Nogorongoro

Jambo, here I am again. Had a relaxing day yesterday and therefore nooo time for the blog ;-).

If I remember right I left you with the Ngorongoro. So, after the Serengeti we had a short drive to the Ngorongoro crater where we spent the night and have a game drive the day after. Arriving at the crater's camp site we set up our tents and help preparing dinner. We were told by our tourleader that we might see an elephant at the camp site drinking water out of the tank close to the kitchen. I was very excited about that as elephants are my favourite animals and to see one close up would be the greatest. While waiting for the elephant to show up we decided it was time for rum and coke also known as Cuba libre. We started drinking early that night.

After maybe 1 hour of waiting the elephant arrived at the camp and everybody camping there was assembled around the kitchen not to close but close enough to have a good view of the elephant. It was amasing and scary at the same time. Loads of pictures were taken and the elephant didn't seemed to feel disturb by it. It just stood there by the tank and enjoyed its water. And after some time trotted off to the forest again and made its way down to the crater as if it was the most normal thing in the world to go to a camp site and have a sip of water :-). I loved it :-).

Everyone went back to there tents after that and we went back to our base beside the truck where dinner was ready waiting for us. Els and I were a little bit tipsy by the time dinner was ready and spontaniously invented the elephant dance. We had a lot of fun although some people must have thought that we're completely nuts and should be delivered to the looney bin as soon as possible. Anyway we enjoyed our dance and couldn't care less about what other people think of us.

I stayed up late the night on the crater because the thought of animals wandering around our camp site was a bit disturbing. George, Ian and, unfortunately, Sauce were keeping me company. We couldn't get rid of Sauce and had to pretend to be polite until he decided to go to bed. Unfortunately, that was just short before our bedtime so what could have been a nice evening sitting around the camp fire telling stories, turned out to be another anoying evening with Sauce asking stupid questions and making stupid comments about everyting.

Anyway, I made it to bed in one piece and had a good nights sleep with my beloved earplugs and therefore snore and animal noises free. In the morning we got up early packed our stuff and prepared lunch to be ready to go down to the crater by 7 a.m. The crazy dutch and I mananged to avoid getting in the same jeep as Sauce and were happy, happy the way down to the crater. The crater wasn't as spectacular as I had in mind. But the way down to it was worth it anyway.

We saw the usual suspects and 2 male lions one of them being an older one and therefore having a beautiful mane like you'd expect all male lions to have.


Acutally there was also one funny thing happening at the crater. Sauce, Bill and Nikky were sharing a car together and were mostly behind us and the other car. So when we arrived at a crossing their driver took a shortcut and their car got stuck in mud. For us it was the funniest thing of course because it was Sauce who got stuck, the 3 people in the car weren't too please about it though. Our driver and the driver from the other car tried to free the car stuck in mud but didn't manage it because they only had a small rope and whenever one car tried to get them out of the mud the rope broke off the car dragging. In the end the drivers decided to the stuck car out of the mud with another car and everybody was happy again :-). The drive went on :-)


That's it for today folks, I'll continue with the last days of my trip later on this week. Stay tuned and take care :-)

One picture is better than nothing..isn't it

Jambo, my friends. I'm back in Zanzibar. Sorry for not writing for such a long time, but I didn't really have time.

Last time I was here, I was still with my group and from here we went back to Dar Es Salam. We spent a night there and had an early start the next day to hit the road to Arusha. In Arusha (Snake Park, Ken, you'd have loved it ;-)) we stayed for one night and said bye bye to our driver Sam. It was sad to lose him as he was our rock...

In Arusha my injuries started..from there on I was called nan. I fell in the shower and hurt my knee badly, couldn't walk and a few tears were spread. Yes it wasn't funny. But I tried to smile and bite my teeth and by the time we were on the way to Serengeti, the knee still sore, I could smile again. This wasn't the end of my injuries though. On the way to Serengeti we stopped at another camp a nice one, where we set up our tents and were happy, happy until we had to peel potatoes without peeler and without sharp knives. Very funny, I lost the feeling (s'Gfuehl in Swiss German) of my index finger, till now it is numb, I could handle that no worries, at least it wasn't sore as my knee, I just didn't feel it anymore. But it didn't stop there..nonono. I went to get stuff out of my tent and cut my right thumb, it bleeded as and wasn't cool as and hurt..bloody did that hurt. So, no feeling in the index finger, pain in the knee and my thumb felt like shit..and went to bed shortly after the dance of the locals at the camp site which was great...juuuhhuuu.

