Africa – The Journal pt.X

8/23/08 8:00AM (written about Friday, August 22nd)

So, yesterday we went to the crater. The drive in was fairly uneventful, because there was a lot of fog and cloud cover. We cold barely see twenty feet out the windows. I’d heard enough beforehand to know that coming in and out of the crater can be quite frightening. I guess the fog helped, because the only scary thing was that we could have had a head-on collision on the narrow road and barely known it was coming before the impact.

We’ve also had the chance to see some road construction, Tanzania style. You know what they use for highway cones? Rocks. Big rocks. At first I thought there’d been a rockslide, but it turns out that was just to keep the cars from driving into the people working, because it was so foggy you couldn’t see the people (or the hole in the road they were waist deep in) when you were driving around the rocks. Looking back on it, I’d say the rocks are pretty effective. I mean, you can drive over a highway cone without messing up your car. It’s tough to run over basketball size rocks without doing some damage though. Oh, and yeah, construction was all shovel powered on the crater road. Our first stop in the crater (after we checked in at the entry office) was a Masai boma. They charged $50 for the entire truckload to enter. They did some customary singing and dancing (jumping); I actually jumped with them. Obviously, these were fairly commercialized Masai, because they had all their jewelry and items spread out to buy.

They took us into one of their hats, where we saw how they lived. The smoke from the small fire really stung my eyes. The interior of the hut is all black from soot. They have about four rooms, really: one where the wife and children sleep, one for the man, adjacent is the cooking/main room, and then a room for a calf or storage near the door. The whole thing may be 150sqft. We took a couple of quick pictures, while our guide told us about their way of life. He has three wives but only one at that boma.

Masai huts are standard mud, cow crap, and stick construction. I say “standard”, because many houses in Africa are made from the same materials, but with different architecture: square instead of “beehive-esque” like the Masai huts. The house is framed up with saplings and covered on the outside with the mud/poo mixture. There are small holes for ventilation and a port for a door. Like I said, this stick/mud construction is used in a lot of housing in poorer areas, however in those houses, they have more westernized wall/roof construction. Noticing this led to my “crappy house” theory on education in Africa. That being: children are much more interested and diligent in school when they are faced with the prospect of living in a poop house if they don’t have an education. I mean… that’s solid capitalistic motivation right there. Get an education or build your house out of animal litter. You’d be amazed at how well the kids paid attention in class.

After we left the hut, we looked at their stuff for sale. Like I said, these Masai were very commercialized. Even while we were looking others would come up to sell things. Our guide tried to keep us in one section, for apparently these were the items his family had made and he would receive the money from that sale.

The prices were quite high, so I didn’t really buy much. Just two small bracelets for $20. I wanted a club, stick, blanket, or spear, but they were really high. We got the same stuff in Moshi later at much better prices. It’s funny; they yell at you if you take their picture in town, but for $50 they’ll invite you into their home, take YOUR picture in their house for you, and dance and sing. “Here, pose with the kids!” We kind of joked about the possibility of them having an RV encampment just over the ridge that we couldn’t see, with hot-tubs and plasma TVs, because there were at least four truckloads of people that stopped while we were there. I can see them all sitting on their leather couches, drinking martinis, and laughing about the stupid mzungu. It’s not that I blame them, but it does seem that money cures a lot of problems.

We proceeded on to the crater, seeing cape buffalo, wildebeest, hartebeest, jackals, various birds, baboons, elephants, gazelle, hippos, and even some lions. Rhinos were sorely lacking and dearly missed. Apparently, those are very rare and hard to see.

The massive number of animals was amazing. At one point, a herd of wildebeest (and probably various other ungulates) strung out for at least half a mile. We also enjoyed breathtaking vistas over and over as we drove past calderas with the crater rim constantly in the background. The rim gives you a sense of always being near a range of hills or mountains, and so you always have it as a back drop in your photos. Granted, the crater is something like 12 miles across, so the rim isn’t always large in the background, but it’s almost always visible.

We got to see a pride of lions fairly closely. It was easy to spot where they were because of the traffic jam of vehicles lining both sides of the road. Lions are popular. They are the jocks and cheerleaders of Ngorongoro High. I don’t even know what you’d classify a rhino as… maybe like if you went to high school with John Wayne’s kids or something. I’m not sure how anyone could ever be cooler than that.

We stopped for lunch by a lake, where there were bathrooms and hippos to watch. Oh, and birds. Lots of birds. You had to be careful, because there were apparently falcons that would take your hand off to get your sandwich if you gave them the opportunity. A lot of the little birds were really aggressive also. They would land within feet of you to try to nab a snack. Some even went inside our truck after a peanut. Funny enough, there were (crested) guineas all over the place also. I suppose they are native here.

I guess the highlight of the day would be the elephant that just about climbed into the truck with us. I now have new found respect for those things. This one was eating a thorn tree/bush. And when I say thorns, I mean thorns: four inch long wooden nails really. I don’t know how it kept from piercing its own tongue, but it didn’t seem to be bothered at all. The elephant would just reach out with its trunk, yank a bunch of thorny limbs off the bush, and chow down like it was celery or something. I must have taken seventy five pictures of it, because it was so close to us. It ended up crossing the road and moving on, barely paying any attention to us. I guess SUVs full of white people just don’t impress like they used to.

