After a short visit to Dar Es Salaam and a one night stopover on the coast North of Dar we went to Kims Beach South of Dar at a village called Gezaulole. There is a cultural tourism programme here supported by a Dutch organisation. We watched a local collecting coconuts from the palms on the beach. He climbed simply using a ‘rope’ around his ankles made from fronds. The coconut milk was delicious.
We went on a tour of the village with Moses who worked for the cultural tourism programme. They have a nursery for the villlage which grows trees, herbs and vegetables which all looked very healthy. We stopped at the village ‘take-away’ for hot sweet potato which was very good indeed. The local bar was entertaining with the merry regulars drinking maize beer at 10am! Also visited the local village potter and a lady making matting from woven palm fronds. We visited an island off the coast on a fisherman’s dhow where we snorkelled off the beach.
The beach is stunning here, fine coral sand and pure blue sea, only spoiled by the ex-Pats who turn up in force at the weekends!
Passed huge Pineapple plantaions on the way to Nogorongoro and stayed at a stopover campsite run by an eccentric Brit who has spent all his life in Africa and hadn’t finished the campsite after 6 years but a lovely place by the river in any case.
The temperature gauge had given up on George the Land Rover and when I investigated it transpired that the cable had been under tension (presumably since new!) and had a very frayed mass of wire where it had eventually snapped each wire over time. Got this ‘fixed’, for free at a garage in Arusha, an African repair job involving insulation tape and twisting wire. The mechanic seemed almost afronted when I asked him if he had soldered the new wire onto the temperature sender! It will work for a while I think but I got some proper connectors in Arusha for if it does work loose.
Did some food shopping in the excellent market at Moshi and posted some letters to people we had met in Malawi and Tanzania. Also got some photos printed in Arusha to send to Malawi.
The road to Ngororongoro is now excellent new tarmac finished last year having taken 5 years to complete. When we last came to Ngorongoro about 10 years ago this road was really dreadful with huge rocks and potholes in the road to negotiate. Unfortunately (for us anyway) this had led to more visitors and even many lorries now using this road and then going through the Serengeti National Park, not good for conservation! Going to the crater is expensive, USD285 for one day (including two nights camping). We made the most of it being first in the crater after a 5.30am start. The road down into the crater down the rim is very steep, and the ascent road even more so! At the entrance gate they tried to persuade us to take a guide (we are supposed to strictly), a masaai boy of around 14 was offered but didnt like the look of the cramped conditions in our cab! We saw so much wildlife here this time (the previous visit had been disappotinting). We saw black Rhino near the Larai forest, bat-eared foxes with young and a cheetah. Photographs in the crater were difficult with the heat haze and distances from the road to the animals. On the second night there was a huge bull elephant in the campsite browsing within a few metres of our vehicle! And on both nights buffalo came to graze the grass around the vehicle.
We then moved onto the Serengeti for 3 nights. There was so much wildlife here with the migration in progress there were huge herds of Wildebeest and Zebra. And inevitably predators when there are 1 million Wildebeest! We saw no less than 38 Lions in the three days!! Some of these were hunting too which was a bonus. We saw another Leopard (the sixth of the trip) which was also hunting but couldn’t get very good photos in the long grass. We went to the Mara river hoping to see the Wildebeest crossing but it was getting late to go too far up the river.