Happy Birthday Gaye

Day 35: Makalia Falls, Nakuru National Park, Naivasha, Great Rift Valley, Kenya

I was in such a hurry to get off yesterday's blog that I forgot to describe our trip from Nairobi to Naivasha. Ernest had got a triple BB award from the team in Nairobi! Actually, we gave it a new name; it is called the BB Unmentionable Award and that is a special award for Ernest as none of us can mention them! The first one was that he nearly ran over Steve who was sitting under the truck fixing something when Ernest decided he needed to fill the Queen with water and started it up to move it to a better position.... Strike one. Then we discovered that he had brought two beautiful new gas bottles with us all the way from SA but hadn't put any gas in them.... Strike two. Then Steve had left him to fill up the Queen with water as we were headed now there is NO water and we needed to be full. He got sort of half way on the last tank and got bored so took the pipe out and off we went.... Strike three.

He got ragged for these transgressions so I think he was just going to show us all up by proving what a racing driver he was and oh boy he showed us on the road just what the truck could do when pitched against all the other cars.... Hell it was a nightmare! The road, even though we took the highway, was fairly good but very narrow and horribly inadequate for the amount of traffic that it carries. Again there are trucks, busses, cars, motorbikes and hulks of metal on wheels that somehow move forward, sideways and bounce up and down. So my Darling husband has a thing about teaching a lesson to anyone who drives badly or cuts him off or passes on a blind rise or a solid white line. Oh my gosh there are some guys out there who will never make the same mistake again but, when he started to chase the bus that passed us with NO room, nearly drove us off the road and was totally kamikaze, then I started yelling that I was going to get out of the truck and never get back in again. The red mist cleared if only for a moment and we slowed down to a steady pace again. Seriously the roads are very inadequate for the amount of traffic that they carry and to be sure, I am very pleased that Ernest is the driver as although I moan about his speed, he is the best driver I know.  I do go on a bit about the traffic but it was honestly nose to tail all the way from Nairobi to Nakuru so you really had to just settle down and go at the average speed of the other cars or have a nervous breakdown in the process.

You really need to be a fly on the wall when driving through any town and I try and tell Ernest where to go. I put the destination into the GPS and then I say... Okay go left here. Ernest says “are you sure" I say yes. He says" I am sure it is the next one". By that time he has missed the turn so I say take the next one... He says “Gaye make up your mind" then I say" well you decide then" to

which he says “why can't you work the bloody GPS” oh my gosh I am going to record it sometime and post that. In the end he radios Ken and only when Ken says it is the right way will he turn!! I give up! MEN.

Nakuru National Reserve is one of Kenya's premier reserves together with the Mara and Amboseli and when you get there you do understand why, it is absolutely beautiful and well worth visiting. It is the complete opposite of the Masai Mara in that it is very thickly forested with these huge yellow Acacia trees plus very lush green undergrowth so different to the vast open plains of the Mara. In the middle of the park is a huge lake. It is actually situated inside a volcano basin and you can see the huge cliffs on the outer perimeter of the park.

We arrived at about three, thinking we had plenty of time to get into the park, have a decent game drive and then camp for the night. Well, we should have known better and figured that Africa is unpredictable when it comes to predicting time. So we arrived at the gate which is now in a completely different place to where it was before. We went to the office to pay our entry fee and get a camp site only to find a chaotic rush of people all trying to pay and get into the park. There were tourists, school kids and literally busloads of people all fighting to get into the queue and get into the park. Kim and I braved the office. As always, in these situations there are a whole lot of people that don't believe in waiting their turn so it was a case of survival of the fittest and boy you just had to be bloody minded and stand on the toes of the guy who was trying to jump the queue. Kim had a guy behind him who kept breathing down his neck, which could have competed with a hyena as to who smelt the worst so our fight to get out was even more urgent. So after about an hour we managed to pay, get a campsite allocation and get through the gate. They gave us a site at the furthest end of the park and off we set, in the pouring rain to get there and get settled in before night fall.

The drive through the park was so picturesque with these huge trees, lush bush, the cliffs on one side and the lake on the other. The part that totally surprised us was the level of the water. It had risen by at least 5 meters since we last visited the park and the reason why the entrance to the park had changed is because all of the old offices and restaurants had gone under water. This has apparently happened to all the lakes along the Great Rift Valley and so many of the facilities around the edges of the lakes have had to be abandoned and rebuilt on higher ground. We had thought that obviously they had experienced an abnormally high rainfall over the last two years but this is apparently not true. It has been as a result of some shift in the tectonic plates in the Rift Valley and all the water tables had risen. 

So much of the water’s edge where we had driven last time was now underwater and the whole lake was lined with dead trees that had most probably died from being under water.

Anyway we certainly saw a tremendous amount of game. There is an abundance of Buffalo, waterbuck, Impala and we even saw a Rhino.... That was a surprise. We went through a very impressive Euphorbia forest, apparently one of the biggest in the world which was a first for all of us. There are Lion and Leopard in this reserve but we didn't see any as it was late and we were in a hurry to get to our camp.

The camp site was at a place called Makalia falls and it was at the furthest point in the park from the entrance so we had to keep up a good pace as it was a good 30 Kms to go and we only had two hours before sunset. When we reached the falls there was a little spill way/ bridge that we had to cross in order to get to the campsite with a sign that said. “do not cross at any time even if there is no flooding" oh hell what does that mean... Go across to the camp site or stay put??? It was a very narrow little slipway but as we are so used to balancing the truck with its wheels right on the edge of the bridge we decided to give it a go. No problem!  Once across the bridge we found the most beautiful campsite, green lawn, wonderful trees, and great ablutions all be it without water and a few buffalo grazing nearby. We set up camp, sent Steve off to find the valve for the water for the ablutions, cooked dinner and had the most glorious evening under the stars. We all voted this one as the best camp site of the trip and we will be hard pressed to find anything better.

During the night Steve and Andrea had a few buffs as close as 5 or 6 meters from their tents... Rather them than me but Steve was not nervous at all and quite enjoyed having them so close.

Signing off!

 

Day 33 & 34:en Route Nakuru National Park, Naivasha, Great Rift Valley, Kenya

Our trip up from the Mara to Nairobi was a long and eventful trip. Again the first part was on a dirt road which is never maintained and full of holes but we are getting used to that. Then we hit tar and nearly jumped out and kissed the road but thought better not as we might get run over and also there was no guarantee that it wouldn't turn back to dirt after 10 Kms or so. We saw some really amusing signs on the way up ... A car wash is called a "wasafin" and one sign advertising a restaurant that advertised its food as “hot, delicious and indulging”... Not sure we would agree but I wasn't about to try it out.

The road into Nairobi is typical of an African town... Just chaos! There is so much traffic - big trucks and cars, bikes and bicycles people and animals that you are not sure whether anybody is on the right side of the road or not, plus the guys just stop anywhere, do U-turns, pass on blind rises and solid white lines. I really don't know how Ernest manages to navigate his way through the whole thing, quite calmly with his wife putting on breaks and generally shouting warnings at every turn. Gosh I make it nerve racking for him just sitting in the dam truck!    