The drive out was vastly different from the drive in. The sky had cleared mostly, and we could see how close and how steep the edge was. It is a dramatic and frightening drive. We saw paint scrapes on the side of the road wall (it was cut out of the crater rim, so the sides were sheer) where vehicles couldn’t quite make the hairpin turns. You could look out the other side of the vehicle and not really see any hillside, it was too steep. You had to look ahead or behind to really see the ground fall away.

At the top, we stopped and took some photos, since its some 2000ft above the bottom of the crater. I was a little disappointed in the pictures, because the floor is so far down that it’s difficult to show in a photo. Plus, it was so hazy that it’s hard to see the details in a photo like you can in person. There were a couple monuments there for people who’d died doing research and protecting the crater from poachers. Some had died in animal attacks, or plane crashes. I think a couple were killed by poachers hunting rhinos. Poaching of large game is an act that really makes you disappointed in humanity (and aware of our real need for redemption). I’ll leave it to you to research it online (beware, the pictures can be disturbing), but it really is a stupid, petty way to make a buck.

Our drive home was mostly uneventful; we stopped at a couple of high priced shops, where barely anything was purchased. Beware, tourist traps are alive and well in those parts. If you really want to go shopping for souvenirs, do it in Moshi.

Oh, I did need to mention that we found out that the Masai spearheads are manufactured in a factory in Arusha. And after we left the boma, we stopped before entering the crater. Other Masai approached us selling their special blankets… they were still in the packages! This led to a unique revelation… the items you buy in stores in Moshi are basically just as authentic as what you buy from the Masai directly, only much cheaper. I guess it would be cool to say that you’d bought something directly from the tribe (thus the two bracelets that I paid $20 for), but that’s the only difference in the actual product. It’s funny to see “Made in Arusha” on the blanket packages though. As a comparison, those two bracelets would’ve cost probably $5-$8 in Moshi.

We got to see a lot of impressive artwork in our shopping. The woodcarvings are excellent, and some of the bowls and soapstone works are really beautiful. I wish I’d had some more space (and money) so I could’ve gotten one of the knife paintings. It’s hard to describe the style, but it’s a painting done in a way that all the figures are really vertically stretched and angular. The presentation is beautiful. Generally, the subjects seemed to be Masai people, and it accented some of the attributes you think of when you see Masai. That is, that they are tall, thin, and dominated by primary colors. It’s a great artistic representation.

Anyway, we did stop on the way home for Kim to buy some red bananas in the town that had trees covered in crane poop near Lake Manyara. It still stank. The bananas were great though. The red ones don’t taste any different. The little stubby bananas are the best. Tastey.

The biggest scare (of the entire time in Africa, I think) was driving through Arusha at night. People are everywhere. We saw one man that looks like he was struck by a car. Bicycles come out of nowhere. It’s hard to see anyone in the dark, and the street lighting is really poor. All of us were cringing so much, I think it would have been easier if I would have just closed my eyes and not known about it. Really scary, but we made it home ok. We unloaded, said goodbye to Daniel, and went to bed following some discussion and prayer. We also prayed over the items we purchased, just in case.

Africa – The Journal pt.IX

Thursday 8/21/08 9:45PM

Today we woke up and left at 8AM for safari (actually, they call it a “game drive,” since I think technically safari can refer to any type of journey). First, we drove to change some money, and then to FoZ to drop some it off for the shirts that are being made by FoJ. They needed more cloth to finish the shirts.

The road out of Moshi to the northwest is actually pretty decent. It’s better than chip and seal, and for the most part is pretty smooth. The African countryside has a blend of interestingly different and surprisingly normal landscapes. You see plenty of maize, and people just walking around, or some greenhouses on a hillside, but then you see a monkey, or a cactus tree (I wish I’d have gotten a picture) and realize that this ain’t Colorado.

We saw many Masai, their villages (or reputedly, ONE Masai’s village, with his multiple wives and hundreds of children.. it’s a long storey), baobab, acacia, coffee, banana, and other crazy trees. Cactus trees, sausage trees. Cactus trees are exactly what they sound like. It’s a tree, but when you look closely, the branches and everything… it’s a big cactus. Again, I got no pictures (sorry), but it’s one of the craziest things ever. Sausage trees are pretty unique also, but unfortunately, they are not edible (sadness).

The drive from Moshi to Arusha is a gentle climb. Because of that, the land gets gradually greener along the way. One of the striking things is that there seem to be banana trees everywhere. You see them growing out of creek banks, in front yards, and randomly poking out in ditches on the side of the road. I guess it is Africa’s monstrous analogue to daffodils. This does mean that I have eaten the absolute best bananas I’ve ever tasted here. I suppose freshness counts for something.

