Mto wa Mbu and Lake Manyara National Park

After our good night of sleep just outside of Tarangire National Park, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast cooked by James (usually that meant eggs, sausage, and toast along with porridge and some sort of delicious fruit drink - generally mango or pineapple) and then we were on our way to the town of Mto wa Mbu. We had a fantastic campsite there within walking distance of town complete with a very refreshing swimming pool! Included in our safari package was a cultural village tour, which we were a bit leery of because we aren't usually fans of organized tours. Also, in Africa many tours are geared to encourage you to buy things, and we do not like feeling pressured to buy things that we do not want or need. However, our guide (whose name I unfortunately cannot remember) was totally laid back and the experience of seeing town felt very "real" as we walked through the village, so ultimately we were glad we had the chance to tour Mtw wa Mbu.

Bikes are the main method of transport over much of Tanzania and you would be amazed at how much "stuff" locals can fit on their bikes. Water is also hauled using bikes with big tanks on the back of the bike. Also, it would not be uncommon to see women in town carrying about half of the bananas seen here on their heads! It is also worth noting that most local roads are not as nice as the one pictured in this photo.

Pickup soccer (football) games were seen all over our travels. This soccer field actually had goal posts and a marker for the sideline, which is a step up from what most other towns have available.

Mto wa Mbu is known for its rice fields and banana plantations, and the town sits just beneath the Great Rift Valley, creating a very picturesque setting. It is a very rich village compared to many in Tanzania because of the lush vegetation that can be grown in town. We toured the village on foot, starting with watching wood carvers create amazing souvenirs, where we were encouraged to look and purchase but fortunately not pressured to buy!

Next, we visited the rice fields. Mto wa Mbu is also known as "mosquito creek" due to the number of mosquitoes in town. After seeing the rice fields, it is easy to see how mosquitoes are prevalent, due to all of the standing water needed to grow the rice!

Next, our guide took us through the banana plantations and taught us some interesting facts about how bananas grow.

Erik and our guide 

Check out the flower on that banana tree!

We followed our guide through town and past a church in service that was PACKED with people. Everyone was dressed up for church, old and young, and we listened to the singing as we walked by. Homes in Africa are made from all different kinds of material. Clay and mud seem to be used often, and we learned that a brick or concrete house might take 20 years to build in Africa. Most villages do not have running water and some do not have electricity. While walking through the village we made friends with some of the young locals who were not in church. They were adorable!

Church

A few of the children in the village. I love the expression of the girl to my left!

The last part of our village tour included banana beer tasting. They brought out a massive cup (that I'm assuming every person who takes this tour uses!) filled to the top with banana beer. We each had a few sips and were not impressed with the taste! Our guide then preceded to chug the rest of the the beer, ha! Must be a perk of the job. :)

After the tour we headed down the road to Lake Manyara National Park. Of all of the parks we visited, this was probably our least favorite, though there was still plenty to see and we enjoyed our visit there. Unfortunately, it had been extremely dry before our visit to Lake Manyara, so there was not much of a lake to see. Even without the water, the view of the "lake" from lunch was quite impressive. At lunch we also met a father and son who were from Minnesota, and we enjoyed a chat with them over our boxed lunch, which typically consisted of a piece of grilled chicken, a hard boiled egg, potato chips, a stale muffin of some sort, mango or pineapple juice (I could not get enough of that stuff!) and something sweet for dessert.

Erik and Lawrence enjoying one of the viewpoints from our lunch spot.

View from lunch. Can you spot the giraffes?

Erik imagining life as a giraffe.

Leaving the lunch spot with other safari trucks.

Simply gorgeous! What animals can you see in the distance? There are a few!

Other highlights from Manyara included more elephants, very close to the road and to our truck, giraffe, zebra, ostriches, buffaloes and wildebeest. We saw MANY baboons inside this park with lots of young, and they were awesome to watch. There were a few groups of very active monkeys here too. This was the first park where we saw flamingos, though they were really far away due to the dryness of the lake. Manyara is a popular spot for bird-watching, but we were more interested in the bigger animals, so Lawrence only pointed out a few birds to us as we drove through the park.

Zebra and wildebeest grazing with flamingos in the background on what is left of the lake.

A reminder that these parks are not zoos. This is a hippo carcass.

Those little dots out there are a HUGE group of baboons!

