Wednesday, Nov. 28 

Dick and I spent the night in our lovely room at Mama Wilson's in Arusha , Tanzania after arriving at the Kilimanjaro Airport last night. Alex Saul, our guide, explained the name of the hotel to us by telling us that once you have children, you become Mama or Baba and the name of you eldest child. The bed had elephants and cheetahs on the spread and pillows, and mosquito netting draped to be loosed around the bed at night.

Dick was up early and out shooting pictures of the birds on the hotel grounds. The hotel was walled and not in a very prosperous area of town, so he couldn't wander far. From our room we could hear the Muslim morning prayers over a loudspeaker. We showered in our very large shower, then headed to breakfast with lots of fresh fruit, individualized omelets and good bread, served in a roofed, but open dining area. Our group (which consisted of Jim, a retired psychologist, Stan, a retired business teacher and Clair, his wife, and the two of us) were in the safari vehicle and off for Kilimanjaro by 9:30 .

We drove for over two hours and were amazed to see how alive the road was, especially along the stretch to the airport, which had seemed deserted except for an occasional Maasi man walking along the road and a few lit stores, some with pool tables outside. But now there were people everywhere- women with huge loads balanced on their heads, Maasi men with their sticks for protecting their herds , goats and cattle tethered by the side of the road to take advantage of every bit of available fodder, and small stores which sold everything from hardware to drugs. The women carried everything- large stalks of bananas, plastic baskets loaded with the results of their shopping, and sheaves of fodder to feed their livestock,- and we marveled at their ability to balance such heavy loads atop their heads.

When we arrived at Sinya Camp, we were greeted by the camp employees in Maasi tribal dress offering cool wash cloths to clean off the dust, and glasses of fruit juice. We were escorted to our individual tents, each with a veranda with table and chairs, overlooking the valley below. Our tent had a 20 X 15 bedroom, again with mosquito-netted beds and an adjoining 6 X 15 bathroom, complete with toilet set up on a wooden platform like a throne, sink and shower. Electricity came from solar panels beside the tent and lights were available from evening on.

When we had settled in, we had lunch at the lounge, another open-air dining room. We served ourselves from pots on stands which held coals from the cook house that they carried up for each meal. The offerings were spaghetti with meat sauce, spinach and cauliflower and we had red wine from South Africa and beers (Dick got Kilimanjaro Beer) along with the meal.

We were told it was safe to walk as long as we stayed within sight of the camp, so Dick and I went off after lunch. We saw little but birds, butterflies, and termite mounds but had seen a cat earlier, which turned out to be an African wildcat near the trail to the cook house, and Dick caught a quick glimpse of something gazelle-like bounding away as we wandered through the valley.

Later we went out as a group with a Maasi guide and Alex. The guide saw a giraffe well off in the distance but I never found it in my binoculars. Dick got some good bird pictures and I got a eight inch black and white porcupine quill for a souvenir. Back at the tent, we sat on the veranda and photographed the sunset over the valley.

Then we heard singing and walked up to the area outside the lounge where the camp workers were putting on a show of native music and dancing, jumping high in the air and ‘sparring' with their poles. As we watched they passed around champagne and popcorn. They were so enthusiastic and had so much fun, that it was infectious and we enjoyed it thoroughly

When they finished, we went in to dinner which had the vegetable cream soup we were beginning to expect (in fact we had soup with every meal, no matter the hotel- pumpkin, celery, spinach, broccoli, carrot) followed by pork chops, rice with gravy, carrots and eggplants, and banana fritters for dessert. By about nine o'clock we were full and happy to head back to our tents, guided by men from the staff carrying kerosene lanterns, and slept happily under our mosquito netting.

Thursday, Nov. 29

Awakened by staff members calling outside our tents, we were up at 6 and off to breakfast by 6:30 . By 7:20 we were dressed in Maasi robes and ready to go on our first game ride. It seemed a bit ironic that our travel information had told us to stick to very neutral colors so as not to scare wildlife, and here we were in our red plaid robes (shukas in Kiswahili), ready to head out to try to see game. The men tied their robes over one shoulder, much like a toga, while women tied them more like a cape over both shoulders. Our Maasi guide, Luka, who had a decorative hole in his ear lobe, ably assisted us in the donning of our robes.

On our ride, we were immediately rewarded with sights of dik-diks (very small antelopes), then adult and baby giraffes, a large elderly bull elephant, olive and golden baboons, Thomson and Grant's gazelles, impala, hares, wildebeests, and many, many bird species. We also saw termite mounds, wet by the termites at night to keep them cool and well glued together. And we saw a mound where they hadn't been so lucky and had been visited by an aardvark who broke into the mound for his midnight snack.

