Tying up loose ends...

It has been over 2 weeks since my last post, & I'm not quite sure where the time has gone... We spent the first week after getting back from Africa working on Will's house, getting it in a fit state to put on the market. We listed it last Thursday, & all our long hours of hard work paid off because there was a lot of interest in it. This culminated in Will accepting a very good offer on Wednesday. It is a first time buyer so not part of any chain which is good. Fingers crossed that she will get the finance she needs & everything goes smoothly...

Saturday night was our leaving party, & it ended up being a great bash with a really good turn-out. We started at 4pm, & finished at 4:30am, so it wasn't a bad send-off! Ric was kind enough to host it at his place, & he did a great job of manning the BBQ for hours on end. Big thanks to people like Renee & Jeremy, & Goody & Emma who travelled a fair way to make it.

Will & I spent Tuesday in London. We don't get in there that often, but thought that we really should take advantage of one of the world's most exciting cities being only an hour away! We had a lovely time exploring the National Gallery & the National Portrait Gallery. We then headed to Camden Town for lunch & a wander around the markets. When we got back we headed out Oxford way to say our final farewell to Will's brother & his family. This was followed by dinner with Will's parents. We made it back to our temporary home at Claire & Mike's at around 11pm, happy but exhausted after a busy day.

On Wednesday I had afternoon tea with Karen, who is one of my rugby friends. She lives on a boat in the marina that is quite close to Reading city centre. I've been wanting to visit her boat for ages, so am glad that I got a chance to before I left. We then went on to my last ever Reading Ladies rugby training. Actually it is likely to be my last ever rugby training full stop as I'm not planning on playing when I'm back in NZ. It was quite sad saying goodbye to all the girls. They have been a big part of my life over the last 6 years.

The rest of our time has been spent tying up loose ends, doing things like cancelling utilities & streamlining bank accounts etc. We fly on Wednesday, & Will is a bit stressed about how much he still has to do between now & then! We're also a bit concerned about how we are going to fit all our remaining stuff into the 2 bags we are each allowed... We have ordered a couple of tea-chest boxes which arrived today, & will be picked up on Tuesday to ship back to NZ. That should ease the load a bit, especially as they are done on volume & not weight, so we can put heavy stuff like some of Will's academic books in them.

It's pretty strange to think that in less than a week I will be home...

Zanzibar!

We left Arusha at the crack of dawn for the 6am bus to Dar Es Salaam. We had to catch the last ferry of the day to Zanzibar which left at 4pm. Thanks to a modern bus & a driver with a heavy foot, we made it with about 20 minutes to spare! We had 2 nights in Stone Town, staying at the Clove hotel (www.zanzibarhotel.nl) which was brilliantly located & had a cool roof-top terrace. Stone Town is a great place to explore with its narrow cobbled alleyways. It is also a shoppers paradise (much to Rich's despair...) with streets full of craft & souvenir shops. After great food & even better shopping, we were ready to hit the beach!Our beach of choice was Bwenjuu on the east coast of the island. It is known as one of the quieter beaches on the island, & it certainly lived up to its reputation -in a good way that is. We were staying at Mustapha's Nest which is a cool little place just across the road from the beach, run by a bunch of rastas who would be vertical if they were any more laid-back! We had a little ensuite cottage each, & the decor was interesting to say the least! Rich & Rach were staying in 'Jacuzze' whereas Will & I had 'Swiss banda' which you can see at the back of the above photo. It was all a bit mad; our place had bright murals painted on the walls, eccentric tiling in the bathroom (as if they had asked for one of each tile in the shop, broke them all up a bit, then made pretty patterns), & half a coconut shell for a shower head. To sum it up, I loved it! The staff were unbelievably friendly & obliging, & the fresh sea food on the menu was sublime. One of the menu options was 'meal of your choice'!
If you had to describe the quintessential tropical island beach, then this would be it. Fine white sand, coconut palms swaying in the breeze, blue skies, & the most amazing turquoise water. Will was rather partial to the fresh coconut milk. When he asked the staff at Mustapha's if there were any coconuts about, one of the staff got out an old rickety ladder, climbed up one of the palms, selected a coconut & lopped the top off for him.

We managed to spend our days lazing on the beach & swimming in the warm waters. One day the four of us hired bikes & snorkeling gear, & cycled 40 minutes along the beach to the lagoon. Once here we negotiated a favourable rate for one of the local fishermen to take us out to the reef in his dhow. We spent a brilliant couple of hours snorkeling the reef. It was Will's first time snorkeling, & he was amazed by all the brightly coloured tropical fish we could see.


The above pic isn't the greatest; for a start, I'm not even looking at the camera. However I've included it because I think my husband looks very cute in it, & it's my blog so I can do what I want!

We couldn't believe how quiet the place was, at times it felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves. However at low tide it become a hive of activity with locals eeking out a living from farming & harvesting seaweed. Apparently they sell it to Japan for use in the cosmetic industry. You wouldn't think it was the same beach at low tide, you could just about walk out to the reef.

Rich & Rach had 4 nights at Mustapha's, then left to get the ferry back to Dar, from where they were flying back to NZ. Will & I had 1 extra night at the beach, then an extra night in Stone town. In Stone town we got the last of our shopping done, including a couple of pictures by an artist we liked called 'Matala'. We had already bought one of his Tingatinga style pictures, then we returned to buy the giraffe pic below that we both liked. It just happened that Matala himself happened to be in the shop. He's the one on the left below. The tingatinga painting we bought is similar to the one you can see at the top of the pic below, but it is only 3X3 panels.

