January 29

I am writing this from my comfybed at the Sopa Lodge overlooking the Ngorogoro Crater. The view from the lodgeis fantastic, but the wildlife to be seen IN the crater is even better. Wildebeest, eland, elephant, lion, hyene, cape buffalo, gazelles, flamingo - it's nothing short of inspiring.

Because I haven't had a chance to call home yet or update my blog, I called Mom and dad tonight after dinner. It was great to hear their voices, and let them know we were ok. Trent and I are both a bit homesick. It was a very expensive call, so I kept it short. Just long enough to let them know we were ok and still having fun.

I will hopefully have a chance to update the blog 2 nights from now when we get to Ndutu.

The Sopa Lodge has a cat! He's very cute and friendly, but doesn't like to be picked up. It's nice to spend some time with him. If I squint really hard, I might be able to imagine him being an 80 pound Bosco....... :)

Being at the top of the crater, we are at... over 7,000 feet? Wow!~ Calgary is what - 3,200??? Yikes, I have to get to bed. Tomorrow we leave the hotel at 07:00 for a FULL DAY in the crater. I can't wait! Trent said he'd try it, but odds are he and a few others will return to the hotel at midday. There are only 4 real "keeners" in the group, and we'll all be at the crater for the full day, for sure.

Introspection

It's funny, last time I was in Africa I was there for 3 weeks and I easily could have stayed for longer. This time it definitely feels as if we've been gone for longer than a week!

I have mosquito bites all over my legs, a tsetse fly bite on my right shoulder, haven't had power for longer than 4 hours since Mount Kenya Safari Lodge, and I'm loving every minute of it.

I'm very proud of Trent, too. He went WAY out of his comfort zone to accompany me on this trip - all because it meant so much to me to have him here with me! He is not only enjoying himself, but is learning to take things in stride. Having to hurry in the mornings just to wait for transport, being huntry at dinner but waiting patiently (or at least quietly :)) for the food... I think he has grown a little on this trip. He has always been introspective, and this trip, with our experiences, are definitely allowing him to practice that. I'm very proud of him and so glad he's here.

We talk about the AIDS orphanage we visited almost daily. Cute little Kevin, who was just getting over an illness, sitting away from the rest of the children, watching them play and do their chores. I don't remember if I've written this before or not, so please bear with me if I have!

I sat down beside Kevin to watch the kids do their chores... I tried to talk to him, but he didn't seem interested and I thought he wanted to be alone. But when I got up to leave him alone, he reached out for my finger and held strong. Annnnnnd I was in love :) So, we sat beside each other for a while, with my arm over his shoulder, and him slowly melting into me for a hug. He eventually ended up on my lap, and we stayed that way for quite some time. After Trent was finished taking pictures of all the children (they LOVED seeing themselves in the digital camera!), he sat down beside us, and showed Kevin his Ipod. He seemed interested, so Trent put one ear-phone in his ear, and the other in Kevins, and turned on the music. Well! THERE was the smile!!! We didn't know for sure if he was enjoying the music (all types of music), but I saw him tapping his foot. He started to cry when we were told we had to leave, but one of the very loving volunteers picked him up and he stopped.

Such a cutie, I don't think I'll ever forget him. Just like Sophie, a child with AIDS I met at a school in Swaziland 2 years ago.... she's still with me too.

What we've seen so far of Tanzania is SO different from Kenya. What few sources of water Kenya had were very shallow. We had just missed the rainy season, and they did get a lot of rain this year. Les said he didn't remember when he saw the grass as long as it was!

There were a LOT of elephant, again more than Les had seen at Samburu previously. We didn't seen any lion, but we did see leopard on 2 occasions. The Samburu people were very smiley, friendly, happy, and loved to banter! The staff at the Intrepids lodge were fantastic. They loved the books, tshirts and pens we gave them when we left.

Contrast the dryness of Kenya with what we see today and it's hard to believe we're only 1 country away! We are in the Ngor4ogoro Highlands. To get here we flew on 3 small planes and drove for a couple hours - some of that time on nicely paved roads! What a pleasant surprise! We got to Lake Manyara and in the distance saw hundreds of flamingos! We haven't gotten near enough to take pictures yet, but they're there!

I have seen elephant every day I've been in Africa. THAT is a treat.

