Mwanza
The Serengeti is one of the most famous natural tourist sites in the world. It was a target on our list for this trip from the beginning, and we were not disappointed. But before we saw the animals we needed to arrange the trip.
We arrived in Mwanza on Thursday, after a fairly grueling bus ride from Kigali. Mwanza itself is a rather nice town with a compact downtown (complete with banks and eight-story office towers). We had great weather and checked into an upscale hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria. Our only purpose, however, was to arrange a tour of the national parks with a goal to be dropped in Arusha (which is in north-central Tanzania and is the normal jumping-off point for safaris, most of which travel in the opposite direction we were taking). There are only a handful of tour operators in Mwanza, and all seem to be run by Indians (Tanzanian by nationality, they uniformly referred to Tanzanians as "they"--"They" don't have a cricket team anymore, etc). We got quotes from a few, all seemed to be roughly the same, and we ended up choosing one rather arbitrarily.
The cost is not arbitrary. The basic costs work out to $50 per person per day in the parks, $200 per vehicle in the Ngorogoro Crater, something like $80 per person per night to stay in the cheapest lodges, and approximately $200 per day for a vehicle and driver. Because we were alone, and travelling the odd Mwanza-Arusha route, we ended up eating the full cost of the vehicle.
How to pay? "Cash dollars, cash pounds, cash euros, or cash shillings," our operator explained. I must have looked puzzled, "Do you have another currency?" Circling back to my earlier posting on cash, none of the operators accept credit cards. Which is bullshit, because the fancy $100 hotel accepted credit cards; why can't a $2,000-per-trip tour operator accept them? The answer was soon clear. "I'll accept shillings at 1480 per dollar." The ATM was giving them to us at 1405 per dollar, so the guy stood to make over $100 on the exchange rate. Still we had no choice. Nine visits to four ATMs later we had three hundred (THREE HUNDRED) 10,000-shilling notes stuffed into every pocket and zippable item we have with us, walked over to the tour operators and plunked them on his table. "The driver will pick you up 9 AM tomorrow."
Day 1 - Mbalageti River Lodge
We had won one point in the bargaining, a night at the very fancy Mbalageti River Lodge in the Western region of the park. The place seems to be frequented by up-market tours arranged from abroad, and of the roughly 100 guests pretty much all seemed to be American. And most were senior citizens (or college kids, visiting with their grandparents). The Western section is not heavily populated with animals this time of year and contains a lot of woodland; the highlight of Day 1 was probably viewing a lone female lion resting under a tree. And the fact that we survived the biting flies. Horrible buggers, they bite through shirts and, unlike a mosquito bite that you typically don't feel, this pair of tiny teeth jamming into your arm and looking down and seeing a black fly on your shirt having his lunch. Not good.
The Serengeti is one of the most famous natural tourist sites in the world. It was a target on our list for this trip from the beginning, and we were not disappointed. But before we saw the animals we needed to arrange the trip.
We arrived in Mwanza on Thursday, after a fairly grueling bus ride from Kigali. Mwanza itself is a rather nice town with a compact downtown (complete with banks and eight-story office towers). We had great weather and checked into an upscale hotel on the shore of Lake Victoria. Our only purpose, however, was to arrange a tour of the national parks with a goal to be dropped in Arusha (which is in north-central Tanzania and is the normal jumping-off point for safaris, most of which travel in the opposite direction we were taking). There are only a handful of tour operators in Mwanza, and all seem to be run by Indians (Tanzanian by nationality, they uniformly referred to Tanzanians as "they"--"They" don't have a cricket team anymore, etc). We got quotes from a few, all seemed to be roughly the same, and we ended up choosing one rather arbitrarily.
The cost is not arbitrary. The basic costs work out to $50 per person per day in the parks, $200 per vehicle in the Ngorogoro Crater, something like $80 per person per night to stay in the cheapest lodges, and approximately $200 per day for a vehicle and driver. Because we were alone, and travelling the odd Mwanza-Arusha route, we ended up eating the full cost of the vehicle.