The next day we were off to the Serengeti, we lost our new driver though unfortunatelly, he got sick. So George, our tourleader was driving. He liked it..yesyesyes. He used to be a driver and I think he was just waiting for an opportunety to drive..hehe. The Serengeti was amasing, beautiful and we could finish the big five there, with finish I mean, we saw the one missing piece to all 5, the lepard. But more about the lepard later. First we saw 3 cheetas hanging around on a little hill by the street. They were beautiful and I wanted to take one home, but couldn't of course. Apart from that we saw 2 lazy male lions and giraffes and buffalos and apro. 7 female lions and and and. It was amasing as I said before. The night we spent at a camp site in the middle of Serengeti, we were supposed to hear the animals and even to be visited by them but, I couldn't hear a thing because my tent mate snored too loud and block out all other noises, not only me had the problem. I decided to plug in my earplugs and f.. the animals..holy crab...The next day my mood wasn't tooo good because I reaalllyyy wanted to hear the noises...

Anyway, we went for our last game drive in Serengeti and had lost hope already to see a lepard, when we saw a gathering of maaannyyy cars. Curious as we were we approached the cars and didn't really get what they were looking and until close to the truck the gras was moving and what did we see? A lepard just about 1 meter away from our truck. It was stunning, breath taking, unbelievable. Many pictures were taken and we were the happiest people in the world. But that wasn't the end. As we moved away from the spot, we approached another gathering and wondered what it was. Coming closer we realised it was a Lepard with a little one. The little one must have been appro. 5 or 8 months and was the cutiest thing in the world. We watched these to beautiful animals as they walked along the cars gathered around them. Evtl. we had to move our truck and we were disappointed of not being able to see more of the lepard but we were rewarded for the moving. As we stoped again, we saw the lepard and the little one moving towards us. We were excited and couldn't believe it. They came closer and closer and the little one crawled under our truck. The mum stood still in front of our truck, we could have touched it, and looked up to us. That was when we paniced. What if she jumps in the truck? We shouted> 'George MOOOVEEEEE' but he didn't and the lepard went under the truck and came out the other side followed by the cub. The whole truck was amased by what happened and we couldn't have been happier about it. It made clear how powerful these animals are and what little barrier there is between the wild and our truck.

We left Serengeti the same day and moved on to Ngorgoro.

The blog is to be continued, as I've to answer some e-mails. You'll hear more about Ngorongoro tomorrow or the day after.

Zanzibar..last night

Jambo :-)

Hope, you're o.k.

I'm good. I spent the last 1 1/2 days in Zanzibar and am enjoying the home of my friend Ruth and her boyfriend Khamis. It's good to see old friends again and be able to talk in your mother tongue after traveling for more than one month now. It is also good to see all the people again on Zanzibar and to catch up with the newest gossips ;-). Tomorrow, unfortunately, we'll move on to the mainland and that means back to long truck drives again. Anyway, I'm not too sad as I'll be back in Zanzibar in more or less a weeks time. So, it's a short bye bye :-)

Nothing really happened here apart from chilling and eating and of course, the compulsory booze cruise. Which wasn't as crazy as the one in Livingstone, but very relaxing. Mick got seasick though and didn't enjoy the cruise nor the booze, pole sana. We however enjoyed a beautiful scenery and a beautiful sunset..yipiieee

No pictures again, sorry, however I'll try to upload some next week when I'm back in beautiful Zanzibar and have more time to figure out how to to it. Pretty much, that's it.

Crossing Border to Malawi

Hello, here's the crazy Swiss lady, got a new name. Don't know how that happened anyway it got stuck.

Since apr. 4 days I'm in wonderful Malawi. Apart from the heavy rainfalls it is great here. The people are very nice, very friendly and the country is green and just beautiful.

