My Journey to Tanzania Africa

Monday, May 2, 2011

Safari Safari!

My Easter break was spent on Safari in Mikumi National Park and on the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania. The Safari was fantastic! It was even better then I imagined but at the same time it was not what I expected. When I think of safari, as I think most people do, I think desert, dry, dirty, etc. This was lush green lands with lots of trees and mountains surrounding the whole park.

There were elephants, giraffes, zebras, buffalo, hippos, lions, but no leopards, and lots of birds. Oh and I almost forgot - tons of baboons - blue butts and all! We road around it the typical big green safari truck. Our driver Olai had the tourist safari hat. He is a Maasi and could jump about 3 feet off the ground! He let me wear his hat on the trip, but he got a little creepy after awhile. He wished he would have meet me when he was younger - he made weird comments at me - it was creepy - so I ended up giving the hat back so he would maybe leave me alone. It got to the point were I was unconformable! So sorry aunt Martha, but I tried and failed at getting you a used safari hat from my safari guide! I guess I will just have to come (maybe with you) and try again!

Also my home girls Kim and Kelly have this crazy obsession with this yellow zippy hoddy I had made here- they think with my hair braided I look like a gangster or something. We had a good time with it - there are a lot of pics of this on facebook, you should check it out. With this, the theme of our safari was " we're on a safari bitch".

After the safari we headed to the Udzungwa mountains to see some waterfalls and go on bike tour to a rubber factor. The waterfalls were amazing. We even got to swim in the pools at a part of the falls. The water was really cold and the force of the water was incredible! The bike tour the rubber factory changed my views on candy and gum. I am no longer going to chew gum. It has the bi-products of rubber in it! At least it is organic - it comes from trees! I helped my friend Leah learn how to ride a bike too. Only her brother was taught how because it was not a female activity! The longer I am here the more frustrated I get with the human rights issues and how woman are viewed and treated. Ok enough with that...enjoy all the pictures!!

Safari!!

hiking to the water falls!

Sanje - the highest waterfall in Tanzania

View off the big drop of the Sanje waterfall

teaching Leah how to ride a bike

out on the bike tour - riding through a village

drying maze

if i were to be barred i want my head stone to be like this. open dirt on the top so people can plant flowers instead of buying them!

main source of income and work for the women because it is easy and no need for "real" skills (ugh!) rubber trees!

collecting rubber like you would collect maple syrup

the fire where the rubber is burred to take making the color change from white to black

left over rubber pieces getting packed up and sold to gum and candy companies

the rubber

me in the safari hat!

mama lion and her cub playing in the road - it caused quite a traffic jam

Kim Leah Kim

yes we got this close to the elephants! they walked right by our safari truck!

zebras - jumpy little guys - it was really hard to get a good pic of them

Me - Kelly in the back - Jen - Allison - oh and the giraffe out side!

I love this pic! Look how tall the giraffe is! its as tall as the tree!

hippos! but they never came out of the water to play!

love this pic too!

me getting ready to go play in the waterfall!

the girls basking in the sun after the cold water

Safe (one of our guides) and me - it was a sweet ride - the locals found it hilarious - and Safe informed me that he has a Harley

reward for showing us some sweet dance moves - hanging out at the local duka on the way back from the hike

me with a Kilimanjaro after a long day of safari - and thats all folks!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Zanzibar again!! Night Dive!

So Elliot and I finally got our night dive in! It was a pretty cool dive. The best wreak dive I have been; not that I have been a lot of them, but the ship had been under for more then 100 years - so there was some really cool growth on it. Good news - my camera worked the whole time! Bad news - the company we used - One Ocean - does not do many night dives so their lights were not the best. All he had were little flashlights - I thought that was going to be our spare that we kept in our BCD, but nope that was our main light! So needless to say the pictures did not turn out the best. Sorry about that! But hopefully you enjoy!


Sunset - heading out to dive site!

Elliot

Blue Spotted Sting Ray

Helmet Crab

Squid - it attacked our dive master

Lion Fish!

Mid Term Break!!