Baboons can be very aggressive and you are not supposed to look them in the eye.

A little afternoon grooming.

Along for the ride.

Just chillin' in the shade.

A monkey hanging out in the tree.

A young monkey literally hanging out in a tree!

After our game drive, we headed back to the campsite for a swim. We met a couple from Chicago who were also with Base Camp for their safari and they had the exact same itinerary as us. Unfortunately, they had lost their luggage just before the start of their safari due to a delayed flight from their previous destination, so they only had one outfit and could not swim! To Base Camp's credit, they ended up driving their bags out once they arrived, so they got their luggage at our next highly anticipated stop, the Serengeti!

The perfect way to end a hot day of game watching!

Arusha and Tarangire National Park

Shortly after leaving Nairobi, we were out of the city and driving through African countryside. We passed many Maasai villages along the way, and near the villages there were men or boys (sometimes very young children) herding cows and goats. As we neared the Tanzanian border, we saw zebras, donkeys, and camels from the road! Apparently camels in East Africa are domesticated, but when we saw them they appeared to be roaming freely. The area we drove through was lush, green, and mountainous on both sides of the road.

There is only one Australian word to describe the Kenyan/Tanzanian border crossing: chockas. Buses were parked everywhere haphazardly and people were in unorganized lines waiting for immigration agents. It was not clear where we were supposed to go, but luckily our bus driver was helpful and essentially put us in the correct line. There were also heaps of Maasai women trying to sell things and they were very forceful, even putting jewelry directly onto our hands as we walked away from them. After getting our departure stamp from Kenya, our driver helped again, walking us across the Tanzanian border and showing us where to go to get our Tanzanian visa. For some reason, even though there were hundreds of people at the Kenyan border, there were only about 10 people trying to get in to Tanzania. The process was quick and easy and way less chaotic than the Kenyan side. It took about an hour for everyone on our bus to cross the border, then we were off to Arusha. 

The company I chose for our safari is Base Camp Tanzania. I compared about 20 different companies, looking at itineraries, prices, and reviews, and Base Camp seemed to be the best value for the money. Also, I wanted to use a company based in Tanzania, not one based in the US or Europe with an office in Africa. Included in the cost of our safari was 2 nights accommodation before and after the safari, plus Achmed, who owns the company, arranged our transport from Nairobi to Arusha and from the bus stop in Arusha to our accommodation at L'Oasis Lodge. As we were driving to the lodge, I was a little worried about what it was going to be like, because we were not in the best part of town. The road getting there was unpaved and had about a million potholes and we were driving in a 20+ seat bus, which made our entrance interesting and entertaining. When we arrived we were very pleasantly surprised, as the place looked awesome. We checked in easily and took a few minutes to admire our little "hut".

Achmed, the owner of Base Camp, was in the restaurant so that he could brief us on the next few days and answer any questions that we had. Also there were two other couples who had similar itineraries to ours, so we got the chance to meet an Indian couple who live in San Franscisco and a couple of pilots, one who is from Hungary and the other from Germany. Dinner was included, so we ordered food and enjoyed chatting with our new acquaintances. 

The next morning, we had an awesome buffet breakfast (also included) before leaving L'Oasis around 8am. We stopped at an ATM in downtown Arusha, where we saw the town in "action". The most noticeable thing was the women carrying ridiculously full baskets on their heads! Town was bustling with activity and it seemed like everyone was out either buying or selling things that morning. On the way to our first park, we drove past coffee plantations just outside of Arusha, then passed many Maasai villages with mountains in the background. The surroundings were beautiful and different than I expected. Along the way we chatted with our driver/guide, Lawrence, and our cook, James, trying to get to know them a little bit.

The first park of our 6 day safari was Tarangire National Park. Tarangire is known for large herds of elephants and for its baobab trees (think "Tree of Life" from The Lion King). We dropped James off at camp and headed into the park. The first animal we encountered was in the parking lot, and it was a blue-balled monkey! Lawrence warned us that the monkeys are very smart and told us to close our windows to ensure they did not get into the truck. 

Very strange feature, don't you think?!

Cheeky monkey trying to break into safari truck!