Even in the remotest areas, you could still see red-garbed Maasi children and adults tending their herds of Brahmin cattle, goats, or donkeys. Sometimes the children would run to the edge of the road to wave to us as we passed. Alex took us to the area where they had dug fine white clay for Meerschaum pipes and we were allowed to get out and walk for a while there. I found plates that had fallen off of a Leopard tortoise shell and were beautifully patterned.

We got back from that drive around noon , took a quick shower, and headed to lunch. The camp cooks had set out chicken, polenta, kale, and vegetable salad with fruit compote for dessert.

During our “Discovery Time” as Alex called it, Dick borrowed his bird book and worked on identifying the birds he had seen. I washed out a few clothes and hung them on the railing of our veranda, but brought them in very quickly when the rain started.

It rained until 4 when we were scheduled to leave for a visit to a Maasi village. Alex was reluctant, and said it would be very muddy in the village, but we gamely put on our Maasi robes and headed out not wanting to miss the visit. The 15 kilometer trip down the road from our lodge to the village turned out to be one of the most exciting parts of our trip. The 4 X 4 slipped, slid and fishtailed, seemingly dangerously near to the deep ditches on either side of the mud hole the road had become. Even the intrepid Dick was muttering to me, “I don't think we should have done this.” But Alex and the Maasi guide, Luca, just laughed hilariously at the end of every skid, exaggerating the slipperiness to make it more adventurous for us, and we did eventually make it to the village.

At the village we were greeted by minimal mud, but many singing women and children, dressed it traditional robes and shiny dangling jewelry. Lots of goats roamed the yard and we saw the corral, made with thorny woven sticks and grasses where their livestock was secured safely for the night.

We went two-at-a-time into the small mud hut of Regina , wife number six of the patriarch of the village. She told us how she constructed it (the women's job) and lived there with her two year old daughter, Anna. She explained that it took two to three weeks to make the hut, and if her husband didn't approve of the job, he could tear it down and tell her to make another. The hut seemed very small and dark, lit only with a tiny window sized to keep out lions and by a kerosene lantern on the hearth. Jim got a great picture of her and her daughter inside the hut.

When we came out there was a beautiful double rainbow over the village. The women and children spread their beadwork out on cloths and we walked around trying to decide what to purchase. I finally got a beaded bracelet and a beaded round that I'll put on the bookcase in the kitchen in Ash. Luca helped us bargain with the people, but it was hard to bring prices down much, seeing the poverty in the village and all the children's faces. Alex told us the men from the village were off doing “man things” at that time of day. At other times he said the men's job was to think, and it was undeniable that women did a lot of the hard heavy work in that culture.

We slipped, slid, and listened to the men laughing all the way back to the lodge. Dick got a few more bird pictures and we made it safely back by 6. I took more sunset pictures then we headed for the lodge around seven for our fireside ‘Blah-blah,' as Alex called the time for summing up the day and getting information for the next day that we did each night. Dinner was served at 8- cream of tomato soup, potatoes, beef, spinach and cauliflower, cabbage, and salad, with chocolate pudding for dessert. It was a bit ironic that the Maasi cooks did such a good job on foods they'd never eat themselves- mostly sticking to their traditional foods of cow's blood and milk along with a bit of beef or goat meat from their herds.

Dick picked up his camera battery which had been charging during dinner and we were escorted via kerosene lantern light back to our tents, well content with the first real day of the trip and the beautiful starry sky over the valley below us.

Friday, Nov. 30

Our wake-up call came at 6 and were in our vehicle by 6:45 . We drove different loops in the same area, going off road to get closer to animals when we could. At one point we drove past a stone marker showing the border of Kenya and Tanzania , so we were in Kenya for about a minute. Lots of giraffe and zebras were there again, but our only new animal for the morning was a wart hog that was hanging out with some wildebeests. We got back around 10, packed and left our duffle bags out for pick up, then went to brunch at 10:30 .

Brunch was beef, rosemary potatoes, and beet salad. When we finished eating we went down the path to see the kitchen and were amazed at the food they had been able to put out from such a basic shed. Gleaming pots and pans were hanging in the open area between the roof and half wall. Most of the cooking was done in cast iron pots on one charcoal cooker that the chef crouched to use (wearing his white uniform and chef's hat). A two burner gas hot plate kept cooked food hot until it was ready to be served. Outside they baked bread in something that looked like a steel steamer trunk, which they piled coals on top of and beneath. When they were ready to serve food, they shoveled up the charcoal and carried it up the hill to put below the tripods that hung the pots of food. All dishwashing was done outside the cook house with water heated on the fire. From such humble facilites they created some amazing food!

