The day we arrived in Arusha, we were informed by the tour representative that the roads after Lake Manyara were not great, and driving on them gave the occupants of the jeep an “African massage”. At the time I did not fully understand what he meant by “not great”. Boy, was I in for a surprise. When he said “not great”, he meant unmaintained dirt roads, which were basically one giant pot hole after another, WHILE scaling a very steep mountain with shear cliffs on either side. It was, quite possibly, the scariest driving conditions I’ve ever seen, as the road was really only wide enough for one vehicle, yet there were trucks coming from both directions. As we got closer to the top of Ngorongoro (the mountain we were driving up) the road turned into mud which just added to the excitement as the jeep slide around. Thank God our driver, Renatus, was a very experienced driver and seemed to pass through these conditions effortlessly. An even bigger Thank God that my dad didn’t have to drive this, because I don’t know if we would have survived. Though the roads of Ngorongoro were very scary, the view was beautiful. It was like driving through a rain forest, full of cool plants and animals.
The way down the other side of the mountain was a completely different sight. Where there was rainforest on one side, there was acacia forest and grasslands on the other side. The grasslands were littered with Masai Villages complete with their herds of hundreds of goats, cows and donkeys. It also was home to many herds of zebras, which was really cool to see.
About half way through our 5 hour journey, with Ngorongoro behind us, we entered the short grass plains. It was in these plains where I saw one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. As far as the eye could see were thousands of wildebeest and zebras. The herds were so big that the horizon was covered in a line of black dot, which turned out to be more animals. As we drove through, I couldn’t help but marvel in the beauty of one of the few places where the animals were truly free. Another highlight of the day was when we had the pleasure of watching a cheetah, who had a fresh kill, devour it’s meal. Throughout the trip I came to really appreciate Renatus’s VERY keen eyes, he was able to spot and identify even the tiniest bird (which to me looked like a little brown bird) while driving 80 km/h along a hellish road.
After what seemed like hours of driving, we stopped at a ranger station in the middle of the Serengeti. As I disembarked from our jeep, I couldn’t help but feel thoroughly shaken (like a good Bond martini… actually, I probably could have used a good martini right about then) and all the bouncing around was really taking a toll on the group. It was at this ranger station (and many more to fallow), that I developed a true appreciation for the standard toilet (aka one with a seat). The washrooms were equipped with a hole in the ground (with a small stream of water below) with two little bricks (which I imagine you are supposed to stand on) on either side of the hole (kinda similar to a Turkish toilet). Now all the ladies out there can hopefully sympathize we me when I say that this is no where near ideal conditions (I would have gladly taken an outhouse… or even a bush).
The remainder of the journey was uneventful (with the exception of our jeep fishtailing and threatening to flip numerous times) and we arrived at our lodge around 6 pm. Our lodge, which appeared to be about as far into the middle of nowhere as humanly possible, was a picturesque series of huts.
We were greeted at the door of our jeep by staff offering hot face towels and pineapple juice (this was the norm at all the lodges we stayed at). We were immediately informed by the man behind the front desk that it was unsafe to walk to and from you room after dark, and to simply call the front desk when you wanted to leave your room, and someone would escort you around. We were so far out into the middle of nowhere that I couldn’t help but wonder what would be out there that would be a safety risk. He then explained that since the lodge’s compound was not surrounded by any fences, wild animals walked around freely, and the water buffalo tended to be quite aggressive. It was at this point, that it fully sunk in that this really was an African adventure. As we ate dinner that night, we noticed flashlights darting around and soon saw the backside of an elephant (or it could have been a water buffalo… in the dark their backsides look remarkably similar) passing by one of the hut. Apparently being flashed by a flashlight was all that was required to scare animals off (thought they were joined by men carrying semi automatic machine guns in case they needed “backup”.) That night we slept well, as the animals gingerly grazed around our huts.
Danielle