Anyway the distance was only about 200 kilometers but it took us a good 6 hours to reach the campsite at Karen, which included a short shopping stop at Narok to buy some of those wonderful Masai blankets, belts and curios. The markets are almost as bad as the roads, you just get swamped by everyone trying to sell you their goods for the best price and they don't let up for a second. You just have to keep moving and ignoring the five guys all pushing to sell sell sell.

On our way into Nairobi I was a little nervous that the campsite at Karen was maybe going to be closed down, it was pretty dilapidated last time we were there and that was three years ago but I need not have worried... It was still here, in a sorry state but still operating. Gosh it is interesting how you can drop down to the irreducible minimum.

We went off to the Karen shopping Centre to have a little bit of very late lunch/dinner, had coffee and flopped into bed trading in our lions roaring, and wildebeest honking for the dogs barking around the camp site.

Our aim was to get in and out of Nairobi as fast as possible. We were there to restock especially on our meat supplies as we had used up a lot when there were 11 of us, get the gas cylinders refilled, fix the fan belt on the alternator and try and find a cap for the hydraulic tank. Karen has a great Centre with a huge supermarket where you can buy anything from a box of matches to a washing machine.... It has everything you could possibly need, except a fan belt of course.

The other thing that I wanted to do was to visit the David Sheldrick orphanage to see all the little baby Elephants that were being raised there. Last year I had read the book “an African Love Affair"   By Daphne Sheldrick. Reading her story had a huge impact on me, it totally changed my attitude to Elephants, somehow they became far less terrifying and I had really wanted to meet her, even if just to tell her how wonderful I thought she was and what her book had meant to me. We had a mutual friend who could possibly arrange and introduction but unfortunately she had recently had to undergo back surgery and was not well so we were not able to see her. However while we were looking at the littlest Elephant that had just been brought in, we were fortunate enough to meet her Granddaughter who was with this tiny baby.

I am so glad that we were privileged enough to be able to see all these little ones  that have been saved from certain death because their mothers are mostly lost through poaching or for some reason they have been abandoned and it is something that I would just love to bring my grandchildren to see. The real tiny babies of less than a year were brought in and settled down before we got there and then we saw them bring in the ones ranging from 18 months to three years old. They had been out in the Nairobi reserve  for the day and then they follow their "minders"/fathers in at about 5 in the afternoon to get their bottle of milk and were put into  their " stable " for the night. Oh my gosh to see how they literally grab the bottle out of their minders hand and drink it down so fast. It was so sweet to see their different personalities, some handed the bottle back and others just hung onto the bottle and refused to give it back. We were then able to go and see the real little ones who had been settled down for the night. They have a human "dad" with them 24/7 and are never left alone. I took some photos of those little things all fast asleep and tucked up in their blankets. They only sleep for about three hours at a time and then have to be fed....day and night. What a full time dedication it is and you could just see the affinity between the baby and their father. Then the most special little one was a baby that was two weeks old, she had been abandoned and flown in by helicopter just a few days ago ... Oh my gosh I would love to have just stolen it and brought it home. Unfortunately when they are brought in that young, they have about a 50/50 chance of survival but this little one was apparently doing very well on camel milk and they were hopeful she would survive. Her “daddy" was one of the older men and obviously had a lot of experience in raising these orphans. It was a very special experience which I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Nairobi.

So we managed to get everything done in one day and headed out of the big city the following day. None of us had slept very well there. Gosh the noise was absolutely terrible. There was an owl that would suddenly make the most terrible noise and then start screeching, that would set the dogs off for miles around, then the peacocks, then a hissing sound which the guard told us was some sort of rodent that was introduced from America (related to Obama) which were obviously scared of the owl and that started them off hissing. Then the hadedas and the cocks crowing at four in the morning, one of which had a throat disease. It was worse than a circus so we were very pleased to brave the traffic and get the hell out of the city.

We set our sights for Naivasha which is in the Great Rift Valley and is the heart of Kenya's most productive farming land. It sits on a huge lake called Elmenteita and is close to the Menengai crater which is the second largest volcanic valderia in the world. It is now dormant and in the area Dr Louis Leaky and his wife Mary in 1926 discovered Neolithic and Iron Age pits and trenches with a rare discovery of some 8000 stone tools and six Indian coins aged at 500 years old. In the 1930’s British Airways used to land their planes on this lake and then ferry their passengers to Nairobi from there.

It was also here in Naivasha that Joy Adamson found and raised Elsa the lion and later wrote her very famous book " Born Free"

We eventually gave up trying to find her house and settled for lunch at the Naivasha country club ( now a hotel ).... Big mistake, it was expensive and everyone agreed we should stick to food inside the Queen, even if we have to eat on the side of the road.

Then it was off to Nakuru National Park, which we had all been looking forward to and it was like a new restart to the trip.

Until tomorrow!
  

Day 28 to 32 – Masai Mara, Kenya

We arrived at the Masai Mara gate at one thirty as I said in the last blog, just in time to meet our guide Edwin who was ready and waiting for us.

Oh it was an exciting moment I can tell you. The truck couldn't fit under the normal gate so we had to go around the side, so I hopped out of the Queen and walked through. The greeting we were given by all the Masai guys was so warm and friendly. I had about five of them all rush out and greet me, shaking hands, telling us their names and welcoming us to Masai Mara. It felt like greeting long lost friends like we had returned home at last. This was such a different feel from what I remember of the Masai people who were previously a little unfriendly and not interested in us as tourists. There seems to be such a change of heart.

Edwin was there and helped guide us through the payment cycle as we had to pay for the truck and the cars to drive through the reserve and then of course the entrance fee. These reserves all work in Dollars and given that our Rand has performed so badly of late it is quite an expensive excessive but then when you have travelled so far to get here it becomes irrelevant. Just to be in this place that has been something most nature loving South Africans want to see and experience was truly wonderful.

Edwin was just a delight and really represented a standard that you would expect from a company like Great Plains Lodges who are the owners of Mara Toto and Mara Plaines. Ever since we first met Derek and Beverly Joubert we have wanted to visit their lodges and experience the pleasure of their unique hospitality. Derek and Beverly are well known for their film making and Photography and the epic movies that they have made on the wild life of Southern Africa - Eye of the leopard and Eternal Enemies ... To name a few of their outstanding works. Now they have put their hands to developing lodges and have built a reputation of being one of the best in the business.

Mara Toto is just inside the Mara Reserve and Mara Plains is in a conservancy just outside. They are only ten or fifteen minutes apart so our transfer from one to the other would be very short.

The girls and I climbed into the open game drive vehicles with Edwin and had a wonderful drive to Mara Toto with him. It is hard to describe how spectacular and different the Masai Mara is. These vast open plains, not many trees, in fact very few trees, just clumps of trees and bushes that run along the riverine and because it is so open, you can see just every animal on the plain for miles around - nothing is hidden. And there are these huge herds of Tope, Grants Gazelles, the famous wildebeests, zebra and Thompson's Gazelles. It was so interesting listening to Edwin talk about the reserve and how the Masai with their cattle, have been able to live in harmony with the wildlife. He explained that no Masai will eat game meat, in fact they eat only goat, sheep and beef but only on rare occasions as their wealth is measured in the number of cattle and sheep they own.