We’ve also seen some fields of coffee. It’s not a tree, like I thought. It’s really just a bush. They plant shade trees throughout the fields to shade the coffee as it grows. Apparently this gives it better flavor. I don’t drink coffee, but Sean claims that even the instant coffee he’s had here is pretty good. It’s kind of funny, all the stuff that we don’t grow in Arkansas they apparently grow here. Bananas, mangos (ooohhh the mangos are good!), coffee, papaya… you just see it hanging on trees over here. We also saw a few rice fields… it’s not done with quite the same panache as it is in the US. People here just muck around with hoes and stuff. I don’t think we’ve come across any John Deere service centers recently. There is a Ford dealer in Arusha though. The trucks don’t look the same.

We’ve crossed the Usa (pronounced oo-suh) river. Arusha has some larger, more impressive buildings, but even these are surrounded by the small one and two story dirty concrete staples. I think they must have a “square beige concrete building” factory somewhere around here.

We drove through Arusha and headed for Lake Manyara. Close to the entrance to the park, we drove through a town (can’t remember the name) with some really, really impressively huge trees. Unfortunately, the trees were home to some special crane or something. Half the town was covered in a light colored dust… crane poop. I can’t really describe the smell, except to say that we made the mistake of having the windows open, and we paid dearly for that lack of foresight. It’s sort of an acrid, ammonia smell. I’m not sure why anyone would build there house under that, but people did. I suppose if that’s the land you’ve got, that’s where you build your house. Wow did it stink though.

In the park, we saw baboons, bush bucks, dikdik, impalas, giraffes, cape buffalo, elephant, blue monkeys, vervet monkeys (with blue scrotums… seriously), tree hyrax, flamingos, hippos, wildebeest, zebras, and a variety of birds. Also, warthogs and some other monkeys. Bonus fact: the John Wayne movie “Hatari” was filmed in the Arusha area near Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro.

Out of all of it, the most memorable moment for me was when we finally came out into the open by the lake (most of the park is trees with roads cut in it) and could see giraffes in the distance. I think they have to be the most impressive animal I’ve ever seen. The males are huge! You see them walking around, and it’s a little hard to believe something like that should exist. Plus, they actually move pretty gracefully for a thing that’s basically a neck with legs. One of my “welcome to Africa” moments was seeing a giraffe walking by a group of zebras in front of a flamingo covered lake that was fed by a hot spring that’s heated by underground volcanic activity. Toss in a few acacia trees, and you’ve got a Disney movie.

The lake (as I mentioned) is fed by hot springs. It’s an alkali lake, and is very shallow (3-5m). The spring was very hot, as it was heated by volcano. The whole area lies in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches some 10,000km from the middle east across eastern Africa. We walked down to where a spring came out of the hillside. It’s hot. Really hot. I’m pretty sure you could cook with it. Lake Manyara is home to something like three million flamingos. I’m not even kidding: you see more pink and white than blue when you look at the water.

There were a couple of interesting incidents near the end of our day in Lake Manyara. First, we were trying to get over to the hippo pond before the park closes at night, and a large bull elephant was blocking the road. Now, in the parks, the animals have the right of way. You are not allowed to honk or push them out of the way, because you’re in there home, right? Well, this elephant decided he was just going to stay there. I think he was a little bothered by us, because he was flapping his ears and kicking up dust at us. We sat there waiting for nearly five minutes before Daniel (our driver) decided to turn around take the long way. Elephants can be dangerous. In some parks, they’ve been known to flip vehicles over occasionally, so you’ve got to be careful.

So, we made it to the hippo pond where, honestly, things were pretty boring. You see, hippos live in the water (shocking, I know), so, there’s really not much to see except hippo backs. It just looks like a shoal of big smooth rocks. But, to our benefit, one male did decide to come up on the bank for us. Yes… we know it was male; it was kind of obvious. The funny part was that we discovered one of the more disgusting habits that exists in the animal world. Hippos whirl their poop around with their tails like a propeller. They even do it in the water. Supposedly they do it to help mark their territory, as it distributes the feces over a larger area than just letting it fall. This guy did it in the water, and then again when he got up on the bank. Karibu Tanzania! Have some hippo poop! Don’t drink the water!
We did not see the tree climbing lions, or any other cats (like leopards). Lake Manyara is evidently the only place in the world where you can find tree climbing lions. I think we did see a couple of lions lying in the sade *under* a tree, but we did not, in fact, see any in the trees themselves.

Our lodge is over the ridge in another town (Keratu). It’s the Kutu lodge. Nice place. Toilet doesn’t work very well though. They did have passion fruit Fanta though, so that’s a plus. The minus is that it’s a tourist resort, so they charge extravagantly for it. Oh well, at least the food was good… but so far I’ve like most of the food here.

Leaving Lake Manyara, we had to climb a huge escarpment (they don’t call it the Great Rift Valley for nothing). On the top, we stopped to gaze out over the valley below. It is a really beautiful sight. The valley floor and the lake rest about 2000ft below the top of the valley walls. I don’t believe the portion we reached was quit that high, but it was breathtaking nonetheless.

Tomorrow- Ngorongoro