One of the dishwashers was a dwarf and the manager of the site told us his story. He was a Maasi, born in Kenya where children with physical or mental problems were generally put to death. But somehow his family managed to smuggle him out to Tanzania , where he grew up in peace. However, by Maasi tradition he was barred from taking a wife and having a family. But to all outward appearances he was a very happy guy and had participated enthusiastically in the dancing two nights before.

We finished packing our backpacks and walked down to the 4 X 4 where the whole staff was lined up, in Maasi garb or chef's uniforms, singing “Hakuna Matata, Hakuna Ma Ta Ta” as we left.

We drove back to Arusha, past smaller villages holding their markets with colorful goods to sell and even more colorful people wandering around. It was frustrating to see all the wonderful scenes and not be able to photograph them, and this frustration continued throughout the trip. But Alex had told us the people, except in the villages we officially visited, didn't like to have their pictures taken and we complied with the customs there. In fact, earlier on our first walk, one Maasi herdsman had agreed in a shouted conversation with Alex to have his photos taken from far off. But he quickly yelled at us that that was enough when we had barely gotten one picture.

We drove through the busy center of Arusha, when men pulled and pushed wagons of goods and lots of small stores were displaying their wares. A furniture factory had very nice looking finished beds and tables outside, while you could see men sawing boards inside. In front of some stores, people sat at treadle sewing machines, plying their trade. Some very large modern hotels were going up on the outskirts and a large governmental building was hosting the trials of the Ugandan war criminals.

We got back to Mama Wilson's and walked around the gardens taking photos. I checked the pool temperature and it wasn't bad, but the air wasn't hot enough to encourage swimming. I bought only one postcard at the gift shop, finding that they charged $1 each, but Alex told me that was the going price in Tanzania , so I got a bunch more. We slept, read, and had a good shower. Dinner at 7 was cream of spinach soup, pork, potatoes, spinach, mixed vegetables, and two salads with a fried banana for dessert.

Alex went off to the airport to pick up the ten other people who would join us for the main part of the tour. We read some more and I did a sudoku puzzle, then we called it a day and went to bed happily under our mosquito netting canopy.

Saturday, Dec. 1

We met the new members of our tour group over breakfast. They were: Vickie ( a banker) and Marijan (a professor of seismology at USC) both originally from Croatia, now from Los Angeles, Donna (a personal trainer) and Joe (a program supervisor) from NJ, Lori and Garrett (newly weds who worked on the Norwegian Cruise Line's Spirit of America, cruising Hawaii), Sally, Joyce, and Janice (sisters from Utah and CA) and Shirley (friend of Joyce). Our new guides were Eric, a big guy with a big laugh, and Moses, studious looking and knowledgeable, both Bantus and Christians.

After breakfast we left to visit a women's cheese-making cooperative high up on Mount Meru . Baba Anna, Mama Anna's husband and the spokesperson for the group, told us the history of the enterprise. It was begun with a cow given to Anna by Heifer International. She gave calves to other local women over the next years until finally they had more milk than they could use in their village. Anna then went to a program on cheese making offered by an Italian aid agency. When their cheese making turned into a business, Anna took a course in business management offered by a Dutch aid agency. They sold their cheese to local hotels and began diversifying, keeping bees for honey and growing coffee and corn. From their profits they built and improved several elementary schools and are now building a secondary school for the local children.

The women there greeted each of us by touching cheek to cheek, and handing out Maasi robes to each of us, then led us singing and dancing up the hill to their cheese making room. Again Baba Anna described the process to us, then took us to the side of the building, where a split and hollowed log hung as a bee hive for their stingless bees. He told us they had other African killer bee hives further away from the buildings to avoid painful stings. Beyond that was an outdoor butter churn and people from our group took turns cranking it. Behind the building was a garden which housed the machine for removing the outer covering of coffee beans, a roaster for the beans, and a large mortar and pestle (with spear sized pestles the women took turns using to grind the coffee while they sang to keep the rhythm) and some of us took turns grinding the beans too.

When the coffee was ground they took it away, then showed us how they walked with a large bunch of bananas on their heads, and several people in our group tried that, with marginal success. By this time they had brewed the newly ground coffee, so we gathered in a little ‘coffeehouse building' to sample it, as well as their cheeses and some biscuits. We visited their small gift area where I got an African Women T-shirt that was in keeping with the spirit of the women's cooperative.