They prefer to drink blood mixed with milk and so very few of their cattle ever get slaughtered and their wealth grows with their cattle holdings. The only trouble being the grazing does not grow and the pressure from the wild life grows ever greater especially in times of drought. Anyway the point is that they do not eat game meat so the game has never been decimated by them, which is what has occurred in other parts of Africa and results in the constant tussle between conservation and the communities who live on the borders of the game area who poach for the pot.

Edwin also told us some other interesting things that have been happening to the Masai people which I am sure might just account for the difference in their attitude since we first came up here many years ago. The Masai on the whole had never been educated, their own elders had decided that they were pastoralists (tending cattle and sheep) and that their wealth was in their livestock so there was no need for them to read and write or have any other activities to make a living. The Kenyan Government on the other hand realized that with the increase in population plus the pressure on the grazing and increases in demand for land for the cattle that this situation could not continue and so they went in and selected a few children from each village and sent these kids to boarding school to be educated. Edwin and our next guide being two of them. When this proved to be successful they started to set up schools in the villages and started to force them to go to school. So now a number of the youth have completed their education. They have chosen to go into the tourism business like the game wardens and the guides, lodge managers etc. I am sure this is also what has resulted in the Masai being willing to give up some more of their pastoral lands to form the Conservancies where Mara Plaines is situated.

Our arrival at Mara Toto was unforgettable, we had been building it up for several days and we were certainly not disappointed. We were greeted by the staff and Stella the manageress with such enthusiasm it was impossible not to feel totally welcome. What can I say about the camp other than it was absolutely charming. It has five of the most gorgeous tents nestled in the thick bush along the river with a main building in the middle.

The loo is of course the main attraction for us girls and as Rouvierre said, it is a room with a view and one that you just don't want to leave. This makes it a bit difficult when everyone really needs to go!

The main lounge is a large tent and is just what you would expect from "Out of Africa" and the African experience is really personified in this very comfortable space with cream couches and Persian carpets. We had a quick but delicious lunch at a table set under the trees and then quickly dropped our things off in the room and were off on a game drive that we had so been looking forward to.The clouds were building and it was very definitely going to come down in buckets but we managed to get in about an hours’ drive before the heavens opened and we needed to head back to camp.

We all went to our tents and had the opportunity to get a good look at the inside of the tents as we were kind of rushing out before and only glanced inside. They are very spacious with a king size bed, built on a wooden deck with a separate bathroom off to one side, just so appropriate for the bush and as I said before my best description would be charming. In the bathroom there was a fantastic shower over a slatted floor where the water runs out plus in our unit there was a little copper bath that had no taps but in no time we had a Masai come in with buckets of hot water and the tub was filled with delicious hot water for me to bath in... I felt like I had just stepped into Meryl Streep’s shoes and I was playing the part of Karen Blixen in Out of Africa. In fact all the girls felt the same.

 

Dinner was served in the main lounge/dining room area, very elegant with all very tasteful decor. I was surprised at how cold it had become. I suppose the rain hadn't helped but we also learned that we were at 5000 feet and so there was no malaria in the area and the evenings and mornings are pretty cold. The dinner was delicious, their chef (of which there are a few) are certainly of a very high standard and we were in bed at about 10pm, tucked up and asleep fairly early as we knew we were in for an early start the next morning.

We were woken sometime in the night by the very loud roaring of a male lion that was very close, if not in our camp. That is for me the best sound ever. I probably prefer to hear the lions at night to actually seeing them. It is always blood chilling and makes Africa very real.

Our wake-up call was at 5.30am and this time I managed to get Ernest up and on the game drive vehicle. At Safari lodge we always give the morning game drive a miss but being here and having this kind of opportunity it was not to be missed. Edwin had decided to take us on a fairly long drive all the way down to the Mara River inside the reserve. He thought that there was a possibility that we could or might see a crossing of the wildebeest. This is of course one of the most filmed and famous happenings in the wildlife calendar. Plus even if there wasn't any crossing we would at least see the river and all the game in that area and there are plenty of cats down there. So off we went and what a wonderful morning it turned out to be. I must say it was absolutely freezing on that vehicle, a pretty cold wind was blowing and it was very overcast, but it had stopped raining, so we huddled up with the warm ponchos tucked around us and off we went. As I say with the wide open plains and undulating landscapes, it was exactly like the picture that I had of the "Masai Mara" when I was a little girl and was told of this magical place where you saw thousands of animals.

We were out for about 6 hours, you don't travel for great distances as there are very muddy river crossing which Edwin jokingly referred to as the Mara massage and mud pack as you slide sideways so often. We were impressed with the fact that Edwin always stuck to the road which was sometimes deep and muddy rather than make a new road on the un slippery part like some other cars obviously do, which is unsightly and is a huge potential for erosion.

We got to the Mara river at about 9.30 after having seen 4 lionesses with two sub adult cubs, a wonderful elephant sighting with baby's that were still suckling, great hyena sightings with about 10 of them all fighting over an old kill and herds of wildebeest, topes, red hartebeest which I am sure win the prize for the ugliest animal on earth, giraffe, Tommie's, Grants and buffs. We thought we were going to have a quick coffee, tea and biscuits and then head back to the lodge for breakfast as we were all starving by this time, when out came the tables, chairs, a beautiful Masai table cloth and a surprise breakfast to fill our rumbling tummies. Oh we had stepped into a movie set for sure.  

 

The river is just full of hippos, big, small and medium but when I say dozens of them I mean dozens, all lying in these small ponds with their heads on each other’s backs plus another few dozen on the banks trying to catch what little sun there was just peeping out from behind the clouds. On the other side of the river there were thousands of wildebeest amassing and they seemed to be traveling with great determination in the direction of the main crossing... We were hopefully excited about the possibility of a crossing but suddenly they all stopped and started grazing so it seemed quite likely that the crossing would not be happening for a while. Edwin also explained that there was very green grass on both sides of the river so the pressure to cross the river ‘for greener pastures” was not too great. So we gave up and decided to head for home.

The marked difference between the reserve and the conservancy where the camps are is the number of vehicles that you see. We had seen a cheetah kill in the distance but there were so many cars around it we had decided to give it a skip, rather go find something else closer to the lodge with less people. We did have an outstanding leopard sighting which really put the cherry on the cake.

We got back to Mara Toto got straight into our cars and were escorted by Edwin to Mara Plains where we were to spend the next part of our stay.

If we were impressed with Mata Toto it was nothing compared to Mara Plaines. Not to make less of Mara Toto as it is quite charming but this was the real deal. The lodge has just won the award for the best lodge in Kenya and the Mara and you can really see why. It is also tucked into the riverine bush and hard to see from the road. There is a wonderful wooden suspended walking bridge over the river which gives the lodge a real ambiance of mystery. Of course everyone wanted a picture on the bridge so just getting across took some time.

