Feb 5, Sunday = CAMPING SAFARI TIME !

Feb 5, Sunday

Camping safari in Africa….  I must be out of my mind!  This is MOI; I don’t do camping! 

Departure from the Outpost Lodge was early and we had a 3 hour drive to reach  Mto wa Mbu village, where we would be camping for the first night.  The drive was interesting since it was really my first look at the countryside.   Nicely paved roads and our driver Elias joked about our reaction to the multiple speed bumps along the way….  “Enjoy them !   Later on you will get a Tanzanian massage”   and Deo explained that the Serengeti park roads were quite bumpy and that was going to be our massage.

 Masi walking beside the road 

 Masi family waiting for ? ? beside the road

 Masi village along the way.  Woman carrying a basket on her head 

 Masi man at a store along the road.  He is wearing traditional dress....  and talking on a cell phone !

 Little children tending the herd

 Stores along the road, selling cloth and paintings to tourists

I noticed a young teenager standing beside the road, dressed in a black robe with his face painted elaborately in white.  Deo noticed another one further down the road and explained that this was the season when young Masi boys, 14 to 16 years old, would go through their circumcision ceremony and then have to survive on their own for 3 months in the countryside living off the land.  The elders from their village go out and visit them on a regular basis and pass down the wisdom of their knowledge.  When they return to their villages they are considered to be men.   Traditionally, each one was expected to try to kill a lion and bring back the skin, which would bring great honour to the young man.   Now, since it is against the law to kill lions, this part of the ceremony does not occur.   Lloyd, a real joker with a very quick wit, chimed in that it was “circum-season”.   (He kept cracking these one liners throughout the trip and I should have written them down !)

The campsite turned out to be quite good really, since it was located in Mto wa Mbu village and it was walled-in for security purposes. They even had a pool, although it was in need of cleaning. Our tents were already set up so we simply off loaded our backpacks and went off for our walking tour of the village.

 Irrigation system used to water the rice fields

 Little boy who followed us around for a while... all by himself.... not one watching out for him.

 Rice paddies near the village

 Part of the control for the irrigation ditches

 Walking along the tipsy side of the rice paddies

 Young girl carrying a load of sticks to be used for firewood

 Walking down one of the village streets

The village sprawls out along the highway and then goes deep behind the opposite side from the rice paddies.  We saw a lot of very poor houses.  The nicer ones will take the owner about 6 years to build: they first make the mud bricks, or buy them if they can afford it.  Then the walls go up.  When they have enough money they may plaster the walls, buy or make some doors; most don’t have windows, but may have security grills.  Then when they have enough money saved, they would do the plumbing (outside water source if they are lucky) and possibly electricity (hanging within the rooms, not in the walls).  Then they will buy or make the furniture (very sparse !)  and finally move in.  We are SO spoiled !  We take all our creature comforts for granted.  They don’t.

All the little kids would come out and yell out “Allo !”  and we were expected to respond and wave back to them.   They would keep yelling out “Allo !”  and we would keep responding “Allo !”  until they broke down in giggles.  So cute !

We stopped at a hut where men were carving wood to make souvenirs for tourists.  There are about 125 tribes represented in the village.  It is a meeting point for the artists.  We got a demonstration of intricate carving and could even try our hand at it if we wanted.  Bobby was the only one who gave it a whirl and she did quite well at the few strokes required to cut into the ebony wood.  No protective clothing or gear.  When the artists are cutting into the wood, the chips are flying everywhere and could easily fly into their eyes.  Some of the wood knives are quite sharp and small;  they are sitting on the ground holding the piece of wood between their legs ! ! !   Beautiful work however

 Lovely wood carvings:  masks, bowls, cutlery, statues.  Made out of all sorts of different wood and polished with..... shoe polish !

  Bobby trying her hand out at wood carving

We kept on walking through the village

 Corn cobs drying in the sun.  Once it is dry enough it will be flaked off into kernels and dried again.

 Crossing a banana plantation.   This tree has a flower and a ripening bunch of bananas.  Notice the bananas are starting to point up?

 Another banana tree with flower and a bunch of bananas that is just starting to grow.  They are pointing down.

 The banana tree is a rizone !  I did not know that.  And one tree will only produce one bunch of bananas.  That's it.  It's only good for one year.   When the bunch of bananas has been cut, the entire tree is cut at about a four foot height, and the new shoots coming from the bottom are alowed to grow for the next crop.    Isn't that surprising ?   You would think that bananas would be much more expensive !

 Corn field, partially harvested.  They let it dry on the stalk.

 Making their own mud bricks to build their own houses

 Masi men in traditional dress walking down one of the streets

 A house made of sticks, mud & cow dung.  They will probably add a finishing coat on top...   you think ?

 The "bar / discotheque" in town.