I started to feel queazy a couple of times on the trip, but a dose of "Cipro" antibiotic seemed to clear whatever it was so I haven't missed any activities but the cultural village. But I think I missed the cultural village tour more because of introverted-ness (?). I noticed I was geting more and more quiet when the group was together - those darned extroverts, stealing my energy! So, Trent and I both took the afternoon off to be introverts and recharge. He went to the room to watch a movie on my IPod, and I am catching up on blog entries by the pool. For when I am able to find a computer that works!

I am hoping the place we stay tomorrow (The Sopa) has internet access - I'm looking forward to updating everyone on our activities! I miss everyone and hope you are all doing well. We'll be home soon!

January 28 - continued

I'm back! Amazing, it's 9:30 in the morning, and the lodge has power! The last few places we've been have turned their generators off for midday, only starting them again at 6:00pm.

You can imagine how that was making technology-crazed Trent feel, we couldn't re-charge our ipods! (OR the camera, which I felt had a little more importance.... :))

So, back to January 28th, at Lake Manyara. We had a nice dinner last night, but so far we haven't had typical african choices, which I kind of was looking forward to. They took so much time in between the courses, though, that Trent and I walked away before we got dessert! We were just so tired, we couldn't stay awake any longer. It's amazing how exhausted one feels, when all we're doing is driving around!

Okay, so we're back at Lake Manyara. We heard that the power was turned off at 10pm, so we wanted to get back to our room before that happened. As it turns out, the power is turned off at 11:00pm, and back on at 6:00am. Off at 11:00am, and on at 6:00pm. So, we really only have 10 hours of electricity. NOrmally we wouldn't mind, but the camera is getting frighteningly low on juice!

Our lodging at Lake Manyara looks like something out of a National Geographic travel magazine. Individual huts, with grassthatch roof. Screened windows, but they're always open. A view from our patio to die for! It reminds me so much of the Drakensberg Mountain Range in South Africa..... all we see in the Ngorogoro highlands are green, lush rolling hills, vegetation, and hundreds of species of birds.

Trent and I went to the pool this afternoon. It overlooks a small lake (NOT lake Manyarra), thousands of banana trees, and many families of monkey! We can hear them screaming at each other.

I just got bit(ten??) by a Tsetse fly. OW, dangit, it made me bleed. Les seems to think I'll live, he's been bitten by them before.

Some of our group is just leaving for a cultural tour of a nearby village. I'm feeling a little queazy today, so felt it more important to stay near home base. Trent is very comfortable lying by the pool listening to his IPod.

It feels as though we've been gone for more than just a week... we've done so many things, each day is so full. We're exhausted by 8:30 at night!!

We have 6 more days in Tanzania, and then it's back to the real world. I don't know how that is going to go :) Trent is enjoying himself more than he thought he would, but he does tend to get antsy after a couple of hours watching wildlife. Good thing for Ipod - I should write Macintosh a Thank you!!

I am having a fantastic time. Im taking lots of great pictures, and am constantly astonished at how much Les knows - about anything! If this is what all Civilized Adventure guides are supposed to be like, I'm worried. But, he has been doing this for 10 years, so I should cut myself some slack. I have lots of reading to do to catch up! :)

Today, we were told AFTER we took some pictures of Maasai that they don't like their picture to be taken without permission - and compensation - oops. So that's why they looked so ticked off. Les says they're very tourist-saavy and want $$ for photos.

It feels good to be alone at the pool, with the rest of our group having gone on the cultural tour. With both Trent and I being introverts, it feels nice to finally be alone and recharge. The view is just too breathtaking NOT to take advantage of, so I don't think I'll go to our room anytime soon.


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OH! I forgot to mention something about Samburu! On our last morning at Samburu Intrepids, the monkeys seemed to be more active than usual. They were following our "wake-up call" guy (named Moses) who had cookies and hot chocolate. A family of vervet monkeys camped outon our porch - male, ffemale, young, and a brand new baby. I poked my head out of the tent to take pictures, and the darn female with the brand new baby made a run for the tent! You know, that little hole in the zipper with my head sticking through it???

I squealed and quickly held the "door" shut, I didn't want to risk taking one hand away to use the zipper. She was still trying to get in at this point! I screamed again, she ran away far enough for me to use the zipper. I thought we were safe then, so I went about getting ready to depart. A few minutes later I hear her playing with the zipper from the outside! I yelled at her, and Trent had to put the coffee table on the zipper ties so she wouldn't actually get in. Little twerp!

