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Hi everyone! Hope all
is well, I’m currently in Zanzibar
where I’ve been for just over about 12 days now, I think...all my days are
starting to blend together it seems.
First of all, congratulations and best wishes to my cousin Patrick and
his fiancée Danielle who are getting married this weekend. Wish I could be there and can’t wait to see
pictures and celebrate when I get back!
After saying goodbye to all the great people I met and lived
with during the two months at Mama Zubeyda’s in Arusha, the past few weeks have
been a lot of fun! I really miss all of
the kids and will probably be heading back after “vacation” is over mid
September. I’m meeting one of my best
friends Rebecca and (hopefully- book the ticket!) my sister Laura in South
Africa towards the end of October but as of right now I think I’m going to go
back for another month to the orphanage I spent my last two weeks in Arusha at
after my school went on break for the month of August. I was planning on doing more traveling but I
really miss the kids and want to go back.
My mom, my sister Liz and her husband Steve arrived in Arusha
on Sunday August 15th. I
think my mom had a bit of a shock at the state of the super bumpy dirt roads
coming in at 9 PM in the dark from the airport but everyone survived the
trip! The roads don’t even phase me
anymore. We met at the Ilboru Safari Lodge
in Arusha where I had spent most of the day after taking a nice cab ride from
Mama Zubeyda’s around 10 that morning.
Highlights of my Sunday were laying out at a fantastic pool having a few
freezing cold beers, the hotel’s free high speed internet and of course…taking
my first non- bucket shower in over two months!
Spent about 30 minutes trying to scrub dirt out of my toenails which
left zero hot water for my mom the next morning. Whoops!
Seeing my family was so great, I knew their flight was
arriving at Kilimanjaro airport around 8:20 PM and around 9:30 PM a few safari
trucks started pulling into the hotel parking lot. Of course I ran out of my room for the first
few expecting it to be them, only to have the hotel reception laugh at watching
me almost fall on the slippery floor in my extra dirty/ worn out flip flops
with no grip left on the bottom. Finally
a Good Earth Tours safari truck pulled up and it was them! Yeah!
After lots of hugs it was late and we all went to sleep to get ready for
Moses, our safari driver, to pick us up at 8:30 the next morning.
Monday morning we headed to Tarangire National Park
which was fantastic. I had been there
for a few hours with the nursery students but this trip was much nicer as we
were riding in a nice safari vehicle with shocks rather than a bumpy school bus
crammed with a few puking children. I
don’t think my mom believed me when I told her we would probably see literally
hundreds of elephants and zebra and she started taking pictures of every single
one of them, which she continued to do for the rest of the trip. If anyone is in the market for 2,000 pictures
of elephants, please let me know. :) Actually I’m really happy my mom and Steve
were such avid photographers while Liz and I relaxed in the safari truck. I’m sure they have amazing photos, my little
camera isn’t that great with the zoom and Liz and I enjoyed a few nice
afternoon naps while they were shooting away.
Apparently eating large meals every few hours and driving around looking
at wild animals is hard work and we somehow managed to fall asleep for 20
minutes (or more) each afternoon while driving along!
I could write for days and bore everyone about safari so
I’ll try to keep this to a minimum. We
spent a day and a half in Tarangire National Park which is well known for its elephant
population (hundreds!), a day at Lake Manyara which was very green and lush in
comparison to the rest of the parks, about 3 ½ days in the Serengeti and a day
and a half in Ngorongoro Crater. All of
the lodges we stayed at were nice, ate too much, talked about how we ate too
much, proceeded to do the same the next day, etc. My favorite place was the Kirurumu tented
camp at Lake Manyara. It was so nice! The first night we also stayed at a tented
camp rather than safari lodge and we’re pretty sure there were lions walking
around our tent. I woke up and heard
something walking and breathing heavily and the next morning at breakfast Liz
and Steve said they heard it too. My mom
didn’t think it was a lion but I’m still convinced it was! The lodges were still really nice even though
they were in the middle of no where.
Wake up in the morning to little monkey’s staring in through the glass
on the balcony, fun!
I think my favorite park was the Serengeti, the land was so
beautiful and it seemed endless. During
the trip we saw lots of animals: worthogs (not sure how to spell…uh Pumba in
the Lion King type animals?), elephants, giraffe, zebra, gazelle, tons of
birds, a rhino in Ngorongoro (there are only 26 in the whole park and they are
on the extinct list!), lions, cheetah and leopards. Many more smaller animals I can’t think of at
the moment. It was amazing. Moses was a fantastic driver and could spot
things it would sometimes take me a few minutes to pick up with the binoculars. Good Earth Tours is highly recommended if
anyone is in the market for an African safari!
Highlights include seeing the cheetah (not everyone does),
seeing a lion kill a gazelle (sad but its nature right?) and when two lions
literally walked up next to our safari vehicle and were so close Moses stuck
his hand out the window and quickly touched its tail! We have great pictures of a huge lion,
resting under the shade of our vehicle, trying to take a nap. Moses turned on the car and revved the engine
to get it to move but it wasn’t really interested. After a few minutes of us annoying the lion
he started swatting at the truck, bit the tire (luckily didn’t bite a hole
because I wasn’t getting out to change the tire…not that I know how to change a
tire or anything…) and ripped a little hole in the spare tire cover on the back
of the truck. Finally got up and walked
away so we could drive on. Can’t wait to
see the pictures when I get home! The
land was just so beautiful and it was so peaceful riding around with the roof
popped up so you could stand up and stare out while driving. Would love to do it again.