 

 

After you have crossed it you enter the main lounge which is slightly razed and when you climb the steps and walk in you get the most tremendous vista of the Plaines in front of the lodge, just full of grazing animals and you completely understand why they call it Mara "Plaines". The decor is to die for, so "out of Africa" with the leather couches, Persian carpets and the leather trunks used as side tables together with beautiful dark wood cabinets and coffee tables. You can just see Beverley's persona stamped all over the interior. Her wildlife pictures that she is so famous for are very prominently displayed. They are printed on canvas and really just complete the whole picture of perfection. I am sure this is the ultimate lodge and you can really understand why it was voted as the best... It sure had our vote.

 

 

We were welcomed by Johan du Toit...Not a boertjie (Afrikaans farmer) but a good Kenyan who couldn't even speak Afrikaans - we all didn't believe him at first as he really has a South African look about him but it was true, he didn't understand a word of what we said to him in Afrikaans. He was standing in for the managers who were on leave and did a great job of hosting us.

We were given a quick lunch as by then it was getting a bit late, signed our indemnities  and were shown to our rooms. That is when I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

The tents are so large and spacious; I could have my whole house just in this one tent. Ernest immediately paced it out... 12x6 ... My gosh it is the size of a house! Anyway again I could see the same theme carried through from the lounge and library area. There was a real copper bath on the bathroom side of the tent.... This time with taps and an abundance of hot water!! The front of the tent was really just a huge window and looked right over the plain with the wildebeest etc quietly grazing. What a peaceful and ideal scene. Now the tussle in our minds - stay put or go on a game drive and I am afraid the “stay put" won the tussle. Besides - the storm clouds were brewing again and we decided who would want to go anywhere with this luxury right here. So we vegetated in our rooms with hot tea and a great view. The lure of the copper bath eventually did get the better of me and I spent a good twenty minutes soaking in the water and cleaning up the dirt from the last few weeks.... Yippee I have clean nails again.

We again dragged ourselves off on an early morning game drive but this time we stuck to the conservancy and didn't go into the reserve. I think the terrain is much prettier and more interesting. There seemed to be a greater concentration of game which for me was unexpected as I thought the game would stick more to the park but that was definitely not the case. We had the most fantastic sighting of two lionesses with 7 much younger cubs. The mothers just lay in the sun trying to soak up some of the warmth as it was again a cold morning, while the cubs played just like kittens, rolling and having tug do wars over old branches. They were very entertaining and tried very hard to get the mothers to play too but they were definitely not going to comply. Then we set off to look for the leopard that they knew was in the area. She had a cub but that was usually quite difficult to see. We did manage to track her down by spotting the "Tommie" in the tree which she had obviously killed and left up there for later. It was a dead giveaway and some slow driving and looking in the bushes close by and there she was. What beautiful animals they are. The guides here call the little Thompsons gazelles “cheetah chips" and the warthogs they call “lion sausages”.

A little while later we came around the corner and there all set out was our breakfast, what a treat, this time the chef was there and cooked us fresh eggs and bacon, nothing like a good breakfast when you are hungry. 

We all had great difficulty tearing ourselves away when it was time to leave. I think we had all got used to the luxury of it all and just hated the thought of going back to dirty cars, cooking and washing up and most of all the buckets of washing. But then that is what this trip is all about and we waved Johan and the wonderful staff at the lodge good bye and with great memories of our stay at Mara Plains we put our noses towards Nairobi and the rest of the trip.

We are due to spend two very uninteresting days in Nairobi so I will pick up our travels again when we get back on the expedition road.

Until then !

 

 

Day 26 & 27 – en route to Kenya

After much debating we decided to stay an extra day at Kijereshi as we were only due up at Masai Mara on the 15th (tomorrow being the 13th) and Ernest felt nervous about trying to bush camp in Kenya close to the Masai Mara.  The area is very heavily populated and he couldn't remember any places that he would feel safe about bush camping at and we would have two days to fill in with bush camping... I remembered the area quite well and there were plenty of places to camp but when my husband gets stubborn he gets really stubborn. My logic on the whole thing was that we should get as close to the Masai Mara as possible as we didn't want to waste any of our day in the park with traveling and getting there late was just the worst thing that could happen. But to save the feet stamping fits when I don't get my own way, I decided for the good of all, to back down and stay put... Who cares anyway, it was a great place to spend another day. 

We didn't want to go back into the Serengeti for the day as the cost was just too exorbitant and we had seen just about all we could on the two days that we went in.... Actually I think there could have been much more but we were all very happy with what we had experienced and looked forward to a day of no driving. We have done approximately 6000 kms and a day of no bouncing around on terrible roads would make a great change.

‘The Queen’ was pretty clean as we hadn't moved her for two days so while everyone else did their car cleaning Ernest and I sat and watched with our feet up....wonderful!

The pool at the lodge is just fantastic and although we have been pretty lucky with the weather - not too hot, it was warm enough to sit around the pool without getting baked. We have also had a thunder storm every afternoon, apparently very early rains, so the guys here were pleased and said it would bring the wildebeests back earlier than usual.

Oh yes I need to make a few corrections on some earlier stuff. What I called a Tsessebe is actually a Topi and the zebras are just standard zebras - the Grevy zebras are only seen at Samburu.  I needed to get that in just in case someone who reads the blog knows that I wasn't quite accurate.

It was also a great opportunity to do some bird watching, I do so love birds, it is so rewarding to see some new birds and at times I find it even more rewarding than game watching. There is always something new and exciting to see. Kim is also an avid bird watcher so we spent some time with the binocs glued to our eyes.

We had spoken to one of the drivers that were transporting other guests and he told us of a camp site just before the border between Tanzania and Kenya on Lake Victoria so we had decided to pack up the next day and head for the lake again.

So next day we did a slow pack up and set off for this new campsite on the lake in a town called Musawa. We had no idea of the name of the campsite but he assured us there was one there.

It was only 160 kilometers away so there was no need to rush. After a leisurely breakfast we paid the bill, had a swim, nearly stood on a snake, which literarily went between my legs while I was walking down the path, and eventually we had a Royal send off from the staff who had been so good to us and had all spent quite a bit of time looking over the truck, shaking their heads an clicking their tongues especially at the kitchen and all the chili sauces that we seem to have accumulated since leaving SA.

The drive up was so different from what we have seen before in Zambia and Tanzania.  The road was excellent, probably the best one we have driven on so far. The people are far more productive, the country side green and obviously very fertile with lots of small but productive farming units growing everything from vegetables to corn to Kasava and sugarcane. There are bananas everywhere and you see guys on bicycles carrying a few huge bunches at time... They look like a traveling banana.The little towns along the way are full of motorbikes, there seem to be even more than bicycles and there are workshops in the towns that are crammed full of bikes being repaired. You see all sorts of guys running their own little businesses from welding, to furniture making to vendors with little stores selling their fresh produce - just much more orderly!  One guy was a traveling souse with everything on his back from sun glasses to face cloths to hats to toothbrushes.

