Read about Ron & Viv's journey so far through Africa - TANZANIA - Lake Manyara; Ngorongoro Crater & the Serengeti NPs, June 2007.
Tanzania
Our camp at the Travellers Lodge was quite pleasant.
The Anglican Church and its historic but misplaced door.
The old fort, just one of many old buildings and ruins in Bagamoyo.
The rich farming land around the base of Mt Kilimanjaro.
Adam & the boys from the Village Shop, near the Lake Manyara Park Entrance – their shop had a good range of souvenirs and Maasai fabric.
Lake Manyara - The valley floor around the lake, with elephants grazing in the late afternoon. Lake Manyara.
Our vehicle beside the lake that was our lunch spot in the Crater.
Viv, Helen & Neil getting lunch together in the Crater.
Sunset view, with wildebeest, from our camp.
Just a small group of wildebeest across the road.
AFRICA TRIPMid to Late June NORTHERN TANZANIA
Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crafter & Serengeti National Parks
More Slavery History
After shopping, and a chance brief meeting with Fred, who was trying to get a Sudanese visa, we headed north along the coast to the small village of Bagamoyo. The town was once the capital of German East Africa but it was abandoned in favour of Dar and is now nothing much more than a big fishing village.
This was once, during the 1800s, the biggest slave port on the East African coast, trans-shipping slaves who came via caravan from the interior to Bagamoyo for the short boat ride to the slave markets of Zanzibar where they were sold to the dealers who took them to the mainly French colonies of the Indian ocean or to the Middle East (most of the slaves who went to the Caribbean or the USA were from the west coast of Africa).
A ‘Freedom mission' was set up here in the 1870s and slaves were bought and set free with most staying on at the mission. This mission played and important part in saving hundreds of slaves; it was also where Dr David Livingstone's body was brought by his faithful servants after an 11 month trek from the interior, before shipping to England in 1874. During WW1, the mission was also a place of refuge when the British invaded as well as offering refuge during the many local wars and uprisings against German rule before then.
The mission is still a vibrant and important community offering kindergarten, primary and secondary schooling as well as having the government owned college located there – with internet café facility! The Livingstone Tower, separate from the cathedral, is where Livingstone's body was laid during its enforced night's stop. The museum here is a little beauty and well worth a visit, as is the small payment to take photos around the area.
The Anglican church just down the road and a little closer to the beach is not too historic although the sign above the door, proudly states that ‘Through this door David Livingstone passed'. Which is true – but the door nor the church were there when that happened – the door being shipped from the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1974!
The old Arab fort on the beach front in the heart of the town has had a chequered history from Arab fort in 1856 to slave dungeon (when slaves were held here prior to shipment to Zanzibar), to German military camp to a British prison (after WW1), customs office and police HQ and now finally is the base for the government's antiquities unit.
We stayed at the Travellers Lodge which is located on the beach on the north side of town. Quite a nice lodge really with some very pleasant accommodation. Camping is on the flat lawn with some sparse shade, where we had access to a cold shower and flush toilets.
Headed off from Bagamoyo and found our way out onto the main road west and the road to Msata, which had turned to rough well-used dirt before we left the outskirts of the town. The road crosses the Ruvu River about 10km from town, the wide floodplain with its many channels being heavily planted for rice and other crops. The road remaining pretty slow for the first 30km then improved and we cruised along what was a good dirt road to Msata , a rough sprawling village on the highway where we turned north.
Got stopped a few times at police checkpoints and then got a speeding fine (TSh20,000) for passing thru a pedestrian crossing at 57kph where the limit was 30! Most locals and buses went through at much faster speed but were waved on or given a warning!!!!
At Segera we veered left to Arusha and then at Korogwe, where we found a spot to camp, we called it quits for the day as it was after 3pm. This is a small town at the base of the mountains, located at about 1100'. The White Parrot Motel (GPS 5°09”50”S 38°27'27”E), has camping and accommodation with the camping facilities still to be finished. Cost was TSh5000/person/night. Good showers and toilets will one day work (only the toilets worked with a bucket) while a bar, restaurant and fuel servo does a thriving trade with the passing traffic.