We crossed the border the 1st February and our first stop was close to Lusaka which is the capitol of Malawi. I was a bit scared of crossing the border because Malawi was one of the only countries I got the visa in advanced. Anyway, the guy at the border looked at my passport for a long time and then started to talk to his colleague. I got a bit nervous just slightly of course no one could tell ;-). After a few seconds, which were hours for me, the guy looked at me and said: You've a Malawian name, you've to stay in Malawi. We will keep you and teach you the culture and everything. Hm, speechless, was my first reaction, laughing the second and my answer was: That's great. So, I'll just stay. Hakuna matata, no problem. That's how they let me in ;-). Don't know why I spent a fortune on that bloody visa, I'm bloody Malawian ;-).

The camp site close to Lusaka was o.k. although not very suitable for rain. Actually, I'm not so sure anymore if it was that camp site, too many camp sites since..holy crab, getting old. Anyway, the camp site I'm talking about was not suitable for rain, too little space at the bar and they had to accommodate 2 trucks which means apr. 30 people. When we got there it didn't rain so we put up our tents in dry weather. As our cook didn't need help, yet, I decided to shower first. Bad idea, when I came out of the shower in fresh clothes and smelling like heaven, the tour leader decided I could clean the truck on the inside...aehae. Great. I was thrilled but did it of course. The truck was all muddy and really bloody dirty so my clothes were ruined after the cleaning and not just that, I was sweaty all over again..wonder why I took that shower. Unfortunately, it started to rain the moment I finished cleaning so I stood in the shade of our plastic roof which quickly filled with water. That's why the truck driver dediced to empty the roof (it is called Blache in Swiss German, no one knows how's called in English ;-)). Lucky me, all the water went down my back and I was soaked..juuuuhhuuu. So I stood there shivering and wet and dirty and just felt great....Thought you might find that amusing. Feel free to laugh.. ;-). At least we stayed dry during the night. With my luck I thought the tent will leak as well.

From Lusaka we travelled on to Kande Beach which is at the lake Malawi. We were all looking forward to spend some time at the beach, enjoy the sun reading and going for a swim in the lake. We didn't ask the gods though. We spent 2 full days at lake Malawi and the rain was true to us. The first day it cleared up at around 5 pm so we went for a swim anyway. But the second day it kept on raining. Fortunately, the bar had some cosy places to shelter us. So, we could read anyway and we sure had a good time. Especially last night.

As our last big night was in Livingstone, it was time for another one. After all we're on holyday ;-). The Acacia truck joined us at the camp and as we're now friends with them they joined in drinking. It was great and got a bit out of control. There were two Swedish buses camping too, the Sweds slept on the roof of their buses, no one knows why, to get on top of the buses the needed ladder which they didn't take up during the night. Very tempting it was and the boys got tempted and by midnight the first ladder was removed from the truck. Proudly, the boys walked through the bar with the ladder and got a big applause for it. aehae. That's when the Intrepid girls decided to go to bed. On the way to the bathroom we heard noise a lot of noise and discovered that the second ladder was missing too. Unfortunately, the Sweds discovered that too. So, trouble was on the way. Our tour guide had to calm the Sweds and the security guard theartened with arrest if the ladders weren't returned....Yes, I'm having fun on my trip. It is great....

Today, everybody is a bit down, some hangovers are being cured...We're still in Malawi. Tomorrow we'll cross the border to Tanzania. Pretty much that's it. Hope you liked it and stay tuned.

Sauce

Today's blog is dedicated to Sauce..our very, very annoying companion.

Sauce, he's the one person u don't want to be stuck on a truck. He's the one person you don't want to be 24/7. So, he's Sauce.

After half way through my first journey in Africa, the time has come to write about my travel companion and Sauce is the subject of this blog.

We are a good group don't get me wrong. I like the people on my group, they're great and a lot of fun. But Sauce is too much. He's always late and makes the whole group wait for him. He's the only person showering after breakfast when we are supposed to leave and if confrontated with it, he'd just shrug. He'd never to the dishwashing but always offers to do it as soon as the dishwashing starts he'd disapear. He never helps his mates but complains if we don't help him. He would walk into my flaping action get hit and then act as if he was dying. We call it a "Schwalbe" in Switzerland. He would be happy about others people missery but expects sympathy for his sufferings. You know what I mean? That's Sauce. Any suggestions how to get rid of him are very welcome. Please just suggestions with non-violent solutions ;-)

Hm, that's it for today. I'll tell you more tomorrow as we'll have internet at the next camp site. Stay tuned.