The campsite which we eventually found was really great, there was another overland truck with a load full of Hollanders and another group of Chinese people, who have the most incredible photographic equipment that Steve and Ken were drooling about. There was even a little beach with beautiful trees and “sea sand“ all be it a little course and a little dirty. We were tempted to swim but the water was quite choppy and a little dirty and as there are rumors of bilharzia, we just looked at the water and enjoyed the view of the lake which really is very pretty.

We couldn't really fit into the site so we were in the semi "parking lot " but it was just a one night stop over for us so we didn't care where we were as long as we were secure and level... It is awful being on a slope as you are either standing on your head all night or slipping down in a ball at the bottom of the tent.

 

Next morning up bright and early and off to the border post and then on to Kenya. We got through the Tanzania side in all on ten minutes. There was an official who guided us, assisted us to fill in the forms and the actual building was neat, clean and tidy... What a pleasure. We sailed through to the other side thinking it was all going to be a breeze. Well we hit the most chaotic, upside down border post I think we have ever been in. There are touts that grab you as you arrive and try to convince you that you need their help. This we try to avoid as it always end up with someone bribing someone. We eventually found the Immigrations officer down some dingy little passage way. And ZIP we were through in a flash.......then came customs and insurance. Oh dear we just lost all the time we thought we had gained. The customs was in a little room with one very bad tempered lady behind the computer who obviously either got out on the wrong side of bed, couldn't operate the computer or had a fight with her husband this morning. She kept shouting and telling us to move to one side or to the other side, “give me your papers” then would throw them back and say " what is the capacity of the car" when we told her she would say " where, where do you see that" there must have been a backlog of 5 or 6 people and nobody was going anywhere. It's at these times that you want to either giggle like school kids or just cry. On top of this the insurance guys, all obviously private operators, unlike Zambia and Tanzania were touting for our business, grabbing the car papers and trying to drag us out the office to go buy insurance. Ernest kept saying not to let him take the papers and there was a bit of a tug of war over them. When I describe it now it sounds very funny but at the time it wasn't I can assure you. We eventually got out of the customs office, got persuaded to walk through the border post down the road, down a little alley to the third party insurance guys who insisted that we had to buy $130 worth of insurance for one month in Kenya. The more I tried to argue that it was not a commercial vehicle and that there were only two people in the car, the more stubborn they got. So eventually we paid the $130 and left Kim and Ken to do their arguing.

So after leaving at the crack of dawn, driving 20 kilometers, we eventually pulled out of the border post at 10.30

Now I knew that we were running late... But I refrained from saying I told you so.... It would not have gone down very well at this point. And we had about 70 kilometers to do so we should still make it early enough in the day to enjoy a game drive in the afternoon.

We were headed for Mara Toto and Nara Plains, our one little bit of luxury on the trip and didn't want to miss one minute of our time there.

Oh boy then came a very strange kind of noise in the car... Something had broken. We switched off very quickly and called "help". Steve came rushing over to see what was wrong with his "baby"  (he really loves this hippo like it was a baby). Oh dear the extra alternator fan belt had broken. Bad news as now the extra batteries for the fridges wouldn't charge up so quickly and because the vehicles were about to stand for two days that might be a problem. We would have to run the engine during the day for a while... Oh my gosh that was mild compared to what our imaginations had conjured up so all smiles and we set off again. I then managed to get the office to phone Stella at the camp to tell her when to expect us. The message came back that from where we were it would take us another 4 hours...... 4 hours you must be mad, don't they know Ernest is a racing driver!!!  Again, famous last words. The road just got worse and worse and with every 10 minutes of hell I was about to blurt out "I told you so" but my kids will be very proud of me and I just counted to ten every time I got the urge.

 We went through one village on this most terrible road and low and behold there was a boom across the road. We hooted for them to lift it but out of a little hut came this very official looking mama in a blue overall who took out her little book and said 300 shillings please. Now blue smoke was starting to come out of Ernest ears... For what? For toll she said. Oh hell the worst road in Africa and they wanted us to pay a toll! Anyway after much arguing and Ken and Steve and Kim on the radio saying to Ernest "don't pay just push it down and drive on", we decided 300 was better than jail so we pulled out our three hundred. She then went to the next car ... 300 shilling. So Kim got money from us as he had no change and she started writing the receipt for him. In the meantime Ernest was hooting for her to lift the boom, but she refused and went to Ken. Now it stared to become a circus with Ernest with his hand flat on the hooter and two cars behind Ken also hooting. Ernest then got out the truck and went to open the boom himself she then ran back with Ken's 1000 shillings in her hand to try and stop him from opening the boom - the two of them pulling and pushing on this very old piece of string. In the mean time the other two cars behind Ken passed us all and just slipped through the gate as soon as it was opened and waved to the mama, with her shouting a greeting back at them. This toll was obviously just for foreigners and a way for the village to get some money.

This torturous road lasted for about another hour of driving and then suddenly it miraculously improved and we picked up speed and away we sped on to our destination. Where we were to meet our guide from Mara Toto at 1pm at the Mara gate and even after our slow start we made it to the gates by one thirty - only half an hour late.

Our three days of pure luxury began!

Day 25 – Serengeti, Tanzania

I can't believe that we have been going for nearly a month; it seems like yesterday that we left home yet we are now a third of the way through our trip.

It was to be an exciting day ahead, something we had all been looking forward to since we started the trip. Kim said to me that the one thing that had finally persuaded him to come on the trip was the idea that he would be able to see places like the Serengeti... Something he had always wanted to see since he was a boy, and here we are at last.

We wanted to get off to an early start and get into the reserve itself but with this crowd that is not an easy thing to do, so we eventually set off at about 9. The idea was that we would leave the Queen behind, move some stuff out of the other two cars to make some space and set off with Kim, Ernest, Andrea and I in Kim's car and then Ken, Rouvierre and Steve in Ken’s car.  That meant that we would be traveling without our kitchen and you sure as hell can't buy anything inside the reserve to eat. These places are not like our Kruger Park where you can buy anything you need and eat at a fairly decent restaurant and have a cup of.... You guessed it … Coffee!

We packed up a picnic basket plus a flask of coffee and off we went. We arrived at the side gate which is literally 10 minutes down the road only to find - sorry for you - they no longer issued permits at this gate. They had obviously had trouble with sticky fingers (stealing), bad admin or something but he was no longer able to take money so we had to go in somewhere else. Anyway, we left Ernest to change his mind and he eventually said “okay”  we could go in, but we needed to either go to Seronella, the main headquarters of the reserve which was a two hour drive from where we were or to the other gate which was an hour away and pay there, then bring back the permit to him and he would then let us out at six when we returned from our day in the park. So we figured we were going on a game drive anyway so let's go for Seronella. That way the guys would get in a good game drive, see quite a bit of the terrain and at the same time maybe there was a place at Seronella where we could sit and have a cup of tea (we only had tea and the coffee drinkers would miss out)

From the minute we entered the reserve we started to see big herds of game, mostly Tsessebe, impala, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo. When I say herds, I mean HERDS. At home we see maybe twenty or thirty together but here you sometimes see a herd of 100 Tsessebe at a time. Even though most of the game, or should I say the zebra and wildebeest, have moved up to the Mara in the great migration and only return after the rains have fallen in the Serengeti. There are still a lot of other animals around. We do see very big herds of buffalo in the Manyeleti but here because of the open space and the great distances that you travel - it appears that you see much more than at home. Also those open plains give such a vista of space, you can see for miles around and is something so synonymous of this area... So beautiful!