To Kili and Lake Manyara
Next day was a pleasant drive through a near continuous line of farm land. The road skirts the western edge of the Usambara and the South Pare Mountains, the peaks rearing up from the relatively flat land just to our east. These are one of the great unknown regions of Tanzania by all accounts and are very spectacular. To our west the land dipped slightly away and swept away almost unhindered except for a couple of island-like peaks, to the horizon. It was a really enjoyable drive – except for the bloody kamikaze buses which threatened to run you off the road (or worse) at every opportunity!
The big cash crop through here is sisal, which is grown on huge estates, the lines of sisal marching away in long columns over hill and dale. These estates were once much bigger and some areas off sisal have been let go but even so this is by far the most we have ever seen. Also lots of corn being grown as well as coconuts, jack fruit and more.
As we approached the flanks of Kilimanjaro the road began to climb slowly and the country became lush with the concentrated plantings of many crops. This is a very rich area and grows near everything from tomatoes to corn to sunflowers and melons and everything in between. That makes the people pretty well off and we could see a definite improvement in the school kid's uniforms, etc, etc.
Found our way thru the small village of Marungu, turning left up the hill (really the lower flank of Kilimanjaro) but not before being crowded by the large number of touts and guides (how do you tell the difference?) to the Kibo Hotel ((GPS 3°17”10”S 37°31'01”E). Checked in and got shown to our campsite – a pleasant flat grassy area in the hotel's enclosed gardens. This is the old German hotel and reeks with character, memorabilia, and the passing parade of expeditions that have come before us to climb Kili – including USA President Carter in 1988! It was quite cool and the mist was quite thick - the hotel being situated at 1420 metres (4700 feet) on the edge of Mt Kilimanjaro NP and set on the well vegetated slopes of the mountain with many shady moss covered trees around the hotel and camp. Forget about seeing the mountain – the best time of the year to do that is in August-September by all accounts – we only ever saw its lower flanks and had to buy a postcard to see what the ‘classic' shot of it looks like!
We braved the crowded frantic crowds and terrifying traffic of Arusha before heading to the crowded sanctuary of the Meserani Snake Park (GPS 3°24'35”S 36°29'00”E), found at the western end of the small village of Meserani, tucked in behind the more obvious fuel servo, about 20km west of Arusha. This camp (camping is free – entry to the snake park is TSh5000 per person/day) is bloody popular and we met up again with the 2007 Cape to London group and the Serengeti mob, as well as sharing the camp with about 5 overland trucks. There's toilets and hot (?) showers along with a few shelter sheds which had been taken over by the trucks.
The camp is run by ‘BJ' and ‘Ma', two ex South Africans (really Rhodesians, I think I was told) who have been there 15 or so years. He was a vet and set up the snake park back then – they produce serum by what the guidebooks say, but not by what our young guide indicated next morning when we took a look around. There's a rustic bar adorned with all sorts of t-shirts, footy jumpers and even a Collingwood footy club scarf, as well as photos of parties and hunters with their trophies. The beer is cold and as BJ said, “It looks so innocent during the day but at night this little bar can turn into a wild place!” It's a top spot to stop.
The Snake Park too is quite good really with lots of different snakes including some bloody big pythons (the biggest from South America) as well as some dangerous black mambas. Also had crocs (Africa does have two species of crocs – the common Nile Croc - like our 'saltie' - and a slender nose croc similar in may ways to our 'freshie') along with a few tortoise and monitor lizards.
We got to the village of Mto wa Mbu which lies at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment and close to the northern end of Lake Manyara. Checked out the Panorama Safari Camp (GPS 3°22'47”S 35°49'20”E) on the rim of the escarpment, but unless you take one of their tents you are well back from the edge and the view, with the camping on sparse grass with a lot of rock to contend with.
The area immediately to the south of the town and bordering the park (on the west) and the lake further south is heavily cultivated and cut mainly into rice paddies. The town is lined with stalls and shops as well as a Maasai Cultural market. There is a host of safari operations around here as well as a number of guest houses of all tastes and prices.