Once we entered the park, we started to see elephants. SO MANY ELEPHANTS!!! This park is amazing for elephant watching. We got very close to some, even a bit too close to one, who trumpeted at us and let us know to back off (elephants have been known to do damage to safari trucks who get too close, so we backed away quickly). We saw elephants fighting with their tusks, little ones playing with their trunks, and others cooling themselves with water (it was HOT in Tarangire). 

Elephants flap their ears to keep cool.

A herd walking along the dry riverbed.

So.Many.Elephants!

Keeping cool in the hot Tarangire sun.

A little late afternoon playtime for the little ones!

We had an awesome view for lunch, where unfortunately a sneaky monkey got into our truck through the roof and broke into our trail mix that came all the way from America!! Can't say Lawrence didn't warn us! In addition to elephants, we saw many giraffes, a few buffalo, ostriches, impalas, and zebras. We also spotted a kill, but the lion who we presume made the kill was nowhere to be seen. Overall, it was a great first day on safari.

Our view during lunch. Can you spot the elephants down below?

Giraffe hanging out in the shade.

A male impala

Two female ostriches watching over their young.

We caught up with the San Fran couple over dinner and they in fact did see the lion that made the kill. We were a little jealous, but hoped that we'd have luck seeing lions at some point over the remaining 5 days of the safari. Erik and I were SO tired by the end of that day, still adjusting to the time difference, so we went to bed early and had our first really good night's sleep of the trip under the stars in Tanzania!

Nairobi

About 5 hours after we departed from the United Arab Emirates, our flight landed in Nairobi. We chose Kenya as our travel arrival/departure point because it was significantly cheaper than flying into Tanzania. Originally we had hoped to spend more time in Kenya, but that plan changed when we decided to head to the States before our Africa jaunt. We received a transit visa on arrival (good for 3 days...paid in post-2006 printed US dollars, and that seems to be the way most Africans want to be paid), which was quite easy as we were the only people in line. The airport has seen better days (there was a major fire last year and it is also undergoing renovations), but I think in a few years after the remodel, the airport will be much nicer.

I had arranged for our hostel to pick us up at the airport. Our driver was there when we came out of baggage claim and we headed off to Wildebeest Eco Camp, where we would stay for the night. On the drive from the airport, the most noticeable thing was people walking EVERYWHERE! So many people walking to work, public buses waiting to fill up to take people places, and insane traffic. The other noticeable thing was the smell of burning rubber. Wildebeest is located out of the city, in a more quiet suburban area. We arrived to find a gate with a guard for the property (we later learned guards and gates are generally standard in Kenya), which was about a 30 minute drive from the airport. 

We chose the cheapest option at Wildebeest, so we would be sleeping in a basic tent. Our tent was not set up when we arrived (we expected that, since it was about 7am!), so we had breakfast and then hired a driver to take us to an elephant orphanage and a giraffe sanctuary. Both of these were quite touristy activities, so they drew large crowds, but they were educational and informative as well. The elephants have been orphaned due to their mothers being poached for their tusks, so the money that people pay to watch the elephants feed (every day at 11am for one hour it is open to the public) goes towards helping to raise the orphaned elephants. Watching them run down the hill to the feeding area and then go straight to chugging down the massive milk bottles was really entertaining. Employees also answered questions about the elephants, the mission of the orphanage, and poaching. At the end they tried to make sure that people had a chance to pet an elephant as well. 

Who needs help holding the bottle? Not this guy!

The giraffe sanctuary was really crowded, and we encountered some rude people, so we had a more negative experience there. We did benefit from a brief information session about the different types of giraffes in Africa. We also got the chance to hold a few different giraffe bones, which were ridiculously heavy. Right next to the sanctuary is Giraffe Manor, where I would have loved to have stayed if we were rich, ha!

Yes, this sign is for real.

"Make sure you get my good side"

Don't judge! Giraffes have antiseptic saliva! Kelly and I were bonding in this photo.

Erik chose to feed the giraffe in a more traditional way.

We could have squeezed in a few more things in the afternoon, but we were happy to head back to Wildebeest to relax after our long day of travel from the States. We met some nice people (including the owners, who are Aussies) and enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner on the deck overlooking the grounds. The permanent tents look really nice, but we couldn't justify the splurge and our cheap tiny tent allowed for just as much sleep given we were exhausted when it was time for bed!

View of property from the deck where meals are served.