Well my mid term break was quite an adventure to say the least! My journey started with a 26hr bus ride from Dar Es Salaam,Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya then on to Jinga, Unganda! This bus route was the same one that was bombed a few years ago. But I lived!! We made it to Jinga on the 11th and that same day we started our adrenalin packed weekend with a bang! After a quick nape in the Nile River Explores bunk house we headed to the source of the Nile River to bungee jump!! It was crazy scary and fun at the same time!! All 5 of us jumped on the first count down; Kim, Jen, Kelly, Elliot, and I! That night we enjoyed a relaxing evening around camp. The food was great, the location was fantastic! We where perched up high on the bank of the Nile looking down the river. It was fantastic. The sun set right over the water. The following morning we were up and loaded into a truck headed out to start our 2 day rafting adventure! That was sooo much fun! The Nile is full of class 4, 5, and 6 rapids (meaning extreme- guides don't even go through class 6!) It is such an intense experience that they bring along a safety raft and have kayakers in the water for when we fall out (not if we fall out - but when). And we did fall out! The last rapid of the day the entire raft flipped over! It was amazing; we all got swept up in rapids; picked up by the kayakers; it was great! There was a photographer with us and he caught it all on photo; unfortunately we have not received the CD yet; so no pictures from the rafting! :( In Kampala Kelly and I went to the Kasubi Tombs (Kings Tombs) were we meet a Prince of Uganda; member of the Baganda tribe that has influence in the government like the British Monarch. He is still in primary school and for fun in his free time he like to volunteer and tell tourists about his family history! I even bought a painting of his.

Start of the bus ride!

Nile River Explores Bunk House

The Nile

Bungee!

Success!

Me with the Nile

Locals on the Nile

Matching shirts!!

Night Camping on the Nile! This was the first time Kelly had ever put up a tent and/or Camped!

Duggee's - I took one out the 2nd day and rafted by myself

Harry Lemon - the island on the Nile we spent the night on

Elliot carrying our beds!

Me at the Harry Lemon


Hottest place to stay in Uganda! Myself Kelly & the Prince! Tribal Traditional Drums The Price giving Kelly and I a personal drum call lesson The Kasubi Tombs were burnt down a year ago the day we were there! It is said to probably be Samali extremest who wanted to hit the Uganda people at their heart. It is suppose to be reconstructed in a year! All of the Kings are buried here! Grave of the Prince's father - who was 2nd born Me and the boda boda!

After an adventure packed weekend in Uganda we headed off to Rwanda! Our first stop Ruhengeri, a little town at the bottom of Parc National Des Volcans. This is home to the rare mountain gorilla. This park shares boards with Uganda and the Congo as well. It is a think rain forest and we trekked for an hour or two in mud to reach the gorillas! That is right, we did the gorilla trek and it was worth ever penny and the huge pain in my ass it was to get the permits!The trek is not a for sure thing that gorillas will be found, but we found a family of 14! Once found humans are only allowed to be in their presence for 1 hour; time went really fast and these are only 1/3 of the pictures I took!!

Our happy feet at the end of the trek!

Kim, Hope, Kelly, Jen, and Me!

THE GORILLAS!!! Yes we where this close!

Me with the gorillas!

Silver back! Big papa! He walked right by me - probably could have smashed me like a bug! He was huge!! He eats 30kg of food a day!

Kid gorilla resting after a big breakfast!

Hope our guide! He provide much hope that we would have a sighting! He was right!

Silver back - has silver hair

Me with the gorillas again!

Grooming time!

Big papa with Big mama!

gorilla sleeping

After the gorillas we went to Gisenyi, Rwanda. This is considered the resort town of Rwanda. It is right on the border of the DRC and has a beautiful, huge lake called Kiva. The area was soo beautiful. There is not a lot to do as tourists but enjoy the scenery and relax. So that is what we did. We stayed a nicer place on the lake. Enjoyed the swimming pool and just relaxed! Kelly and I took a stroll down to the DRC boarder and tried to cross. It was quite an adventure. We were told we could pay $60 for a DRC visa for one day and go in and see Goma, buy a souvenir and leave! When we got to the border they said we had to pay $285 for a visa!! It was a rip off; they are just trying to sham all the white people. Anyway we don't speak french and they don't speak kiswahili so we had a language problem. But then this guy came by and helped us translate. We got to the point were he said " This is the DRC, just briber her!" We couldn't believe it so we started to bribe her. We had her at $60 to let us both through; but through translation we finally figure out that she wouldn't stamp our passports, just let us by. That had us worried, because what if we got caught on the other side, what if she is not there when we get back, what will Rwanda say when we have been gone for hours but our passports say we were no where! So needless to say we didn't make it into the DRC, but we did spend an hour in no mans land - limbo between boards! And proof of this is that when we got back to Rwanda boarder control the same guy how stamped us out was stamping people in now so he just wrote canceled over our exit stamp!