We ended up stopping at the Twiga Campsite and Lodge (GPS 3°22'28”S 35°51'55”E), which is just on the eastern side of town, away from most of the goings on in the busy little place. Located behind a substantial stone wall there is a bar, restaurant, a nice pool and a number of S/C lodges. The camping area (tents can go on the lawn, vehicles can't) is fairly large while a number of shelters cater for the overland trucks as a place for a kitchen. Toilet and showers (electric hot water heads again), a fair amount of shade and a small souvenir shop make this a pretty reasonable spot to stop.
Lake Manyara NP is only a small park and is often overshadowed by the more famous Ngorongoro and Serengeti parks a short distance further west. Entry is US$35/person/24 hours plus US$40 for a foreign registered vehicle. We paid our money and went into the park, which is quite heavily forested along the bottom of the escarpment and is even more so along the many streams that flow down from the hills. This is delightful forest with many different big tall and shady trees. Quite quickly the forest changes, in parts the understorey is near bare earth and as it dries away from the river or stream, you end up in fever tree forest dotted with big palms and other dense scrub. Then the trees thin and you come out suddenly onto the flat grassy floodplain that in places is about 1km wide, in others just a 100 metres or so.
We headed down to the Hippo Pool where a small stream flows into the lake. As the name suggests, the pool is popular with hippos and there were dozens in and around the pool, many on the banks sunbaking while others lounged in the water. Lot of birds around including some small flocks of pelicans resting along the shore.
A group of giraffe on the edge of the plain were behaving differently and when Viv put the binos on them she saw two lioness were circling the giraffe. We watched the goings on for a half hour or more and by then there was about 6-8 vehicles watching the antics. There were three other lions – all females, one a particularly big one - under a bush right beside the forest on the edge of the plains. They showed a token of interest in what the other two lioness were doing but after about half an hour the giraffes seemed to have won the day with the lions heading off to join their mates under the trees.
Later we came upon a couple of vehicles to discover a leopard in a tree with a kill. With all the shunting and carrying on to get a viewpoint I never even got a pic, but at least we saw him. He was the first of three we saw in this park during this game drive and another drive next morning.
And while the leopard was great ….
Moving on we soon came on another group of vehicles and a couple of lioness just off the road. Hardly had we began to watch them when we realized that there was one lioness in a tree about 5 metres off the ground. From where we first saw her, she looked very uncomfortable but when we got a better view of her, she was sprawled along a branch, every now and again moving to get comfortable. We watched her – one of the famous Manyara tree climbing lions (the only place in Africa where they are known to do it – not true we discovered later!) for a half hour or so before moving on.
What a game drive! Lions harassing giraffe, a leopard in a tree with a kill and then even rarer than a leopard, a tree climbing lion in a tree!
But the excitement didn't stop there. That night, sometime after midnight the guards caught someone in the camp and with much blowing of whistles, yelling and arguing they proceeded to belt the crapper out of him. The whole hubbub went on for 30-40 minutes when serenity returned. A few patches of blood and a hole in the fence was all that was testimony to all the goings on next morning! Justice African style!!!!
Ngorongoro Crater
Late that same day we entered the national park surrounding the famous Ngorongoro Crater. I once, about 16 years ago, wrote an article about this place – ‘One day in Africa' , which extolled the crater's unbelievable wildlife with the thought that if you had only one day to experience Africa and its magnificent animal life then this was the place … I wondered what the difference of 16 years and a bit more travel in this marvelous continent would make?
The carpark at the entrance gate was absolute bedlam (one tour group alone was 40 vehicles!), but we paid our money (US$660 for the four of us to camp for two nights and to take one vehicle down into the crater for one day – prices were due to rise – some double - on July 1st !).