How to pay? "Cash dollars, cash pounds, cash euros, or cash shillings," our operator explained. I must have looked puzzled, "Do you have another currency?" Circling back to my earlier posting on cash, none of the operators accept credit cards. Which is bullshit, because the fancy $100 hotel accepted credit cards; why can't a $2,000-per-trip tour operator accept them? The answer was soon clear. "I'll accept shillings at 1480 per dollar." The ATM was giving them to us at 1405 per dollar, so the guy stood to make over $100 on the exchange rate. Still we had no choice. Nine visits to four ATMs later we had three hundred (THREE HUNDRED) 10,000-shilling notes stuffed into every pocket and zippable item we have with us, walked over to the tour operators and plunked them on his table. "The driver will pick you up 9 AM tomorrow."
Day 1 - Mbalageti River Lodge
We had won one point in the bargaining, a night at the very fancy Mbalageti River Lodge in the Western region of the park. The place seems to be frequented by up-market tours arranged from abroad, and of the roughly 100 guests pretty much all seemed to be American. And most were senior citizens (or college kids, visiting with their grandparents). The Western section is not heavily populated with animals this time of year and contains a lot of woodland; the highlight of Day 1 was probably viewing a lone female lion resting under a tree. And the fact that we survived the biting flies. Horrible buggers, they bite through shirts and, unlike a mosquito bite that you typically don't feel, this pair of tiny teeth jamming into your arm and looking down and seeing a black fly on your shirt having his lunch. Not good.
Day 2 - Seronera
The second day was our full day in the Serengeti Park. We drove east, toward the center of the park and the main plain, and our luck improved as the day went on. Very early on we found some elephants just on the side of the road, and we spent a good thirty minutes watching them eat and drink and scratch themselves on trees. Shortly thereafter, Ken, our driver, spotted a leopard sitting in a tree not far from the road. One of the quirks of wildlife viewing is that a stopped vehicle draws a lot of attention, and we were soon joined by a half-dozen vehicles angling to see the rather-comatose leopard. Still it was exciting.
After a short lunch we were back on the road, and finally in the part of the park that is in everyone's imagination. Vast grasslands broken up only by the occasional tree, we finally found some wildebeest. This is the end of the rainy season, and the time in which the wildebeest begin the migration north. The group we found numbered a few thousand, probably, nothing like the million or so that will cross the Mara River in the far north in late June. Still, the site of all those animals was pretty impressive.
Late in the day we found another leopard, or perhaps the same one, walking in the grass. Becca caught a video of him climbing a tree at the end, which we will try to post.
Day 3 - Ngorogoro Crater
After a night in Seronera, in the central Serengeti (during which we were awoken by a hippo eating grass about ten feet from our open window), we headed south to the Ngorogoro Crater, passing the Oldupai Gorge on the way.
If you've never been to East Africa you may not have heard of the Crater, if you have been it may be your favorite memory. An actual volcanic crater, it is filled with wildlife. Within a few minutes of entering we saw the usual zebras and wildebeest and springbok, but also hyenas and some sleeping lions. After an hour of driving, we spied two cheetahs in the distance. I have never seen cheetahs before, but they are pretty impressive critters, longer and thinner than leopards but still powerful. Six vehicles jockeyed for position to watch them loping along, and it soon became clear they were hunting. Thirty minutes later, they were crouched in the grass watching some springbok when one sprung--three seconds later it was over in failure.
Before reaching the Crater we stopped at the Oldupai Gorge Museum, which details the discover of two hominids in the Gorge as well as the 3.6 million-year-old hominid footprints (at Laetuli, 25 km to the south of the museum).
We spent the night at the spectacular Ngorogoro Crater Wildlife Lodge, perched on the rim. Unfortunately it was foggy the next morning, so our awed viewing was limited to the evening.
Day 4 - Manyara
After leaving the Crater, we made our way to Lake Manyara, which sits in the Rift Valley. After the other two parks the lake was a bit underwhelming, but we did see a number of giraffes and buffalo, and the place is dotted with baobab trees (which probably deserve their own post, or at least a link to wikipedia).
During the trip I kept asking Becca what her favorite was. First it was elephants (elephants yes, hippos an emphatic NO), then it was tree-climbing leopards, then gazelle-chasing cheetahs. I suppose if we'd seen baboons fighting lions then baboons could have topped the chart. Still, those three seconds of the cheetah chase were as exhilarating as it gets and we all caught our breaths at the spectacle.
Day 5 - Arusha
We ended the trip in Arusha and checked into the Catholic guesthouse (save a few bucks, and it's very clean and quiet). The plan is to head next to Zanzibar, but there are a couple of long travel days ahead before we can get there.
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