We were told when we checked in that whenever we left our tent for any reason, we had to remember to (1) close the zipper all the way ("close the zipper"? Hey, I'm Ukrainian....); (2) Tie the 3 zippers together in a double knot; (3) put the floor mat on top of the knotted, zipped up zipper; (4) put the coffee table outside on the deck, on top of the floor mat.

Otherwise, you'd come home after a long and hard day in your comfy safari trucks to find your hut ransacked by furry vandals.

.............

January 28

The lodge doesn't have internet access, and it costs $15/minute USD to use the phone! So, I hope mom and dad and Bosco are ok, as we haven't been able to call OR email since that very first Blog Entry!

..... I'm going to have to edit this entry tomorrow, I'm getting kicked out of the internet room. We wil be back to continue the journey!!! (we already skipped our supper to update you on events thus far!).

Parting words: We're having a great time, the bugs aren't bad at all, and we're seeing A TON of wildlife. We miss home and can't wait to see you all, but we're having fun until we have to go :)

January 27

Yesterday, Trent and I had our camel ride! It was about 30 minutes for $15 each. Some Samburu tribesmen bought 2 ornery camels to Samburu Intrepids camp for the visitors, and only people from our group wanted to try! Trent and I were on the second run... they took us over the river (which we later found out was crocodile infested!), then toward their village. They asked Trent and I if we wanted to see their village, but we had to get back for the game drive. I would have loved to see it!!!

The camel ride was really fun. Quite comfortable, once I got used to it, but not the most graceful animals to get on and off of!!

On the game drive we didn't see very much except a waterbuck, impala, a whole lot of birds and a large family of elephants. We were rushed, though, because of the time we took for th ecamel ride. Steven, our guide, took us up to a viewpoint where we took pictures and saw the mountain the Samburu people pray to God. We had to rush back to get through the gates by 6 pm, or else we would be locked out to spend the night in the bush!!

Last night we listened to a talk on Samburu culture. Matthew, a tribesman hired by Intrepids (to slingshot monkeys away from our food!) gave the talk and allowed us to ask anything we wanted to know.

I've heard contradictory information, but Matthew said the women are no longer circumcized! Another person, Maya (at the Samburu village we visited), said they were. So manybe just not in Matthew's tribe??

When you hear about a polygamous society, you think of the definition (1 man with many wives) and I always just assumed women didn't have any control over - anything - in their society. But in talking to Matthew and a female Samburu (I forget her name), the females get together and ask their husband to marry another woman in order to have more help around the village! The women in the tribe take care of the village - they milk all the cows, so the wives (of which there is a head wife and "assistants") ask their husband to marry another woman to help with the chores! The women can also ask their husband to marry a particular woman if they know she is a hard worker. VERY interesting!!

Yesterday we thanked the manager for having such fantastic staff. Trent accidentally left about $100 USD on his bed - when we returned for the evening, it was still there, even though our beds had been turned down for the evening! We left him a thank you note, some $$, a shirt and some pens as a thank you. We also gave our Samburu camel guides a bag full of pens - all different colours, and they seemed to like them! Much more functional than Canada pins, I think!

I forgot to mention before - the camels were both male, and they seemed to pee backwards! Thought the Zoo Docents would like that :)

..............

SO here it is, January 27, and we are waiting at an airstrip for our flight to Nairobi, and then to Kilimanjaro. It was supposed to be here at around 10:00, but we're learning about "African Minutes" - it's now 11:30 and no lane.

I have a stomach ache, but I'm trying really har dNOT to use the toilet - I already almost got stung when I went to the bathroom in the toilet "hole" and woke up some wasps! DON'T LAUGH, but I raced out of that outhouse so fast I still had my pants around my ankles. I'm so glad no one was looking my way!

January 27

We awoke at 5:45 - aren't you impressed! We had a morning game drive. For the longest time we only saw birds, but they were too far away to take pictures of. We also saw dwarf mongoose who had taken over an abandoned termite mound, then we saw a large herd of elephant! So many babies, it was great to see. Some adolescents mock charged our van - it was great! 3 young males were play-fighting in the distance, wand we all kept our eyes on the male in musth (hormones raging!), as he kept an eye on us.