After going for about two hours we thought that we must be close to Seronella and Ernest kept announcing over the radio to the other guys....Only about 10 minutes more. Well the ten minutes turned out to be another two hours and we realized we might be in a spot of bother as it was one o’clock in the afternoon, we hadn't had our picnic lunch stop and we hadn't found where to pay or get our cup of tea or even find the info centre where we could at least get a map.

Eventually we managed to find the info centre after getting lost in a maze of roads that are going in all directions and only half have signposts on them. One said Restaurant so we thought hey maybe things have improved. Well when we got to it we realized we were very much in Africa, not the right place to eat anything! I remember visiting the info centre before and it was quite an orderly place where there was information on the park, the animals and the topography. Now there are game guides actually shouting for business, a complete jam of people and the whole place has deteriorated into a dirty chaotic mess. We counted over 50 game drive vehicles all jammed into this small parking area designed for 20 cars. So we wondered around trying to find somebody to pay and get a permit, we didn't think it was a good idea for us just to make a run for it at the gate when we returned to get back to Kijereste.

Ernest found a little shop and bought two fold out maps of the park.... He paid $ 40 for these two pieces of paper, this time I nearly choked. I then realized I forgot to bring the apples to put in the tuna salad so asked the girl at the so called coffee shop if she had an apple I could buy. She had an Avo so I said okay I will have that.... $5 she said... now it was Ernest's turn to choke at my purchase.

Eventually we found someone who said we could pay at the airport. Now… Where is the airport? We managed, after many circles, to find the air strip... Hardly an airport! We paid for two days in the park and off we went, still without tea, coffee or having had a chance to have our picnic.     

We “put foot” as the boys say and made up a little time on the way back so we could just fit in our quick picnic stop. You are not supposed to get out just anywhere, in fact it is almost impossible to find a dedicated picnic site so we just found a little side road and to hell with it!  We stopped! We had to fight off the Tsetse flies over lunch but we were all pretty hungry by this time and the Tsetse’s were secondary to the hunger. We are so full of bites now especially Ken, Rouvierre and myself. These damn flies like us the best.

As I said before, the trip back is always faster (except going up the mountain from Isanga bay) so we made the gate well on time and were home by 5.30. I had a bit of spare time as our Satry Raj was cooking our curry which turned out to be very delicious and a real Indian curry... I watched them all fight to scrape out the scraps from the bottom of the dish.

Oh yes we did see Cheetah near Seronella but as always in Serengeti there must have been 20 other cars all vying for the best spot....oh, for the exclusivity of Safari Lodge…

Signing off!

Day 24 – Kijereshi Lodge, Serengeti, Tanzania

We only had 160 kms to go to get to Serengeti today so it was a good breakfast and a slow start for all. After breakfast I wanted to send my blog that I had finished the night before and knew they would not be terribly happy about going in to the hotel and using their Wi-Fi without  either eating there or at least having a cup of coffee. We were in a hurry so I thought I would just sneak up to their side wall which was next to the campsite and see if I could quickly send and receive....I knew the code from the day before so it would just take a minute to log on and nobody would be any the wiser. Well I was standing  right under their open air bar and coffee shop deck, being very sneaky  and trying to log on when one of the waiters, not knowing I was there, threw a whole pot of old coffee over the railing and missed my head by about 10 inches. If I had been standing just a foot further to the left I would have collected the whole pot of old coffee over my nice clean hair.... Serves me right! So I got the silly BB (Blond Bimbo) of the day award.

 We had a bit of a problem as we didn't want to go into the Serengeti reserve to camp, it is very expensive and even more so with The Queen. She has huge advantages but huge disadvantages too, at a cost of $200 per day just for the entrance fee it starts to get scary... Last time we were up here we stayed outside the park at a little camp called Kijereshi tented camp and this time we wanted to do the same thing. We remembered that it was owned by the same guys that owned the Tilapia Hotel so we wanted to ask them to check if they would allow us to camp there again and to get the correct directions, so Ernest stopped outside and I ran back into the hotel, got directions, got them to phone Kijereshi to let them know we were coming and asked if I could download the blog.... A better way to do it and as I had made friends with the little receptionist he was totally happy for me to do it.... So off the blog went.

 Driving out of Mwanza is an entertainment in itself, as I said before it is a town of the little traders and markets. You drive past endless markets with each little trader sitting in front of his pile of goods, ranging from locally grown watermelons, which are the size of a soccer ball, to the guys selling phone cards, to the guys selling long poles and cement. Just dozens of people milling around, doing their shopping and in between them are the Marabou storks. Neither the birds or the people took any notice of each other, it is really quite bizarre. They are the ugliest looking bird you have ever seen and they just walk around pecking at any tiny bits of rubbish that they can find. The real garbage collectors of the town.

 It was a great road from Mwanza so we would soon be at our destination, we first checked out the campsites on the main road outside the main entrance to Serengeti to see it they were a better bet, it looked good but in the end we decided to go for Kijereshi which was a bit further away and again down a very bad little road, but this time only 14 Kms away, we felt it was worth the agony of bouncing up and down.

 As we were going down this little two track road, the bush opened out and for the first time in a long while we experience the beautiful open plains of the Serengeti. It is the most wonderful vista and completely unique to this area. I could just feel my spirits soar at this incredible space and it is something that everyone should experience at least once in their lives. In fact I don't think there is any place on earth to equal the vast expanse of space that you see with this butter colored grass and the huge umbrella thorn trees dotted around. Steve was with us in the car and Ernest stopped the Queen, we got out and took a few photos and got quite emotional at being back at this wonderful place.