We enjoyed our final night in Stone Town, including a very nice romantic 3-course meal. It will probably be a while until I next enjoy such cheap gorgeous fresh seafood again... We were also pleased to see that the night market was back. It was a highlight of my time in Stone Town 4 years ago, & had been closed when we were there at the beginning of our Zanzibar trip as they were refurbishing the venue. It just happened that it re-opened on our last night on the island. Will was happy because he got to sample the famous Zanzibar pizza.

The next morning we caught a flight from Zanzibar to Nairobi, had about 6 hours to kill at Nairobi airport, then boarded the big bird back to Blighty, & back to the real world...

The Ngorongoro Crater

We left the Serengeti on July 28th & braved the abysmal roads once again as we returned to the Ngorongoro conservation area. Ironically enough, I have just read a 'top tip' in the travel section of the Sunday paper which recommends wearing a sports bra on safari in order to avoid undue discomfort & embarrassment! I'm not even joking!!! Our accommodation for the night was Rhino Lodge (www.ngorongoro.cc) which was very cool. It wasn't that far from the crater rim, & we had a cute little deck at the back of the room overlooking wild bush. We had a pleasant evening drinking a couple of beers & playing some cards. We played a fair amount of Texas hold 'em poker during the trip. Curto had given me a whole big bag full of British beer tops to give to the Roe's son who collects them. We soon discovered they made brilliant poker chips! We enjoyed a very nice meal that evening in a cosy dining room with a roaring open fire. The crater rim is over 3000m above sea level, & the drop in temperature was noticeable.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn. We had convinced the lodge to give us an early breakfast, & then we were off on our drive onto the crater floor. On top of the park fees you need to pay in order to enter the Ngorongoro conservation area, it's an extra US$100 for a vehicle to drive onto the crater floor, & we wanted to make the most of our time there! The crater really is an amazing place. It is about 18km in diameter, & boasts over 30 000 animals. Although to be fair, a good number of those are wildebeast & buffalo! One of the highlights was the beautiful old tusker in the photo above. He was by far the eldest of the elephants we had ever seen, & his tusks were quite incredible. It was disappointing that we never came across any of the elusive black rhino, but they estimate that there are only about 20 left in the crater, so it's not overly surprisingly. It just means that we need to count the semi-wild rhino we saw in Kenya in order to complete our 'big five'!

After we had finished in the crater it was another few hours drive back to Arusha. We got a fairly early night as we had an early start & a huge day of travel ahead of us the next day as we made our way to Zanzibar.

Serengeti National Park

The next few days in the Serengeti were awesome, we clocked up some serious hours of game driving. The nice thing about being on a private safari was that we could pretty much leave whenever we wanted in the morning, & stay out in the park for as long as we wanted, as long as we were outside the park gates by nightfall. On the second day we spent a lot of time at the hippo pool watching some very photogenic hippos, including the cutest little pink baby.

Another highlight was coming across a freshly killed zebra right near the road. It was incredible watching the lions devour it. I love the pic of the one that has got the leg in its mouth!

Keeping on the lion theme, we were also fortunate enough to see the demise of a poor little bush buck that was silly enough to run right past a waiting lion. There was an incredible crunch as it broke its neck. The lion proudly paraded it past our 4X4 before taking it deep into the bush to eat.
The lions are the stars of the Serengeti, & rightly so, but there were also plenty of other animals for our viewing pleasure...

Arriving in the Serengeti

We had a bumpy drive on terrible roads through the Ngorongoro conservation area on the way to the Serengeti NP. We had lunch at the park gate, & walked up to a viewpoint which had sweeping views over the Serengeti plains for as far as the eye could see. It also had several cute little igama lizards who posed obligingly.Our accommodation in the Serengeti was just outside the northern park gate, so we got a substantial game drive on the way to our camp. We saw our first Serengeti lions, a cheetah, & a leopard. Not bad for the first day! If you look near the bottom of the tree on the first leopard pic you can see it's dinner. Half of a poor little Thompsons Gazelle that it has killed & hauled up to finish off later.

Our base for the 3 nights was Ikoma Bush Camp (http://www.moivaro.com/pages/ikoma_bush_camp/lodge.htm). This was similar to Whistling thorn, but much more established, & on a much greater scale. They had 35 tents, compared with Whistling Thorns 6. Like Whistling thorn we got a glorious sunset from our tent veranda.

Lake Manyara National Park

On 24th July we bade a sad farewell to our Whistling Thorn camp crew. There were 10 staff working at the camp while we were there, & they did a great job of making our stay as comfortable as possible. Paul the chefs soups will be remembered for a long time! Then it was a case of loading our gear into the 4X4 & heading off to Lake Manyara.

Lake Manyara was very different to Tarangire. It was much smaller, & much more densely vegetated, making game viewing more difficult. The park is famous for its tree-climbing lions, but unfortunately they didn't come out to play while we were there... Nevertheless we still had a very enjoyable few hours game drive, with the highlight being a fantastic hippo pool.

Accommodation that night was the Bougainvillea Safari Lodge (www.bougainvillealodge.net) which was very pleasant. After a good nights sleep we were up bright & early, ready to head off to the Serengeti.