The next morning was spent at Wildebeest, again enjoying the relaxed atmosphere (they are putting in a pool soon, which will make it an even better place to stay!). Around midday, we took a taxi into the city centre, where we boarded Rainbow Shuttle for a 6 hour bus ride to Tanzania. The bus station area was a bit chaotic, but our driver was helpful in letting us know we were in the right place. After an hour or so of waiting, we were heading south to the country where we would spend the next 2.5 weeks!

Abu Dhabi

As I mentioned in the last post, we took Amtrak from Maryland to NYC. I was a bit worried about how that would work given it was New Year's Eve, but surprisingly it was far less chaotic than I expected. Upon arriving at Penn Station, we navigated our way to the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road), which we decided to take instead of the subway in order to avoid the NYE crowds. Turned out to be a great call, as there was hardly anyone on our train. We got off in Jamaica and from there hopped on the AirTrain to JFK.

We arrived at the airport about 3 hours before our departure time (we were supposed to have about 4 hours, but Amtrak was delayed from DC, so it was an hour late when we boarded at BWI), which I expected would be plenty of time. The airport was a madhouse. In particular, the line for Etihad, which we were flying to Nairobi, was ridiculously long and wasn't moving very fast. Turns out that some of the delay was because Etihad attendants were measuring carry on bags. I have never seen this on an international flight, but after watching multiple people trying to get away with 4-5 carry-on bags, I then understood why there was a need to tag carry-on bags. The guy behind us in line explained that because things are so cheap in the USA, people traveling home to the Middle East take as many things as possible and they try to avoid paying extra fees for bags by carrying them on the plane. They must still get away with taking too much on, because Erik and I ended up not getting any overhead bin space on the plane!

Flying over Saudi Arabia

We made through the line to check in after about an hour and then it took almost another hour to get through security. The flight was boarding when we made it to the gate, so we waited in that line and went straight onto the plane. This was our first flight with Etihad and overall it was quite good. I had picked our seats in advance, and we were in the back of the plane, in the first row that was 2 seats instead of 3, which gave us a bit of extra space (and a seat to store one of our backpacks under without compromising leg room). The seats were comfortable and had a nice amount of recline (maybe more than Qantas?) and the quality of the blankets and headphones were really good. Our eye mask, earplugs, and socks came in a cute travel pouch (which we now own 4 of), which was a nice touch. Of course there were heaps of movies to choose from for our 12 hour flight to Abu Dhabi, and we took full advantage of that. We were happy with the food choices/quality and the flight attendants were nice. Etihad is the first airline to offer a flying nanny, who helps parents with kids on the flight, which I think is a really great idea!

We arrived in Abu Dhabi around 7pm local time and our flight for Nairobi did not leave until 2am. Since we had some time, we decided to make the most of it and head out into Abu Dhabi. After doing some searching before we left home, I thought that the best place to visit would be the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Since we are American, we were able to get a free visa on arrival (no paperwork necessary). Immigration was very welcoming and there was no line, so we were out into the warm fresh air within a few minutes. We took a taxi to the mosque, and our friendly driver assured us it would be easy to get a taxi to the airport in a few hours when we were ready to head back.

Inside Abu Dhabi airport, which was really nice!

The mosque is massive, and as we approached it from afar, the sight of it was amazing (according to Wiki, the mosque and grounds are equivalent to about 5 football fields). It is made up of materials like marble, stone, gold, and ceramics, and these have come from different places all over the world. It was completely free to visit, and in order to go inside the mosque, I had to wear an abaya (which was also free) even though I was wearing long pants and a long sleeved shirt.

Blurry picture, but that is me standing at the entrance!

Inside the mosque, wearing my borrowed abaya.

Awesome corridor view

The prayer room is at the far end behind Erik

Pretty lights outside the mosque

The architecture inside the main prayer hall was stunning, as was the attention to detail on every part of the room from the floor to the ceiling!

We spent a few hours at the mosque before heading back to the airport to grab some dinner. If we had a longer layover we would have really enjoyed seeing more of Abu Dhabi. Etihad offers a free shuttle bus to Dubai also, so that could have been an option if we had a day to spend in the area. Lots of flights these days seem to stop in one of those 2 cities in the UAE and we would definitely consider extending our stopover if we happen to fly through the UAE again in the future.

Our next flight was on Kenya Airways, which was not nearly as nice as Etihad, but they still got us safe and sound to Nairobi at 6am, where we would start our African adventures!