Kilimanjaro - My Journey to the Roof of Africa

Safari (Day 1):

Mountain Inn to Tarangire National Park

Saturday, January 19, 2013

I slept OK but woke up quite a few times. Breakfast was at 7:30 with the New Yorkers and Fabrizio and his Spanish female friend (who had bad diarrhea all night). Andrew also has stomach problems and started taking Cipro.

After breakfast, I moved all my belongings to the reception area and I even had time for 15 minutes of facebooking before my safari vehicle arrived. I met my driver, Robert, and my cook, Ahmed. We left the hotel at 9:15 and headed to Arusha. I wanted to stop there at the supermarket and buy water for the trip. Arusha's traffic was horrible but we made it to the supermarket before I died of thirst. A big surprise was waiting for me there: I ran into Livio. What are the odds? He was on his way back from the Serengeti and I'm on my way there. We literally just had one minute to talk because he had to get back to his bus.

It took us about five hours to get to our campsite near Tarangire National Park. Here, we dropped Ahmed then went on our first game drive. We drove around the park for three hours on bumpy roads. We saw lots of animals: impalas, Thomson's gazelles, elephants, giraffes, baboons, and lots of birds. I took some great pictures of the wildlife. Robert seems to know all the birds and animals. When we spot something, he stops the vehicle so I can take pictures. I can stand up on the seat since the roof is open and this way I can take better pictures. Robert doesn't seem to be very friendly. He seems to be very bored with his job. I have a feeling that these six days will not be very comfortable for me. Oh, well! I'm sure I will survive somehow. Unfortunately, there were lots of tzetze flies in the car during our game drive and they were biting me through my clothes. They've obviously never heard of Permethrin.

At the end of the drive, it started raining. I asked Robert to close the roof but he said he'd do it back at the gate. Finally, he did change his mind and stopped the vehicle to close the roof but by then my stuff and I got a little wet. This pissed me off and I immediately decided to give him less tip than I had originally planned. I don't need to tip really well for bad service.

We got back to the campsite at 6:15pm. It's about seven now and we are finally going to start eating dinner. It seems that Robert and I will eat together and Ahmed will probably eat after we are done. There is another single lady here plus four more people in a group. Everybody has a nicer tent than I do. I have the same kind of tent we used on the mountain. This time, though, they also gave me a comfortable looking mattress. I'm really glad that I don't have to blow up my mattress anymore on this trip. The camping has decent bathrooms and even showers that I will use after dinner. There is also a kitchen where Ahmed and the other cooks prepare the food.

Dinner was very good. I ate only with Robert first but after we finished the soup, Ahmed joined us as well. We ate fish, potatoes, and salad. I took a shower after dinner. There was very little water pressure but it still felt good to get cleaned up.