Dubai

So we left Africa for Dubai. The flight from Zanzibar left at 3.25am, so we had a taxi pick us up at midnight for an hour ride to the airport.  Of course the flight was delayed an hour, but all was ok because we had a 6 hour layover in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. We found some lounger chairs at the airport and had a little nap during our now 5 hour layover. Lets just say I won't be jumping at the chance to take Ethiopian airlines again. The clientele were perhaps the most impatient I've ever encountered. I'm surprised people did not jump over the seats to get on and off the plane!

We arrived in Dubai and Mo's friend Matt picked us up from the airport and took us back to his apartment on the 90 something floor of the Burj Khalifa. I could definitely get used to the service you get in the world's tallest building! After six weeks in Africa, there was most certainly some culture shock. 

There are lots of US and UK chains in Dubai. Almost anything you could ask for!

We met back up with Kylie and Chantal who had arrived in Dubai the night before and spent the day at Jumeirah beach. Matt took us down to a Japanese restaurant for Kanji martinis (passion fruit flavour!) before dinner. These martinis were amazing! 

After the martinis we made our way over to Mango Tree for dinner. In front of the Burj Khalifa is this amazing fountain, it almost puts my favourite fountain (bellagio in Vegas) to shame! Every half hour from 7-11pm there is a short fountain show. We were able to catch one of Matt's favourites! Whitney Houston - I will always love you. 

At dinner we had a view of the fountains so we would run out with Matt and Jen's nearly 3 year old daughter Maddie to watch the shows from the restaurant balcony. Really, I just love fountains, but having Maddie there was a good excuse! 

Mo and Maddie 

The next day the four of us checked out the spice souk then took a boat for 1 dirham across the creek. We ate a mezze lunch and returned to the apartment so Kylie and Chantal could catch their flight. 

I napped on the great couch and Mo went for a run. I haven't had a couch nap for six weeks! I played with Maddie and then Jen's aunt and some extended family joined us for some wine at the apartment. We had really good Lebanese for dinner. And again got to see the fountain shows!

We figured out over the first two days that Matt knows everyone in Dubai. Or everyone knows Matt! 

The next morning I got up and ran at the 76th floor gym. Probably the highest off the ground I've ever worked out. Mo and I attempted Pilates but with no mats I quickly gave up.

Later, Jen drove us to the mall of the Emirates for some snow boarding. I don't think it is my forte. But i can say i've been in the largest indoor ski slope in the world! Afterward we shopped for some dresses for Bangkok, since I had no suitable clothes to go out in! We joined a ridiculous 30+ minute queue for a taxi...at the mall. I've never seen such a queue for a taxi at a mall!

We had dinner at an Aussie/south African/kiwi pub - Nezesaussi. We took home some leftovers and the pub made Matt sign a waiver form!

Our last day Jen drove us out to the Palm, by the Burj Al Arab, Jumeirah beach, and then we did a bit of shopping and errands at the Dubai mall. I also got to see my favourite site... Window washers! On the tallest building in the world! What more could I ask for!

That night we headed on our way and said goodbye to our amazing hosts to make our way to bangkok. Dubai was a great relaxing stop after the marathon camping sessions in Africa!

And the rest of Tanzania...

I thought I was doing really well with posting every few days in Africa, but then after the Serengeti I broke the second of my two charging options on my nice camera (!! Still need to work that out..) and became generally lazy about writing things down..so here is the synopsis of the rest of the time in Tanzania.

After the Serengeti we returned to the camp we stayed at on night 2 near Mto Wu Mbo.

We visited a street children's home where we had a tour, some played games with the children and there was a football game.

Mo in action at the football game.

Chantal and Kylie learning 'knuckles' which is quite similar to jacks..just with rocks and a piece of fruit!

That night we stayed in a home stay in Marangu (still camping). The next morning we took a short hike for a clear view of Kilimanjaro.

You can't tell, but Kili is in fact in the background here.

We then did a walk through the village to learn about their education program.

Learning about masonry..

Then we drove quite a while into the Usambara Mountains. We stayed 2 nights at a camp site (such a luxury to not take down the tents for one day!) where we had an unexpected dance party at their bar. We took another village walk (14kms) the next day where the highlight was the lookout point where you could jump out onto the rock for a good photo! 

We had a picnic lunch where they provided homemade rye bread, cheese, jams, and veggies.

The next morning we got up at 430am for an epic drive to Dar Es Salam. Epic means we arrived at our camp site after 4pm.. Once we got into Dar there was some pretty bad traffic, so we entertained ourselves by playing charades in the truck for about an hour and a half!

The campsite was beach side, so we jumped into the Indian Ocean upon arrival and played a game of catch with the football Mo bought at a stop along the way.

We got a photo that night with Wilson, our amazing cook!