We headed off along the road, now dirt, although reasonably maintained dirt, and climbed steeply to the crater's rim. We were amongst cloud and mist as we cruised along the crater's rim and only occasionally did we get the chance to see into the crater and then it was a cloud-shrouded affair with no clear views. Many of the tall old trees were hung with moss and lichen. We topped out at 2365metres (7800 feet) where we descended slightly as we drove along the edge, passing a few buildings and resorts before coming to the turn off to our camp.
The ‘Simba A' public camp site (GPS 3°13'35”S 35°29'26”E) is a fairly large site and sits on the edge of the crater's rim in a fairly exposed spot clear of all but a couple of very big old trees. It's grassy though with basic toilet and showers plus a couple of communal shelters for a kitchen/dining areas. A group of zebra called the grassy area home and we had to nearly push them out of the way to set up camp and later we were visited by a big bull elephant and a couple of buffalo and then bush pigs – all in the camping area. Needless to say we knew what else could walk into camp, so any thought of a long ‘nature walk' at night was out of the question!
Our day in the crater started with a slow drive along the crater rim, the mist restricting visibility to less than 10 metres and we touched 2450 metres before getting to the descent road into the crater proper where we were below the thick cloud.
First up was a group of lions on a kill with some cheeky jackals dancing around them waiting for a chance to nip in and grab a piece of anything on offer.
Then there was a pair of cheetah (the first of the trip – yee haaah!) trying to sneak up on some Tommy gazelles. After watching them they gave an attempt but it was doomed to failure and they gave up quickly. We had a large amount of vehicles lining the road - at least 20 - (typical of the crater these days) who wanted to follow the cheetah after the abortive attempt – some were lucky enough to get a close up view of these beautiful predators but most missed out. We had already decided that was all too much and headed off on our own – or as much as ‘on your own' can be in the Crater.
Headed over towards the Hippo Pool along the north side of the lake which was at it Wet Season level. There were lots of wildebeest and zebra around where a major stream came in from the north and had flooded out across the lake's floodplain. The grass was greener and the animals obviously loved it.
A lone cheetah was upsetting a large group of zebra and wildebeest as he wandered along the edge of the road passing the convoy of tourist vehicles that had stopped to watch him. He crossed the road and headed over to the edge of the river where he stopped to peruse the scene from on top of a mound. He didn't do much else so we left him to his devices and headed off for lunch.
Lunch was at a nice spot … with at least 60 other vehicles!! Then, to rub salt into the wound, we got conned for some fuel from a driver with Bobby Safaris, whose vehicle had supposedly run out of fuel. While he promised to return the fuel that evening at the camp, we never saw him again. Geez, I expect that sort of behaviour from street touts, not from a driver of a large safari tour company! I guess you live and learn.
In the afternoon apart from the myriads of zebra and wildebeest as well as Thomson and Grant gazelles, we also found a few jackal and spotted hyena along with a lazy pride of lions sleeping off their dinner from the night before – typical lion behaviour!
We headed back to camp after a great day's game viewing in the Crater, but there is no doubt that the experience is marred by the sheer number of vehicles that cruise the place each day. And the tracks were so dusty!! We weren't even in peak time – the planned price rises are trying to limit the flood of tourists that invade this great place, but we will see.
Would we do it again?
In a word … No!
Maybe if we had never been, we would, but not now.
The Serengeti - Super Superlatives are not enough!
After heading west on a corrugated road we went thru' the formalities of checking out of the NCCA and into the Serengeti National Park - for the 4 of us to spend 2 nights camping the total bill was US$800! And it seems some of those prices will go up soon.
Once again the local rangers at the gate changed their attitude once we told them we were ‘Australian' and not ‘South African'! They seem to accept the SAs, but don't like them too much – once you identify yourself as some other form of ‘white fella' you are greeted with open arms and many smiles!!!
The surrounding plains is where the wildebeest give birth to their young during the Wet and once the rains have finished the ‘short grass plains' dry out pretty quickly and the wildebeest and the zebra begin the migration north in about May-June. These grassy plains are home to a huge population of Tommy and Grant gazelles – the Tommy's numbering in the 10's of thousands!