 We stopped at a small hut to taste some homemade banana beer. It’s not made with actual bananas, but with a grain from the flower that is dried and ground up, then mixed with ground millet. They let the mush ferment and you drink the liquid, with floating foaming bits on top.

  Banana beer !   Yes, it tasted as gross as it looked.  More of a millet taste than banana.  

I did take a small sip to be polite and must say that no one from our group seemed to enjoy it, except for the local guides who were accompanying us.

From there we moved onto the paint artists.   Both artist areas are used to train young people who wish to learn.  

 Different styles of painting.  These with brushes 

 These with knives

 This was a housing compound we passed along the way.  Two things to notice:  First the huge satellite dish.  Second the water marks on the building, which are about 5 feet high.  That's the high water mark from the last flood in Dec 2011.   Can you imagine the entire village being under water !    Unthinkable, and yet to live through this every rainy season.

We kept on walking through banana plantations, fields of corn, family compounds and village streets and made our way to an area where one of the Mamas would serve us a feast of local dishes.   Each safari group uses a different Mama so that the tourist wealth is distributed throughout the community.   I was not so sure about eating anything since my stomach had not recovered from yesterday’s latte.   I skipped the meat dishes and stayed with the rice and vegetables, which were delicious.  There was also plenty of fruit and bottled soft drinks.

 Remnants of our meal, a real feast, prepared by one of the mamas

We kept on walking through the village, seeing people in open churches singing (Christian and very well attended).      
We returned to our campsite and got into our safari vehicle for our first afternoon game drive.

 Entrance to Lake Manyara National Park.  Large Baobab with its roots badly uncovered, beside the entrance gate.

 I loved this sign and its meaning.

Lake Manyara National Park is only 330 sq km and the lake takes up most of this space, stretching out about 50 km along the Rift Valley.  The lake itself is salt-based and very shallow, hence the presence of flamingos.  It does expand during the rainy seasons to 200 sq km and is fed by fresh water streams, so the animals can drink from parts of it. 

It’s a compact circuit, criss-crossed with dirt roads and only required a few hours to tour.  Saw lots of baboons and monkeys, some elephants, zebras, wildebeest and even a few lions. 

 In the wooded highlands there are lots of lush forests and waterways.

 Some kind of strange looking monkey checking us out

 A baboon crossing the road behind our vehicle

 Baby baboon on a small branch

   With mama close by
  Baby venturing across the road to follow mama

  Sights along the way

 

 Zebras and wildebeests sharing some space.   A sight we would see over and over again during this safari.

 Wildebeests in a circle, keeping an eye out in every direction, for predators

  Can you see the lions under those trees ?   

Neither could I !    

  Can you see the silhouettes now, with the zoom on ?

Just to the right of the tree stump, in the middle of the photo.   Talk about needing hawk eyes to spot the wild game.

 Frank and Pete taking pictures

 Traffic Jam as vehicles find out about animal sightings

  That’s what we look like in our vehicle, except that there are 7 of us vying for space

 Lake Manyara with its pink flamingos in the shallow waters

 Masi Giraffes = different pattern from African giraffes

  Velvet monkey with their blue balls ! Check it out, that’s not photo-shopped

  Impala (rings on their horns = age)

 BIG elephant.  Check out the length of the tusks

  “It’s a real scorcher today !” 

  "And he’s off and running"

  Look at the size of those ears !

  Check out that spine !

  These blue birds were everywhere, but this picture does not do it justice.  In flight the iridescent wing and tail colours were spectacular.

  Waiting to ford the river

  Someone’s holding up traffic      

  This one just came charging out of the forest and came to a dead stop

  Ground Horn-bill…. Just like in Kruger

 Making our way back out of Lake Manyara National Park

  Karibu !   You're welcome to come back !

  Road side store selling Masi tribal material and other material

 Two little boys walking home

  The roadside near our campsite

 Our campsite at the Mto wa Mbu village.  My tent has the red bag in front of it.

 Our second vehicle for supplies

We returned to our campsite in late afternoon, before the sun went down and had time for a shower, a drink and a rest before dinner was served.   The seven of us are in one vehicle with the driver Elias and our guide/CEO “Chief Experience Organizer” Deo (Deogracias.    When it was time for dinner we met the two camp helpers who are in the other vehicle with all the supplies:  Severin & Festos.   They set up and take down the tents each day, prepare our breakfast & dinner, as well as our box lunches.   We are responsible for our own backpacks and sleeping bags.

Since we have a very early departure and a very long drive to get to the Serengeti tomorrow, it was an “early to bed” night.   I was quite comfortable in my tent since I was alone and did not have to share.  My “sleeping bag” arrangement worked fine.  If it had not been for my continued lower digestive problems it would have been fine.