So this was the night where it really went down hill for me. Notice in the photo my legs look semi normal, bar the one spot where I ran into a banana tree stump a few days before. That night we must've had some ants in our tent because I got absolutely attacked! More on that on a bit.

We again go up the next day at 430 to put the tents down one last time and say goodbye to our truck, driver, and cook. With all luggage with us, we got onto a short ferry, public bus, and a longer 1.5 hour ferry to Stone Town in Zanzibar. I'm not sure I can describe the level of stress is journey involved. The first ferry left no more than 6 seconds after we set foot on it, there were hoards of people, we squished onto this "bus" for a short ride and with 9 minutes before departure arrived at the ferry terminal. Note it took a half hour to push through to security and get onto the ferry. But TIA.. It was an experience.

We arrived in Stone Town and dropped our bags at the Safari Lodge and headed out for some food and a walk around. We got slightly turned around, but hey, we saw some more of Stone Town. Kylie arranged a dinner for all of us (great little planner!) and before dinner the four of us girls went out for a drink together - first time on the trip we'd done something just the four of us.

Us at 6 degrees south Zanzibar for a pre-dinner drink.

Part of the dinner we shared at The Spice House.

After dinner some people went to the night market while others went to Mercury's bar. After the bar Mo found us a local disco for some dancing!

The next day was meant to be the Spice Tour, but around 5am I woke up to over 200 crazy itchy bites all over my legs! Ouch. Took a day for those bites from Dar to really come out! So, I decided to skip the tour and Mo didn't let me make my way to the next hotel an hour away by myself. Our guide arranged on very short notice a shared taxi for us. We learned that we can pack our bags in 8 minutes, a shared taxi is not limited by the number of seats, a van can drove for over an hour on E, and in Zanzibar a car can do whatever it wants as long ad you honk 5 times first!

Either way, we made it to the sunset bungalows in the northern beaches by 10am where we'd spend the next 3 days. These were by far the nicest accommodation we stayed in on the tours. The rest of the group made it by 2pm and we spent the day on the beach and had dinner together as a group. Our tour leader was quite surprised as he said most groups disperse in Zanzibar, but we stuck together! 

Again the next day we spent time on the beach in the morning and then we did a snorkel/sunset cruise that two of the girls in our group organised with some locals. We had dinner at the restaurant and stayed at the bar that night for quite a while! There were a lot of tired faces the next day. This was the day that some people started leaving. Mo and I had the whole day there as our taxi was organised for 12am. Midnight. Ouch. 

Probably the most painful flight times ever! We took an hour taxi ride to the airport, our 325am flight was delayed an hour, a 2.5 hour flight to Ethiopia, a 5 hour layover and then a 3.5 hour flight...but we finally made it or of Africa and to Dubai!

Serengeti & Ngorongoro

We got up early to head to the Serengeti. Our big truck was left behind and we got in to 4 wheel drive jeeps. In our jeep it's Mo, Kylie, two Irish guys - Brian and John, another American - Sherilll, an English girl - Kate and our guide Leteele (later we kicked Leteele out in favour of our friend Chantal). Our driver is Herry. We went through the Ngorongoro crater first where there is a large Masai presence. They like to ask you to take a photo and then demand money. Luckily I already have my Masai photos and didn't get sucked in to that trap! We stopped for a photo at the crater view point. 

A bird decided to embellish the sign...

Grand gazelles fighting 

Leopard #2 of the day!

Ridiculous lense.

We had dinner with pumpkin soup, sausage curry and rice. Afterward we played cards and settled in to our tents. We aren't permitted to use the toilets at night without first checking for animals and then taking an entourage to the toilet with you! Luckily I slept until 5am and only had to wait until 6!

We piled back in the keep for day 2..

And happened upon a leopard (and at least 50 other jeeps) walking down the road.

In all we saw 38 lions. We took bets the first day. I was way off! I guessed 12.

This lion decided to rock up under a broken car that had 3 flat tires. Unfortunately there was one girl and a driver in the car... They couldn't see the lion and as there were 12 lions around there I'm sure they were going to be there for several hours!

Cubs!!! 

This was the closest we got the second day to seeing a live kill. 4 lionesses (and their 4 cubs) stalked a group of zebra, but walked too far away for us to see!

But that's ok. The third day as we left the Serengeti we saw our best find! Fresh leopard kill in a tree. Gross (but amazing!!) photos follow!

We then did our game drive through the Ngorongoro crater. We stopped for a toilet break as we entered the crater and managed to get rear ended by a jeep whose breaks failed (probably not a good thing as the descent into the crater is 600+ metres).

