Tanzania - getting there (20 Feb 2010)
Of all the places I've ever seen, Tanzania is my favourite: TOP of the list ! Probably because I'm an animal lover and the diversity of animals in East Africa is unmatched anywhere else on earth... and I do love the scenery there too, slightly more beautiful than Kenya I'd (dare) say and (a lot) less crowded (because it's around 30-50% more expensive !).
I went with my sister Nathalie and her boyfriend Roberto. Our other friend Roberto had to pull out at the last minute due to a lung problem, but it was originally booked as a 'private tour for 4' , which comes at pretty much the same amount of money as what you'd pay to join a tour with another 4-5 strangers. We'd booked with 'Africa Travel' on this occasion. £2,500 each. Quite a lot for 10 days -granted- but we wanted the trip to be memorable.
We had a BA 18.20 flight to Dar-Es-Salaam - it was on time and it was a beautiful smooth ride with lots of good movies... the only downside is that I was 'grobbed' a few times by the French guy sitting next to me (younger than I was and very blond actually). Why do I always seem to attract perverts? A few scratches on his (wandering) hand soon sorted him out, if not, I'd have had to lodge an official complain or ask him to change seats.
It was very hot when we landed and we were soon taken to a nice hotel to have lunch before we drove onto Arusha (about 3 hours away). It was such a warm day that we decided to have our lunch outside, in the courtyard, by the pool... It was probably 7C when we left London, so to be basking in 27C temperatures 'overnight' was just pure bliss ! Good service, good service, good start... We were given our itinerary for the week and soon set off. A bit of trivia: Arusha is exactly half way between Cairo and Cape Town !
On the way to the first lodge in Tarangire we experienced a massive downpour... the kind when you just cannot see what's on the road, it was like being in a car wash factory... so we had to pull out and wait for it to stop. It soon cleared and after that we never really 'encountered' rain like this again - thankfully. We'd picked February because it's supposed to be one of the sunniest months and a good month for migrations too in some parts of the country.
Our driver was Josuah. He didn't say much at first and didn't seem to invest a lot of energy looking out for things but he ended up having a pretty good sense of humour and very sharp 'eagle' eyes when he could get 'in the mood'. For instance my sister asked 'would a lion actually try to eat us?' and he said very seriously: 'absolutely not... unless they had salt & pepper'.
Of all the places I've ever seen, Tanzania is my favourite: TOP of the list ! Probably because I'm an animal lover and the diversity of animals in East Africa is unmatched anywhere else on earth... and I do love the scenery there too, slightly more beautiful than Kenya I'd (dare) say and (a lot) less crowded (because it's around 30-50% more expensive !).
I went with my sister Nathalie and her boyfriend Roberto. Our other friend Roberto had to pull out at the last minute due to a lung problem, but it was originally booked as a 'private tour for 4' , which comes at pretty much the same amount of money as what you'd pay to join a tour with another 4-5 strangers. We'd booked with 'Africa Travel' on this occasion. £2,500 each. Quite a lot for 10 days -granted- but we wanted the trip to be memorable.
We had a BA 18.20 flight to Dar-Es-Salaam - it was on time and it was a beautiful smooth ride with lots of good movies... the only downside is that I was 'grobbed' a few times by the French guy sitting next to me (younger than I was and very blond actually). Why do I always seem to attract perverts? A few scratches on his (wandering) hand soon sorted him out, if not, I'd have had to lodge an official complain or ask him to change seats.
It was very hot when we landed and we were soon taken to a nice hotel to have lunch before we drove onto Arusha (about 3 hours away). It was such a warm day that we decided to have our lunch outside, in the courtyard, by the pool... It was probably 7C when we left London, so to be basking in 27C temperatures 'overnight' was just pure bliss ! Good service, good service, good start... We were given our itinerary for the week and soon set off. A bit of trivia: Arusha is exactly half way between Cairo and Cape Town !
On the way to the first lodge in Tarangire we experienced a massive downpour... the kind when you just cannot see what's on the road, it was like being in a car wash factory... so we had to pull out and wait for it to stop. It soon cleared and after that we never really 'encountered' rain like this again - thankfully. We'd picked February because it's supposed to be one of the sunniest months and a good month for migrations too in some parts of the country.
Our driver was Josuah. He didn't say much at first and didn't seem to invest a lot of energy looking out for things but he ended up having a pretty good sense of humour and very sharp 'eagle' eyes when he could get 'in the mood'. For instance my sister asked 'would a lion actually try to eat us?' and he said very seriously: 'absolutely not... unless they had salt & pepper'.
posted by Sylvie at 6:57 PM
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