 The Kijereshi lodge is situated just outside one of the small, lesser known side gates to Serengeti and it is owned by the Indian family that live in Mwanza. I must say it is quite charming but very run down and obviously does not have a very high occupancy as there was nobody but us in the lodge.  The staff are absolutely great and were very happy to see us. They offered us their Presidential suite which was away from the main body of the lodge, we could use the bathroom facilities and at the same time camp and do our own cooking etc. This was exactly what we were hoping for and it suited us just fine. The Presidential suite was however a misnomer as it is very far from a Presidential suite but then our SA standards are very high compared to Tanzania and Kenya.  Satrya Raj, the manager is quite fascinated with the Queen and all our equipment. He came around to have a look at the truck and our set up and spent some time looking at all the sauces and spices that I had in the kitchen saying in a real Indian accent" that is very nice, very nice".  He has recently arrived from India on a two year contract so of course everyone asked him to cook some curry for us... All except me, as I hate curry but I am aware of the addiction especially when it comes to my husband, it is nearly as bad as the coffee!  He was very willing to do so but it all turned out to be so complicated as he had no mutton... “Never mind” he said – he would go and buy a sheep from the village and slaughter it but then we had to buy the whole sheep... All this for some Indian curry. No, not to worry, we could take the rest with us and at that point I put my foot down. I could see a whole sheep going into the fridges and that was more than I could confront. Eventually I said that I would supply some lamb from our fridge and would give it to him to cook and that seemed to be the perfect compromise. Anyway it was eventually settled, he would make curry for us, without slaughtering a sheep and using our own meat. Shew! But he could only do it the next day as he had to go to town to buy the other stuff needed for the curry! Oh dear so we settled on me cooking for the night! So the crowd had to settle for a home cooked meal instead of real Indian curry.

It was still early when we arrived so we were able to set up camp and then spend the rest of the day at the pool doing some reading. I just don't know what happens with the time. We seem to have loads of time but it feels we are busy all the time. Don't come on one of these holidays if you want time to relax, it just does not ever seem to happen. There is always something else to be done before you can sit down, we always seem to have our hands in the water doing either the laundry or the dishes. Maybe we will have to wait until we get home to relax.

They made a great fire for us in their central braai area overlooking the plains that we love to look at, we spent yet another beautiful evening under the stars. Just as we were about to go to bed the heavens opened and it poured with rain, the first rain we have had on the trip. It was very fortuitous that it happened here as we had the two bedrooms of the Presidential suite to sleep in aswell as the lounge where we made up a bed for Kim. Ernest and I managed to get our pillows out of the tent and into the truck just before the deluge started, so everybody stayed dry and comfortable for the night.

 Until tomorrow!

  

Day 22 & 23 – Mwansa, Tanzania - en-route to the Serengeti

We were up before sunrise, packed up and left our quarry before the bees returned. This is the first morning that we didn't even have a cup of coffee much to the distress of our coffee addicts. We just didn't need anyone stung so off we went for 20 Ks till we found the next quarry and stopped there for a good breakfast and .... Coffee!

We travelled very near a game reserve that is practically unheard of and so few people ever visit it. This place is so full of hidden treasures and will be worth visiting once the roads are fixed. We were told by an ex-Zimbo who is living in Tabora that the main problem with the roads is that the government keeps running out of money so they start these huge projects, run out of money and then everything stops again. So one day when it is all finished and the roads are finally done, it will be well worth visiting and enjoying the reserves.

Our trip to Tabora from our night stop was much easier, the road improved and apart from a few mad truck drivers and bus drivers we managed to make it to Tabora in two and a half hours. Mostly  smooth going until Ernest decided to play chicken with a huge articulated truck. It was going at an unbelievable speed and Ernest decided to stay in the middle of the road flash his lights and " slow him down" well I unknowingly had my finger on the radio button through sheer terror and the stream of profanities that were coming out of my mouth even shocked Rouvierre. We nearly landed down in one of those culverts like the guys we pulled out the day before. Shew a close call and I think Ernest realized that if you play chicken with these guys you definitely land up a dead squashed chicken. Life is cheap and so are cars and trucks judging from the amount of smashed and mangled ones you see on the roads here.

Before Tabora the population is very sparse and the countryside very wooded. They are certainly still on the charcoal bandwagon but they haven't decimated the country side too badly. Every now and the you can see some wildlife, we even saw a magnificent Sable. Can you believe it even ground Hornbills. We must have seen at least 10 groups of 4 of these birds at a time. I think there must be some local taboo on ground hornbills or I am sure they would have been roasted Hornbills by now. Then of course as I mentioned before there are just hundreds of bee hives high up in the trees, bee farming is a big thing.

The tar road from Tabora lasted all of 40 Ks and then disappeared! After that the track was even worse than the one we had been on for the last two days if that was possible. Well it was ghastly and sent us all into the gloom of wondering what the hell we were doing here when we could be sitting at Safari lodge with a long cool drink in our hands..... Just dreaming!!.. So we settled into silence and just pushed forward in a cloud of dust. The corrugations this time nearly took our teeth out and nobody even chatted on the radio. It wasn't particularly dangerous as you couldn't go fast and for a change my hands and the soles of my feet stopped sweating. We were determined to make Mwanza by nightfall even if it meant breaking our number one rule and thank goodness the road did turn into good tar for the last 250 kilometers. You could hear the mood of the group suddenly change when we saw tar, everyone started telling jokes over the radio, starting with Kim's joke that was for kindergarten kids, it was so bad I decided to repeat it here for my three grandsons, Luke, Kodie and Aiden. They will love it:

“Why does the stool that you sit on to milk a cow only have three legs......because the cow has da udder.”

Tabora is the dustiest most god forsaken town ever with more bicycles than I have ever seen in my life. There are just people everywhere and to drive down the road is not easy as they don't get over for anyone. You hoot and they kind of look over their shoulders and carry on walking, with a look of who the hell do you think you are, this is my road too. The thing that really gets us though is the butcheries, there are a lot of them and they have carcasses hanging up in the open with a guy with a huge panga hacking pieces of meat off. It is enough to make you a vegetarian for good, ugh.

I am glad Cammie is not with us as she would never eat meat again for sure. The other mode of transport are these little motor bikes with a cubby at the back, either carrying goods or people. They are just everywhere and you have to give way to them as they just don't wait.

In just about every town they are doing some kind of road repairs so you are on and off the road bumping up and down.  The houses were built by the old colonials and never maintained since they left, not even a coat of paint, rusty roves and doors and windows hanging at funny angles.

There are definitely not as many children in Tanzania as Zambia but the filth is still quite uncomfortable. The people are however very happy to see us and there are lots of waves and smiling faces as we pass by.

Thanks to the tar road we did make fairly good progress towards our destination. The terrain after Tabora is at first very desolate and desert like and you wonder that anyone could survive there, but survive they do. Then about 200 Km from Mwanza the farming activities start and the people start to look much more affluent and productive. They have huge areas that are used for rice paddies, it’s dry right now but it looks like they are all prepared and ready for use when the rains come.

Rouvierre was remarking that the people that live on the side of the tar roads have much neater dwellings and are more productive than the guys that live on the side of the dirt road... It sort of completely changes their attitude and production level.

So we eventually rolled into Mwansa at about 4.30, right into the Friday evening traffic jam. The town suddenly comes alive, everyone is out on the streets, sitting along the road in their bars, meat   braaing in the markets and festivities that are great to see. Rouvierre managed to find the yacht club on her GPS so we were off to go find the only camping spot in town, hoping like hell it was still operating. We slowly crawled through the traffic and voila there was the club right where it was last time. The only problem was that most of the site was covered in a huge tent. There was an Indian wedding taking place that evening. Oh dear, so we spoke to the manager who said that we had a small patch where we could camp but it might be a bit noisy but ....he promised us it was only till 12pm.

