The Quick Catch Up

Local Market Outside of Arusha
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry to be out of touch, but internet access is pretty sketchy around here. After my last post, I found that I had to sit around the lodge in Arusha for another 4 hours because some other folks from my safari hadn't yet touched down at the airport. I was a little pissed, because I had to check out of my room and there was absolutely nothing to do. As I mentioned, the walk to the lake cost $23 dollars and the guards wouldn't let me out the front gate to go walking down to the local market, which was less than 1km down the road. I was trapped.

When my tour director arrived, we had a little chat. He offered to get me a guide for free to take me to the market. After I explained that I had been traveling for nearly 3 months and had survived markets in India, Nepal and Cairo and really wanted to go alone so that I could interact with the locals, he talked the guards into letting me go. Yes, I got my freedom. Anyway, I took a very nice walk and got to see how the locals shop, live chickens hanging by their feet off of bicycle handlebars and all! I had forgotten my Swahili phrasebook, so I was at a bit of a loss. No one there spoke any English, but many people approached me with a big smile and shook my hand. Since it's extremely rude and practically criminal to take someone's picture here without their permission and I had no way of asking, I didn't get a lot of pictures. But it was all good fun and I was certainly the only non-African there. And I killed a bit of time.

After the last of the group arrived, we got divided up into our jeep groups and headed off. I was put with a Welsh father and his two grown sons for the duration. Interestingly, all of the couples were put together in a jeep, and all of the other women traveling were put in another jeep. I'm the only woman put in a jeep with no other woman. Oh well.

The drive to Ngorongoro Crater was pretty uneventful. We passed many Massai villages as well as Massai. They're pretty particular about you paying a lot of money if you take their picture, so you have to do it on the sly. I did get an interesting shot of a Massai riding a bicycle on the side of the highway.

When we arrived at the park entrance for Ngorongoro Crater, our driver had to go inside for quite a while to do paperwork. Baboons were abundant and trying to steal things out of the jeeps. While walking around, I noticed Africans going up to the baboons and pushing them away when they were trying to break into things. A bit later, a baboon jumped from a tree onto our jeep and then onto the roof of another jeep. They had a box tied on top and the baboon started ripping it open. I ran up and beat on the side of the jeep right next to it and scared it away. A few minutes later, another baboon jumped into the driver's seat of a jeep that had the door open and engine running -- apparently it was supposed to be a short stop. I ran up and pushed the critter out. All of the tourists were shocked that I would touch one of the animals, but the African's were shaking my hand thanking me. I guess those tourists never had monkeys climb all over them for bananas before. And yes, I'm still over monkeys.

Soon after we proceeded to the lodge (the sun was going down pretty quickly). On the way, we saw some zebra.

Today, we did a game drive down in the crater and saw lots of stuff. After lunch, we drove to the Serengeti. No time to download photos -- I have to get up at 4am for my balloon ride. I'll pull it all together tomorrow night and write a post.

Home in less than a week.