Well it’s been a very busy few days. It’s now Sunday and I only have 4 days
left. It’s been a fantastic experience
but I have to admit I am looking forward to getting home, and particularly
looking forward to a hot shower, flat sausage and reliable electricity. I will never complain about my electricity
bill again as long as the light just keeps switching on.
Wednesday night we went to a restaurant in
Shanty Town, contrary to what you might think this is the wealthy area where
all the western doctors live. The houses
are unbelievable and it’s hard to believe this all sits just on the outskirts
of Moshi. The environment is quite
different. The restaurant was Indian and
fantastic. But all these places are
priced completely out of the reach of locals and are almost entirely frequented
by either tourists or local white people.
There is also a huge international school in Shanty town where all the
expats send their kids and again it is like a little bit of the UK dropped into
the middle of Africa.
I was picked up at 6am on Thursday morning
for my 2 day safari. It was
incredible. We went to Tarangire
National Park which is about 200km from Moshi and then to Ngorongoro crater. Tarangire was much better than I had
anticipated. Most people who have the time
head for the Serengeti so I was trying to keep my expectations low but there
was no need. The park itself was amazing
although it was very hot and at times there were a lot of flies, but there were
hundreds of animals. The highlight was
the elephants which we managed to get really close too, and then a lioness and
her cubs (although the cubs were a little far away to get a good picture). We also saw hundreds of zebra, giraffes,
wildebeest, impala and plenty of monkeys.
The other thing I found incredible here was the trees. As you all know I am not particularly a
nature lover but I can appreciate beauty when I see it and the trees in the
parks are magnificent.
That evening I stayed in a lodge in a place
called Karatu. We had a bit of a false
start as there was no water in my room but it all turned out for the best as I
was quickly upgraded. It was lovely and
they served a very hearty british meal of lentil soup to start and roast pork
and roast potatoes for mains. Between
the meal and the hot shower I was in heaven.
We started out the next morning at 7am for
the crater. Everyone locally talks a lot
about the crater and how amazing it is but you really have to see it to believe
it. It was formed 2 and a half million
years ago when, in short, a volcano imploded in on itself. In the morning it was very foggy as the
crater sits at a reasonably high altitude.
I realised later in the day that this fog saved me a lot of anxiety in
the morning because in the clear of the afternoon the steep and windy roads
become a little scary. I had imagined it
to be a crater in the ground not unlike something an asteroid would leave
behind but as it was formed from a volcano you actually have to climb the
outside of the crater and drive along the rim (and I mean rim) before
descending in. The roads are just mud
tracks but like I say we were on the journey home before I realised all this
thankfully. As we climbed the inside of
the crater I was repeating in my head “the tour guides do this all the time…
the tour guides do this all the time”.
But it is all worth it. Inside the crater is a little microcosm of
life. It is completely flat and has
little vegetation but has a huge concentration of animals. The absolute highlight was a beautiful female
cheetah just lying by the side of the road; completely uninterested in the
people staring and taking pictures from their car. We also saw, to my amazement, 2 black
rhino. There are now only 25 left in the
crater and about 100 in Tanzania as they were badly affected by poaching. I couldn’t get great pictures of these
(mental note – if every coming back buy one of those huge wide lens SLR things
that people walk around with) so you’ll just have to believe me that it was an
amazing sight. We saw a large hippo out
of the water and she really did look like a cartoon character, saw lots of
hyenas (including cubs), a bull elephant, gazelles, lots of baboons and again
hundreds of zebras and wildebeest.
We then had a very long 5 hour drive back
to Moshi.
Having missed a couple of days in the
office I went in on Saturday morning. We
have hired a new Finance Manager for them so at least the interviews we did
turned out to be a success. The new
person came in for me to train her on the reports we have been preparing over
the last couple of weeks. She is a
really nice woman from Soweto so I’m really pleased how this worked out. I then had lunch with the CEO and Director of
Operations from the UK to go through the numbers and talk about what we’ve been
doing. There is a GREAT coffee shop we
have discovered – I swear the chips taste just like the ones gran use to make
on the stove!
Went out on the town in Moshi last
night. Figured I had to do it at least
once before I left. The guys from the UK came into town and we went to a place called
Alberto’s. It has a mixed crowd
although is predominantly locals. I came
home around midnight and left the guys to it – they were off to a place called
LaLigas which is basically the only club in town.
So, it’s now Sunday. I’m having a lazy day. I’ve learnt my lesson about going out on
Sundays – the street sellers outnumber me to a great extent on a Sunday so it’s
best to steer clear.
Looking forward to seeing everyone next
week x