After safari we flew to Zanzibar for 3 nights at the Shooting Star
Lodge. Another fantastic choice! We were on the east side of the island in
Kiwengwa. The rooms were gorgeous, right
on the beach and the only mishap was a huge spider waiting for me at 6:30 AM
one morning. Now, I like to exaggerate a
bit now and then but this spider was literally the size of the toilet paper
roll it was resting on. I screamed, woke
up my mom who took one look and ran out the door to go find someone to kill it
while I hopped up onto the bathroom sink to watch and make sure it didn’t run
away! Some guy came and killed it but I
really wish I got a picture of it before it was smashed, it was huge! I hope I never spot one again, I can handle
the 4-5 geckos that are currently living in my room with me but spiders are
another thing! The hotel was so nice,
coffee and tea every morning on our patio when we woke up, super nice beach and
infinity pool overlooking the ocean, more excellent food and drinks, fantastic
Zanzibar coffee scrub/ massage and an awesome lobster BBQ on the beach one
night for dinner. Thanks mom and it was
so much fun seeing everyone!
Last Thursday they left.
L We got in a cab to take them to the airport
and dropped me in Stone
Town on the way. Tears from me of course. Miss them a lot. Spent 4 nights in Stone Town
exploring the old city. This island is
90% Muslim and it’s currently Ramadan which means no food from sunup to sundown
among other things. Don’t worry, there
are still restaurants for the tourists open although of course they are the
expensive ones. Ripped a few pages and
maps out of my Tanzania book so I wouldn’t stick out too much (I’m sure it
didn’t work) and explored the city which is basically comprised of tons of
small alley’s no cars can fit down so its great for walking. It’s a gorgeous town and I’ll probably head
back there for at least a night before heading off. Lots of old buildings, mosque’s, very nice.
Also have been snorkeling twice, off Mnemba
Island and Chumbe Island. Both were great. Chumbe
Island is protected by
the government and was gorgeous. There
is one hotel on the island comprised of 7 little bungalow style rooms and it’s
won many eco travel awards, really cool.
I spent the day with two 50 year old Italian woman with limited English
but we had a lot of fun. Mirna and
Allesandra…Mirna was hilarious and almost broke her ankle about 15 times during
our hike in the forest as she was wearing platform high heeled sandals on our
hike. Not the smartest idea! Snorkeling was fantastic. There were two marine biologists from the U.S. going out
in the same boat so I followed them around in the water for two hours while they
pointed out all sorts of cool fish to me.
At some points there were probably a thousand swimming all around
us. Of course I don’t remember any of
the fish names either. I think they told
me there are over 400 types of coral species in the reef, over 90% of species
found in East Africa.
On Monday I came to Nungwi, a smaller fishing village on the
northern tip of the island. It’s pretty
calm and peaceful here. All of the dhows (wooden fishing boats) leave from the beach late afternoon around 3 PM and fish all night arriving back around 6 AM the next morning. I'm planning on waking up early tomorrow morning to watch them come in and try to watch some of the auctions between local fisherman, locals, restaurant/ hotel owners. Probably won't smell the best but should be interesting to see. Was planning on heading to Jambiani on the southeast coast next week but I’m doing a yoga program
with an instructor, Marisa who is so calm and great. She’s from South Africa and moved here about 3
years ago. We do yoga/ meditation for 2
hours every morning and for 1.5 hours right around sunset. It’s so peaceful and I've decided to stay here another week to practice with her until I fly up to meet one of my best friends, Jessica and her husband Bryan in Malta for almost a week in the middle of September, looking forward to seeing them but not looking forward to my 24 hour layover at the airport in Istanbul. Found more direct flights but they were about $500 more so I'll be making myself comfortable in the airport for a while. Walking around the village today to investigate cheap sleeping options. Staying at Flame Tree Cottages right now which is really nice and right on the beach but it was a bit of a splurge and need to find a more reasonable option. I should be able to find something, probably not right on the beach but close enough for about 25,000 tsh a night (roughly $17 USD) .
The rest of my days are pretty much spent
laying on the beach reading, napping, doing whatever I want. Today’s Marisa's birthday and she invited me to
her party tonight, can't wait to meet some of her friends here.
That’s it for now…I’m typing this up on a laptop in an
internet café. I think the battery is
about to run out and of course the power is out. Happens a lot here, probably at least 4 times
each night the power goes on and off.
The hotel I’m staying at has a generator that kicks in but last year I
know the power was out for over 3 months on this island! It comes from Dar Es Saalam under the ocean
and something broke. Anyway, about to
save this post to my flash drive with the hopes of posting it tomorrow…assuming
the power comes back on! :)
Take care, hope everyone is well, Cath
