To Manyara

Day 44 2/27/99: Driving To Lake Manyara

Here were more tropical fruits served to us during breakfast at Dik-Dik Lodge. Despite the fact that this hotel uses a micro-filter in the kitchen to filter all its water, and then use the clean water to wash all the fruits, utensils, and dishes, we opted not to eat any of these tempting fruits. Paranoid? Probably. However, let me just say that my stomach was doing just fine--no diarrhea and no constipation.

We were all clean, rested, and organized. Safari, here we come. Very slowly, though. You see, despite all the training we did prior to the trip and all the weight lifting we did to prepare our quadriceps muscles, we were all sore from the two grueling days of hiking down Mt Kilimanjaro. We were all moving very sloooooooly and in great pain.

Here were the four Toyota Land Cruisers that took us to safari. These vehicles are built tough. It's a pity that most 4-wheel-drive Sports Utility Vehicles are driven on freeways or paved roads to go grocery shopping or to drop the kids off at soccer practice in U.S. They are totally under utilized--in the U.S. they should be called SUUV: Sports Under-Utilized Vehicles. On the other hand, SUVs are perfectly suited for safari and the rough dirt roads in Tanzania.

Here was Theresa riding in the Land Cruiser on our way to Lake Manyara. We were both proudly wearing the "I have Climbed Kilimanjaro" tee-shirts that we bought at Mweka Gate yesterday.

See anything special on the ceiling of the car? There were three places where the roof were cut open and installed with removable panels. You can see the handle for one of the movable ceiling panels. Later on at Lake Manyara we opened the ceiling panels in order to view the animals.

Oh, no. What was the driver doing? He was driving on the wrong side of the street; he was driving on the left. Oh yeah, people drive on the left in Tanzania. Whew!

See, even the steering wheel was on the right. I really did not have problems with people driving on the left since I was not driving myself. However, for the rest of the trip every time I tried to get into a vehicle, out of habit I still go to the right-hand side, forgetting that the passenger's door is on the left! What a fool I was.

First stop was to exchange some traveler checks for Tanzanian shillings at the money bureau, which is located inside the Impala Hotel.   The exchange rate was about 1$ =~ 686 shillings. So for the rest of the trip we had to do some mental gymnastics to divide all the prices quoted in Tanzanian shillings by 700 to make the calculation simply.

Here is a note for 200 shillings, which we could not spend before leaving the country. Don't you think that all othe countries' money are prettier than the boring old U.S. greenbacks?

We passed a famous landmark in Arusha, this clock tower marks the center of Africa! There were also street hawkers anxious to do business with us. I think a day-old USA today was about $3.5. I did not bother with newspaper as I figured that the world continued to have murders and Monica Lewinsky stories which I rather not know about.

Our second stop was the New Arusha Hotel.

We looked at postcards, maps, and books. I was impressed by postcards of African wildlife that Anton took when he was here. If you recall, Anton is a Wilderness Travel agent who booked our trip. He now has a desk job at WT's home office at Berkeley, California.

Theresa resisted the temptation of doing some power shopping.

I wonder if Bill Abbot, the owner of Wilderness Travel, knows about the problem with this Wilderness Travel vehicle. No, the Toyota Land Cruiser worked just great. The problem was the canvas cover for the spare tire--Berkeley is misspelled! How do we know? Theresa works at Berkeley.

Driving through Arusha's city streets on Saturday morning.

The biggest disappointment of our trip was this tourist trap. We wanted to buy some souvenirs. Frankly, I did not mind at all paying tourist prices for some of the items if the prices charged were no more than 2X of my expectations--I figure it's a good way to inject some money into the local economy. However, when I found out that a map, a small wooden mask, and a candle holder had an asking price of more than $200, and the price only came down to $125 after some negotiations, I gave up. I will not patronize a place that charges 4X of normal. We decided to save our money for later--in fact, we did much better later on.

Incidentally, I don't know what other people paid for their supposedly rare and precious Tanzanite gemstones that were not available in U.S. The price was probably outrageous. Before I worked on this WEB page tonight I happened to see Tanzanite gemstones being hocked on TV. At http://www.shopathomeonline.com I saw a 1.25CT Marquise Cut Tanzanite for $599, and a 1.5CT Oval Cut Blue Tanzanite for $899. These prices seemed more reasonable.

Theresa and I spent more than 20 minutes to go through their pile of batik prints looking for motifs with elephants or Mt. Kilimanjaro. We were sorely disappointed. It seemed that we had much better luck shopping at Nairobi, Kenya in 1991.

Look at the large collection of  outrageously priced wooden masks. They were beautiful but hopelessly overpriced. No shopping for us here.

I consoled myself by walking around the grounds of this tourist trap and took some pictures. At least taking pictures was free. Here was an outdoor sculpture of animals drinking together. I worried for that zebra, who was sitting in between a lion and leopard (or is that a cheetah) :-)

I should have known that this was an overpriced tourist trap--they had to guard the compound with electric wires that were buzzing in the air! Time to leave this joint! Thank goodness. I wasted enough time at this place :-(

What were were standing around for? Was there a large herd of elephants? Were there Masai warriors ready to throw spares at us?

Not quite. It was lunch time in the shade of   some acacia trees! Our drivers, besides being expert safari guides, also prepared a picnic lunch for us. I enjoyed a cold Coca-cola with my lunch.

We had a nice lunch...

as long as you didn't stand too close to the acacia trees. The needles can be very sharp!

We said good-bye to the paved tarmac, and then traveled on a dusty dirt road. My bandanna came in handy to block the dust. Yes, I have washed my bandanna since I last used it to wipe off the vomit off my face on top of Shira Plateau! I tell you, going on a safari while riding in a 4-wheel-drive Land Cruiser was a completely different experience than hiking Mt Kilimanjaro using my own two feet. It was fun in its own way.

On the way to Lake Manyara we passed some Bomas, which are homes where the Masai people lived. They are less nomadic nowadays, and their settlements are more permanent. In addition to cows, they also raised donkeys, which are rented out as carriers. I guess donkeys are Tanzanian version of American U-Hauls rental trucks. :-) We also saw Masai teenagers, dreesed in black, instead of being alone in the bush and preparing to become men, were standing beside the road hoping for hand-outs. I hope the Masai culture does not detoriate more with pollution from the outside--but what am I complaining about--I was part of the problem. Oh well,... We did see a few Thomson gazelles on the way to the Lake.