We started heading back around 08:00 when an excited call came over the radio - someone had spotted a lion kill! We all raced toward the area. When we got there, it didn't dawn on ANY of us why we were told to exit the vehicle, and walk toward the "kill". We just did as we were told, because we figured the men with guns would protect us!

Low and behold, there was breakfast for us, spread out over a tablecloth, overlooking the river. We had men on the lookout for wildlife, and some guys with slingshots to keep the monkeys away. It was a great breakfast!

........

Right now it's 10:20 and we're waiting for a camel ride. Trent is really excited, I don't know if my stomach can do it. It's been upset the past couple of days.

.......

I'm writing this entry while sitting on the deck of our room, overlooking the river. Some Samburu people have brought their sheep to drink at the river and there seems to be many babies! We'll be back after the ride!

.......

So, we waited 30 mins and fell asleep in the lobby, but no camel ride. I guess the staff are worried, as the camels are over 30 minutes late - never happened before! So, we're going to teh pool to people-watch, and listen to thunder roll in.

It's so amazing being here - Africa is so gorgeous and so unforgiving at the same time. We've been marveling at elephant, giraffe, lion and leopard almost daily.

January 25

We awoke fo a 7:30 game drive and a trip to a local Samburu tribe. For $20 USD we got to visit the tribe, see a typical dwelling, and the school. We met Grade 1, 3, 5, and 8 students. We met a woman named Maya who has a university education and returned to the tribe. The tribe is making great strides in progress due to her influence!

Trent helped start a fire at the village, using sticks! Maya later asked me how many cows I wanted for him.....

This was one of our favourite parts of the trip so far.

Trent and I gave all our pens and pencils to the school, they seem to be hurting more than otehrs we visited because they are so isolated. I talked with 2 grade 8 boys who want to become a teacher and an engineer, but post secondary is so very expensive.

After the visit to the tribe, we hung around camp for a short while. A few of us went for a swim! Oh it felt wonderful. After the swim we went for an afternoon game drive. It was pretty tame, except we did see some new species of bird we haven't seen before, some vultures, and -

A LEOPARD!

It was lounging in a tree - I got some great photos. We also saw elephant, and a whole bunch fo giraffes. There were nearly 30 of them, and the guides said they hadn't seen that many together in a group for many years.

Tomorrow we have an early game drive planned. When we get back, around 9, T and I will have a quick breakfast - and then off for a CAMEL RIDE! We're pretty excited and have no idea what to expect.

January 24

Yesterday was a hard day of driving to get from Mount Kenya to Samburu - about 6 hours of unfriendly roads. Our driver called it an African Massage, our butts HURT!

We have 3 nights at Samburu Intrepids, I'm looking orward to actually unpacking!! I have to run for another game drive, but I'll be back.

January 23

Today we got to go for a safari on the way to a chimp sanctuary, started by Jane Goodall. Here, they have 2 families of chimps - 26 in one, 15 in the other. 9 young in the first family are new arrivals. It kills me that there is still need in the world for a chimp sanctuary, where all the babies are confiscated from people who took them from the wild/the pet trade.

We drove through the Obajeta Conservancy and saw giraffe, warthog, impala, waterbuck, zebra, helmeted guinea fowl, and the back end of an elephant. African crowned cranes, fire finches, hippo, ibis, cape buffalo, crowned plover, and a black rhino.

I can't really say the black rhino was "out in the wild", as he's relatively tame. 33 years of tourists posing with him - it was odd, and seeing as he was laying down when we posed for pictures with him, it looks..... well, it looks like we're posing with a dead rhino! He lives with armed guards, 24/7/365.

Back to the trucks for the ride home for lunch. It was such a wonderful place, we had a marabou stork begging for food just a couple feet from us (Trent shoo'd him away), and black and white colobus monkeys in the tree!

A brief interruption with the ipod I got for christmas - Trent also bought me a camera converter, so I could upload my photos from my digital camera to the ipod. It wouldn't work! I've already taken 2-512 MB cards and I'm about 15% through the 2 GB card - which is... I don't know, almost 1000 pictures?!?! Can we say camera happy??

There is a talk on the bush meat trade tonight by a friend of Les'. I don't want to go, considering the information will probably give me nightmares for a while, but I think I should.

Hello, all! This is the first time we've had internet access through the whole trip, so what I'm going to do is try to update you day by day....... we're having a great time!