During our three day adventure we learned most people in the truck can put their toes in their mouth. One of our jeep mates who shall remain unnamed asked... Can you fly to Ireland or do you have to take a boat there? Another confirmed for us (though binocs) that we were in fact looking at a piece of wood..then the piece of wood moved. Not wood, lion. However, the tree the lion was lying under WAS in fact made of wood. We may or may not have been travelling with Miss Fitness. Some people be hurtin. People say crazy things before 8am. And I will never look at a spatula the same again. Great 3 day safari!

Arusha

We started the second part of our intrepid tour on Sunday the 13th of October. We met our tour leader, Leteele ( or Julius... Or Juli) and the 21 (!!!!!) of us were off for 14 days through Tanzania. We have the only female driver employed by intrepid, Becky. And...and...the best thing...we heard several people raving about the cook..Wilson - really looking forward to that after 8 days of pretty bad food!

To our surprise when we boarded the truck on Monday morning, the lockers are about the size of a bread box. Okay, may be a slight exaggeration, but really, these things are tiny. No one's pack fits. A school child's backpack may just fit. When we saw the lockers on the Acacia truck we could've probably jumped in them ourselves. Now I understand what my friends Matt and Jenny were saying when they went on this same trip and their packs didn't fit! We basically just emptied our packing cubes into the lockers and shoved the packs under the truck.

Our first day we left around 745. We drove and drove and drove...crossing into Tanzania, stopping at about 3 in Arusha at a supermarket to get snacks and lunch. We were originally meant to stop for the night in Arusha, but so we could do our activity for the next day in the morning rsther than the blazing afternoon sun, we decided to truck on for another 100kms close to Mto Wa Mbu. 

We set up camp, had an amazing dinner with vegetable soup, rice, chicken and vegetables. Yay for a great cook again! After dinner we went and watched Tanzanian dancers contort themselves through hoops and had us join in dancing of course. Unfortunately Leteele forgot to warn us about the truck locking time and my malaria pills, ear plugs, toilet paper and iPad were away from me for the night!

The next morning we took a walk through the village and saw rice fields, a kindergarten (school was out as it was a holiday), sampled banana beer and wine (disgusting just in case you were wondering), saw a banana plantation and had a home cooked meal by the ladies in the village which was great! 

We drove to get a view of the Great Rift Valley, stopped at a shop to browse tanzanite that none of us could afford, and finally made our way to the next camp.

Tomorrow it's off to the Serengeti!

Masai Mara

True to form, as soon as we pulled into our camp just outside the Masai Mara National Reserve it started raining (I am sure we are here in the dry season!). We again set up our tents in the rain - boy they smell awful. Since we pack them up wet, they get to create all sorts of malodorous smells during the day. We had lunch..rice and cole slaw. Our cook really likes making cole slaw. I made myself a pb&j. Then we set off on an afternoon game drive in the national reserve. We saw he usual - zebra, elephants, gazelles, wildebeest..but then we drove to a 'surprise'. We found a cheetah stalking a herd of wildebeest, two zebra and a gazelle. Unfortunately the cheetah had a limp in one of his back legs, so he wasn't able to run to catch dinner. A research vehicle pulled up beside us and the lady told us that the cheetah had wounds on its leg and can't hunt for itself because it reinjures the leg each time it runs. She said the park rangers were on their way to feed it so it could recuperate.

After the game drive we came back to camp and had dinner. I had the soup...we have soup to start every night but it's always a version of some type of curry...and after that I wasn't feeling so well, so didn't have anything else. That day 6 people in our group were having some problems, so I was afraid I'd become the 7th!

The next day we had a full day game drive. We left at 8 and were scheduled to be back at 6. We drove through the reserve, seeing animals, but nothing out of the ordinary. We stopped at a lodge to use five star toilets - first ones with toilet seats since the hotel in Nairobi! They also had a hippo pool and several families of small monkeys running around the grounds. We hopped back on the truck and drove for a few more hours to the Kenya/Tanzania border between the Masai Mara and the Serengeti. No border patrol, just a rock with T on one side and K on the other. We took photos there and then drove another 5 minutes to the Mara river for lunch. 

We had the option of eating lunch on the truck or by the river, but were warned the monkeys might try to grab our food. I was all for eating on the truck, but most people went to brave the river. Mo was the first victim when a monkey pretty much jumped in her lap to grab her food and Damon was the second victim when he left his lunch under his other bag while taking pictures. Monkeys are pretty smart and one simply picked up the bag and nicked his lunch! We pretty much all got back on the truck at that point and had lunch from the safety of the truck.

We again drove around the reserve and happened upon a broken down safari vehicle. As the drivers are all friends, our driver stopped to give assistance. We were there about 45 minutes and that's when I determined I was definitely the 7th victim of the dreaded sickness! Pretty much the end of my day! I got in the tent ASAP and didn't leave unless absolutely necessary.