We found 2 big male lions under a tree about a 100 metres off the road and we had them to ourselves. Still like lions do during the day, they didn't do anything. Later, Viv was very sharp-eyed to pick up two lioness laying on a low tree branch (more tree climbing lions!) across the other side of the river.
As we headed north we came across a couple of long lines of animals feeding the great migration, that was further north. These long drawn out gatherings of zebra and wildebeest are unbelievable and you can't help but marvel at them.
We began to head to our camp but spied a few vehicles off to one side so we went to check it out. Sure enough, there was a predator – in this case a leopard in a tree. He had about 7 vehicles round him when we arrived, he didn't move a muscle while we were there, and when we left there was a different dozen or so vehicles around him. Such is game viewing in most of the great African parks these days.
Headed to our camp to find ‘Dik Dik campsite' pretty full – mainly with about a dozen tents from one tourist operator. We found a small spot – amongst some trees but close to the toilets ands showers - and set up camp. It was a lot milder than being on top of the crater but it was still cool as the evening wore on.
Next morning on our game drive we came across a long line of wildebeest – thousands of animals that milled around to march off in one direction before stopping to mill and then march back the way they had just come.
While watching the animals I heard a lion call from just behind us down in the river gully. Neil checked it out and then as we were pulling in to see if we could see anything two lions – a female first and then a big male following her, walked right in front of the vehicle. Viv got very excited about her window being down……
After an hour with the lions (only one other safari vehicle joined us in that time) we headed off, finding our way along the track to the Hippo Pool. And, while it was small, it was crowded with between 80-100 or more hippos. You could stand real close to them and the noise of their breathing was something else.
We then headed off on the long drive to Lobo Camp, passing a few more long thick lines of wildebeest – great marching columns or milling masses of animals – depending whether they were striding out in a purposeful direction or feeding. Then, about 12km south of Lobo Camp, we came upon the main mob of animals – vast numbers of wildebeest and hundreds if not thousands of zebra. Caught up amongst them were other animals such as warthog and some good giraffe, but we have been surprised at the lack of elephants which have only been a handful in the whole time we've been in the park.
We did a final loop around some of the tracks nearer camp before last light, which was well worth it. We came across a lioness in a tree, a long way up, which was fantastic. Spent a little while watching her, do nothing, and then began driving, only to see another lioness sitting right beside the road – she wasn't doing much either. It was getting late by now and we were supposed to be back in camp pretty soon, so we continued on only to see another lioness in a tree, again a long way up, in the fading light, so it wasn't much good for pics. So much for the tree climbing lions of Manyara – they have them in Serengeti also it seems!!! What a great finish to our day.
Next day, when we headed for the exit gate on the western boundary of the park, we passed the western army of this great exodus to the north - tens of thousands of animals marching to some beat that drove them on to greener pastures somewhere over the horizon. It was bloody fabulous to see.
Oh yeah, we saw some lions and heaps of other animals, as well as a large group of elephants making a hell of a mess of a patch of lush riverine forest. It was a top drive across a wild Africa that is fast vanishing under the onslaught of a burgeoning human population.
Would we do the Serengeti again? You betya!
Return to main Trip diary page
The cathedral at the mission
in Bagamoyo.
The
Livingstone Tower.
There was some good
wood carving happening.
Our vehicle parked out the front of the old Kibo Hotel, we camped in the grounds at the back of the hotel. Mt Kili is somewhere in the background, behind all the cloud.
The park entrance at the base of Mt Kili - that was as far as we went, the mountain was absolutely covered in cloud.
Lake
Manyara – a couple of
lionesses stalk some giraffe.
One
of the famous tree climbing
lions of Lake Manyara NP.
Our camp site on the rim of the Crater, with our own personal friendly herd of Zebras.
Beautiful, colourful flamingoes share one of the smaller lakes with some hippos.
By late afternoon, the lions we'd seen early in the morning were just chilling out by the lake's edge.
The wide, open Serengeti plains from a giraffe's point of view.
Hippo Pool was a great place to
get close up and personal with the locals.
A lioness rests the afternoon away in a high tree branch.
