum at Kibo. Bottom left, Gillman's Point. Bottom right, Glyn at Gillman's.
Monday 6th November.
As soon as you come down from altitude you start to feel better. Everyone suffers from AMS, even the guides. It is just the severity of it that limits your ability to keep working. For me AMS gives me a headache and makes me feel like I’ve got a bit of a hangover. It’s nothing too serious but I don’t feel right. Amy gets dizzy and headaches .Some of the people we saw up there were being sick, collapsing and lots being physically helped down by the guides. Even the guides and porters get it. However, once you drop below 4000m and certainly below 3000m the symptoms got away and you start to feel good, tired but good. This was a good thing because today we had an 18km walk down from Horombo to Marangu and the bus back to the hotel. The walk was amazing because we descended into the rainforest. The only negative thing is that the Marangu route is the easiest and therefore most popular ascent route and one of only 2 descent routes therefore making it very busy. It was hard to settle into walking because every 2 seconds either a porter or a tourist was going past you. I’m glad we opted not to use this route for the ascent. Still, it was really good to go up and down a different way because it meant we saw so much more of the mountain.
Once down we met the bus and went back to the hotel. We sorted our kit out, showered, had some food, had some beers and went to bed.
The path around the crater at the top and us with the crew
Tuesday 7th November
Today was always going to be a lazy day. We finished off sorting out the kit, got loads of it washed and I did some work on the car. Only to find that one of the mud shields on my super-heavy duty, uber, n-v-r-brk, £350, scorpion racing front prop-shaft had half come off. Feeling rather miffed I rang them and was told to just drop it off and they’d see what they could do. When I told them where I was the guy said “oh well, that’s a shame then”. So everyday now I have to pack the shaft with grease to stop any debris getting in there. I think it will be ok but if I see one in SA at Xmas I’ll get another. By all accounts all this kit is very cheap there and so hopefully I’ll be able to get one.
Wednesday 8th November.
We left the Inn for the 200km drive to the Ngorongoro crater. We did this slowly, stopping in Arusha to do some shopping and arrived at the crater at 15.00, only to find that all the prices had gone up. The 40$ each to go into the crater had become 100$. Still, seeing as we were there we had to pay and go in. We drove up to the top of the crater and had some amazing views into it. It was truly stunning. We found the campsite, Simba A, which also had some amazing views of the crater, set up camp and had some dinner. This was our parents first experience of bush camping and it was really good to show them how Amy and I had been living for the last few months.
We managed to have another epic conversation with some Africans here. This time in involved firewood. We had some wood, but needed some more, so Amy went off to speak to the guys about getting some. The conversation that followed went something like this:
Amy: “Jambo, is there anywhere that we can get some firewood from?”
Maasai 1: “Don’t speak to me, I’m only the ranger. You need to speak to this guy. He’s a Maasai and he will get you some firewood.
Amy: “ok, thanks. Excuse me; could you please get us some firewood?
Maasai 2: ……………………………
Amy: “Err, firewood?”
Maasai 1: “I don’t know why you’re talking to him, he doesn’t speak any English.”
Amy: “Any chance you asking him for me then?”
Maasai 1: “Of course, hakuna mata”
Lots of photos of the crater!
Thursday 9th November
You’ll never guess what the night brought. Yup, a tremendous storm. Some much so that Glyn, who was sleeping in the front part of our 4 man tent, got soaked. When we woke up in the morning the visibility was about 10m’s and everything was soaked. So we slowly packed up camp and set out for the descent road to the crater. We hadn’t been going 5 minutes when we encountered an enormous traffic jam. Now seeing as there are only about 500 cars in the entire country this is a pretty rare occurrence and probable the first one we’d seen since Cairo. I got out to investigate and found, much to my delight, that it was a toyota land cruiser that was stuck in the mud!! How I gloated, it was tremendous. The road was an un-metalled mud road, which when dry is fine to drive on, but when wet it is like driving across a field. There were loads of 2wd Lorries stuck in the mud, which always happens when it rains, but I was really pleased to see a cruiser stuck. Even more pleased when we weaved our way through the stuck Lorries and straight through the mud he’d got stuck in with no trouble at all! The distance to the descent road was about 9km, it took us 90mins. The vis was pretty much the end of the bonnet and the road was as slippery as ice. However, as soon as we went down from the crater rim into the crater itself we emerged into bright sunshine. The crater looked amazing and we went straight down to do some game driving. Within 20mins we’d seen lions and a cheetah. We then saw 2 juvenile male lions and stopped to look at them. One got up and started to wander over to us, it got some close that its tail banged against the side of the car. It then walked around the back of the car, came up the passengers side, lay down, crawled underneath the car and went to sleep. You can see from the photos that it looks like I ran that thing over. It stayed there for ages and it wasn’t until I started the engine and revved the engine that it got up and moved off. Talk about interacting with nature. The rest of the game drive was brilliant; we saw loads of animals, including hundreds of hippos at the suitable named hippo pool. The roads were all flooded and driving around was like off-roading at devils pit. It was great fun and by the time we left the car was absolutely filthy! We haven’t washed it now since before we left, which is pretty impressive I reckon! Leaving the crater we drove the 2 hours to the Serengeti NP gate. Only to discover that all the prices there had also just gone up. Entry went from 30$ to 50$ each person camping from 30$ to 50$ also. This meant that to camp and visit for 24hrs was going to cost us 440$ (including car entry). Seeing as it was now 5pm and we didn’t have time to head back, we had to bite the bullet and pay the money. Although it was expensive, it was worth it. We were the only people in the campsite and it had the most stunning views over the Serengeti plains. The Mara was stunning but I think that the Serengeti is better. You could just sit and look at the view for hours.
Lion under our car in the crater. Top right is the Serengeti plain. Bottom left is a treen in the crater and bottom right is a herd of zebras going to drink.
Friday 10th November.
We headed into the park properly today to do a few hours of game driving. Although we didn’t actually see as many animals as I would have expected the scenery itself was enough just to drive around. If we can I would love to go back there. It is an amazing place. In the afternoon we had to start heading back towards Arusha, to do this you have to drive through the Ngorongoro conservation area. Even if you are in transit through it you have to pay entry fees of 30$ per person and 40$ for the car. We explained that we weren’t going to stop, just drive through but we still had to pay. So we decided to pay and bit more and spend another night camping at Simba A campsite, where we’d camped before. This was our last night of bush camping with our parents and I glad we did it. We even had 2 hyena come within 10m’s of the camp when we were eating.
Sunday 12th November.
Another lazy day at the Mountain Inn. Our parents fly home tonight and we are going to spend the night here and then head towards Nairobi tomorrow. One of my teeth decided to fall out the other day (yes I have been brushing them, despite appearances I haven’t gone totally feral) and so we are going to go to the ex-pat dentist we know in Nairobi, also to get a load of internet done. Then it is off to Uganda and rafting on the Nile.
