For our next safari, we decide to wait until we have a
visitor. That would be Noah, my 16 year old nephew coming in from Germany.
Although Liebi suggests a different national park, I think that nothing less
than the Crater or Serengeti would do for our guest. So we book a tour for
five days that will take us back through Ngorogoro, Serengeti and Lake Manyara
on our way back to Arusha.
Our trip will first see us take a Precision Air (with a
gazelle on its tail end) propeller plane to Kilimanjaro National Airport.
Picking us up at Kili Airport is MT (which he prefers to be called), our guide
and driver. MT has a rich experience working with nature, as he used to work as
a park ranger at numerous game parks in Tanzania. I quickly realize he has a
vast knowledge of wildlife, which is not just restricted to the tourist
favorites like the Big 5 (lions, leopards, cape buffalo, rhinos, elephants) but
also to birds and wildlife. It doesn't take long for us to find out that his
eyesight is uncanny. He can also see things that, to mere mortals, are just
specks on the horizon.
Driving through Arusha, I can see things haven't changed much. Although it's a nice town on the face of it, you need to be aware traveling through its streets, and that goes double if you're a mzungu wearing a pith helmet or floppy hat and a pair of binoculars dangling from your neck. There are a couple of dudes crossing the main road clearly bombed out of their minds. One of them has his eyes glazed over, he is looking up at something in the sky that only he can see while the cars roar past him and ruffle the natty shirt on his skinny body. Best to avoid the guy and hope one of the good citizens of Arusha can pull him out of the road.
Since President Magufuli has taken office, the police seem to be kinder and are toning it down with the corruption. Not that this doesn't still happen. Outside of Dar, especially in faraway places like Arusha, I am sure traffic stops are more frequent. People, in this case the cops, need to live it up while they can. We are not stopped once on our way to the crater. Must be a record.
On our way to the crater: the first Maasais. We will see more of them once we reach the crater, as the place is, while restricted for most people, been the stomping grounds for the Maasais and their cattle since time immemorial. Tanzania will be the last country to prevent their natives from accessing land that is theirs, or so we hope.
MT gets our papers ready inside the crater, we watch a couple of huge baboons do a song and dance for the tourists in the parking lot and are back in the Land Cruiser in no time. Luckily for us, it is not high season. This changes nothing about the wildlife or its makeup. The zebras and wildebeest will still migrate and follow the rain, while scores of them will be taken out for the predators' consumption. The advantage about the low season is a quicker turnaround of our permits with the local authorities. We are back in the Landcruiser in no time.
I refuse to pay the 100 dollars or so to visit a Maasai village, simply because it defeats the purpose. Let's be real here: what you will see then is staged for the tourists, not for the lens of a National Geographic camera. What doesn't change is that the straw huts lie there on the green slopes outside the crater, the cattle grazing in the vicinity. Just that picture alone is gorgeous, a visit of the place is as necessary as another poacher in the area.
Day one is over, day two will take us out of the crater and to the endless plains.
Driving through Arusha, I can see things haven't changed much. Although it's a nice town on the face of it, you need to be aware traveling through its streets, and that goes double if you're a mzungu wearing a pith helmet or floppy hat and a pair of binoculars dangling from your neck. There are a couple of dudes crossing the main road clearly bombed out of their minds. One of them has his eyes glazed over, he is looking up at something in the sky that only he can see while the cars roar past him and ruffle the natty shirt on his skinny body. Best to avoid the guy and hope one of the good citizens of Arusha can pull him out of the road.
Since President Magufuli has taken office, the police seem to be kinder and are toning it down with the corruption. Not that this doesn't still happen. Outside of Dar, especially in faraway places like Arusha, I am sure traffic stops are more frequent. People, in this case the cops, need to live it up while they can. We are not stopped once on our way to the crater. Must be a record.
On our way to the crater: the first Maasais. We will see more of them once we reach the crater, as the place is, while restricted for most people, been the stomping grounds for the Maasais and their cattle since time immemorial. Tanzania will be the last country to prevent their natives from accessing land that is theirs, or so we hope.
MT gets our papers ready inside the crater, we watch a couple of huge baboons do a song and dance for the tourists in the parking lot and are back in the Land Cruiser in no time. Luckily for us, it is not high season. This changes nothing about the wildlife or its makeup. The zebras and wildebeest will still migrate and follow the rain, while scores of them will be taken out for the predators' consumption. The advantage about the low season is a quicker turnaround of our permits with the local authorities. We are back in the Landcruiser in no time.
I refuse to pay the 100 dollars or so to visit a Maasai village, simply because it defeats the purpose. Let's be real here: what you will see then is staged for the tourists, not for the lens of a National Geographic camera. What doesn't change is that the straw huts lie there on the green slopes outside the crater, the cattle grazing in the vicinity. Just that picture alone is gorgeous, a visit of the place is as necessary as another poacher in the area.
Day one is over, day two will take us out of the crater and to the endless plains.