 

None of us could confront that after the long hard day, we had been going for 12 hours practically non stop. We sent Kim and Ken to a nice looking hotel just down the road. Can you believe it they were full. Over the weekends they operate at 100% occupancy. So next best thing was the hotel just next to the camp ground- and the wedding, and they only had four rooms. Two of the rooms were on an old small lake steamer boat which is in the lake but attached to the shore with three strong poles plus two ordinary rooms. Ken and Rouvierre took one of the "cabins" on the boat and Ernest and I took the other cabin which was up a ladder that was the only way to get from one deck to the other. Hell it beat sleeping right next to the Indian wedding party but the boat was at a slight angle so we walked down to the windows and up to our bed on the other side of the room.  You had to balance in the shower or you would slip into the wall.

We had a great relaxing dinner at this really quaint little hotel called the “Tilapia”. We had two showers each, one before dinner and one after dinner and then flopped into bed which by the way was like sleeping on a hard board. Still it had great pillows and a very big secure mozzie net. During the night I was woken with the distant music from the wedding party that went on till 5am. Thank goodness we never stayed in the camp site.

We arranged to all meet for breakfast at 7.30 as we had to shop, get all the fresh supplies for the next few days as we would be in Serengeti and there are NO shops there. We were all out of fresh veggies bread, eggs and fruit. Plus a very important visit to the semi precious gem lady that we had found last time we were in Mwanza. We had the morning to do all that needed to be done and we planned to leave by lunchtime. But there was to be a change of plans, while sitting at breakfast Ernest went through the itinerary and found we were a whole day ahead of schedule!! So we had a  day to play with, and decided maybe best to move into the camp site for the rest of the day and then spend the night at Mwanza and move out to Serengeti the next day.

The whole wedding tent etc. had been removed and we were the only guys in the campsite, a real pleasure! Our breakfast was served in the open air restaurant that is so typical of east Africa, because it’s too hot indoors and I guess when this hotel was built there was no aircons so everything is out in the open just with tables and chairs under pergolas. There were some rather large yellow billed Kites that have obviously caught onto the fact that all tourists are a little out of it at that time in the morning and they actually swoop down, under the pergolas and take the bacon and sausages off your plate. My gosh in SA we have little sparrows and doves feeding at the restaurants and here they have yellow billed kites.

So I managed to track down the gem lady and off we all went to find out what she had on offer. Rouvierre and Andrea (had the spelling of her name wrong before) came with me to the hotel down the road where Robyn, the gem lady had her new shop. I think they were more interested in the Cappuccino that they served at the hotel. Anyway after looking at all she had to offer, the girls went off by taxi to find this great new little supermarket that had just opened in town where you could buy just about anything. They wanted to get snacks and stuff for the car and then they went off to explore Mwanza. They had seen some interesting pots and stuff on the drive, plus it looked like there are some great markets where you could get local crafts, so off the two of them went on an adventurous afternoon.  I was anxious to get our supplied restocked so Kim, Steve and myself set off for the same supermarket and Ernest stayed behind to set up camp and start cleaning the car out after our war with the dust on the way to Mwanza.

Oh boy did we get lost. Robyn had given us a little hand drawn map of where to go but we just went around in circles and made no progress, I was getting anxious as it was 12.40 and I believed the shops close at one..... Plus we were told NO shops opened on Sundays so it would have been a bit of a disaster if the shops close their doors before I got there.

Mwanza is the town of little shops. There are fairly big buildings in the centre of town but the ground floor is made up of little garage size stores, ranging from clothes, cell phone shops, little grocery shops, hardware shops and cement shops all next to each other. No order whatsoever. It is the town or city of little traders all competing for the multitude of customers on the pavement, a real bustle of activity. The walls of these buildings are either covered in old tiles, mosaic or cement that hasn't been painted for the last 30 years.

The traffic is horrific, cars everywhere and nobody particularly obeys the traffic rules, one traffic light that we saw and all other intersection are circles with cars just going into these circles without really caring what the other guy is doing plus the bicycles weaving their way between this traffic.  Eighty percent of the men on the bicycles are carrying their wives sitting side saddle on the back with a baby on her back and another on her lap. They have become so adept at dodging the cars it is scary.

Anyway we did make it to the supermarket only to find that it was open till eight, all our nail biting for nothing. So we bought all that we needed from this amazing shop in the middle of this chaos, even got a nice cream for the three of us and off we want back to the yacht club to find Ken and Ernest hard at work cleaning out the vehicles. Ernest had swept the floor, washed them down and done all our washing, my gosh I need to take him on more trips like this, soon I will have him washing dishes too! That I am sure will make the girls in the office laugh. No, seriously they had both done a great job and it didn't stop when I got back. We washed out the whole kitchen and Steve got the hosepipe into the bathroom for me and after I had finished it turned back into it’s cream color instead of the muddy brown mess that it had gone over the last two days. We figured out where some of the dust was coming in and sealed it all up with duck tape and it looked as good as new again.

The girls then turned up after their adventures in town, they had been shown all sorts of markets and local points of interest and had a great time, at one stage they had a few locals try to jump into the taxi with them to show them where to go. Rouvierre had to be very firm and practically push them out the taxi or it would have been the two of them and six guys telling them where to go!

Robyn and her husband then took us on a short boat ride on the Lake (Lake Victoria, in case I haven't mentioned that before) and it was wonderful getting a different perspective of what the town looks like from the water.

The lake is the second biggest lake in the world, as against Lake Tanganyika which is the second longest in the world. It is full of bilharzia AND Crocodiles, so you can't swim or even put your toe in the water and it is surrounded by these very rocky hills that are too gorgeous with little tiny houses between the rocks. It is hard to describe how huge these rocks are, they vary in size but a lot of them are about the same size as the houses and are at all different angles giving a sort of mars like topography. There is one very famous rock that that sits at a funny angle in the middle of a small island in the water that is a real landmark in Mwanza and is called " the Bismark" presumably from the times when it was governed by the Germans.

There are a number of boats operating from the harbor ranging from little fishing dinghies to large cargo boats that carry goods to other ports in Uganda and Kenya. All of them looking like they need repairs like everything else in this region.

From the water you can see why the lake is so full of bilharzia and why you can't swim it it. There are a number of the fancy houses on the mountain side where the sewerage pipes just come straight from the houses into the lake. I think the health authorities in Cape Town would have a heart attack if they could see this!

After that we settled down to a relaxing evening, happy that we had a day to catch our breaths and get some order back into the cars, our washing done and our bodies clean again.

Rouvierre managed to win the BB award that day while sitting on her chair contemplating the water and the surrounding palm trees, she turned to Ernest and said she was wondering why the locals didn't pick the pawpaws off the pawpaw trees (those beautiful palms that she was looking at) as they were probably ripe. Ernest nearly choked on his drink he was laughing so much. “She needs to be careful that the pawpaws don't land on her head from 20 meters up”.

Apparently more people get killed from Coconuts landing on their heads than from falling off bicycles.

Until tomorrow, signing out!