Lunch was at a local restaurant where they served us pumpkin soup, then directed us to a buffet where they had made western food for us. Another buffet line served traditional African food to the other diners. We traveled a short way to visit a potter, a man who had defied the African tradition of women being potters and had been taught his craft by women. He told us how the clay he had in covered piles in his back yard was obtained and showed us the process for getting it ready to work. His potter's wheel was improvised and he kicked the round platform below to make it spin. Just beyond that was his kiln which he had built of the local brick. But he couldn't get high enough temperatures in that kiln to diversify what he made, so was still looking for a market sufficient to allow him to buy fired bricks that would let him burn his kiln at higher temperatures. He spun a very large pot on his wheel, decorated it and left it to dry. He also had a small gift shop with his pots, beaded work and pictures of giraffes and elephants that his wife painted on paper made from banana skins.

We drove through a market on our way home but didn't stop. At the hotel we wrote our postcards and I gave them to the woman at the gift shop who said she'd post them for us. Alex held the nightly Blah-blah around a fire out by the pool. We met the new Overseas Adventure Travel supervisor for the area and Baba Wilson, spouse of Mama Wilson who was off seeing a child at college.

At dinner of our second pumpkin soup of the day and chicken stir-fry we sat by Vickie and Marijan and talked politics which we agreed upon. I worked on my camera's lens cover which was refusing to fully retract and had some success. Then it was back under the mosquito netting for a good night's sleep before moving on again in the morning.

Sunday, Dec. 2

We got up early, showered and had breakfast with the group. Then we found there was time to relax before the Cultural Heritage Center opened, so we sat around the pool and enjoyed the day. When we reached the Center, the shops still were closed so we walked around enjoying the displays from all parts of Africa , carvings done in ebony and other woods. They ranged from grotesque fantastic animals to a group of animals (elephant, giraffe, etc.) sitting drinking around a table, reminiscent of poker playing dog paintings. Huts from all over were reconstructed and some had life-sized carved people going about their daily activities. The main shop was beautifully laid out with thousands of T-shirts and other clothing. Other shops specialized in carvings, books and music, and tanzanite jewelry, pretty but too expensive for our budget. We bought a few things for gifts, then headed out again.

We drove toward the Tarangire National Park , stopping at an open air market where we walked around and soaked up the considerable local color. People were selling everything, from cloth to spices and medicines, all kinds of produce, baskets, and bells to keep track of livestock. While the women shopped, many of the men stood and talked in the shade of trees across the street. Vickie bought a pair of sandals made from old car tires, the typical footware of the Maasi. I bought a small bell, probably goat sized. Kids were walking through the crowds selling necklaces and bracelets and they finally sold me five necklaces. Some people paid to take pictures of the more colorful individuals, but it was okay to take wide photos of the market as a whole. Vans loaded with passengers, their baskets of purchases on the roofs, stood ready to take people back to their remote villages.

We continued on to Maramboi Tented Camp on Lake Manyara where we would spend the next two nights. We were greeted once more with cool towels to wash up and glasses of passion fruit juice. The camp was great- platformed tents under thatched roofs along a long walk, where we could overlook the lake in the distance sitting in our leather chairs on the veranda. Each tent was supplied with solar hot water and electricity. There were wooden floors and even framed flowered prints hung on the wooden supports. One woman found a snake in her bathroom, but otherwise not a creature was stirring inside our tents. Outside we could see zebras and ostriches on the plains before the lake. We washed out a few clothes and hung them over the railings in a good breeze.

After a lunch of spaghetti, mousakka, salads, and banana mousse, we headed to Tarangire National Park . We saw dik-diks, giraffes, monkeys, impala, and wart hogs, with two new animals- a bat eared fox and some waterbucks. There were herds of elephants including babies and lots of beautiful birds. We could stand up in our vehicles, with heads out the sunroofs, so photographing was easy.

We got back to our camp around 6. At 7 we met around the fire for our Blah-blah and talked about the highlights of the day and what tomorrow would bring. We ate at 7:30 - spare ribs with mango pie for dessert. Then we were escorted back to our tents by lantern light, saying good bye to each one as they headed up the path to their individual tents. Lantern light was helpful on our path because it avoided us stepping on the zebra poo along the way. In the tent, we found that they had found and hung mosquito netting around our bed. We spent a little time figuring out our tipping needs for the rest of the trip, then climbed under the netting and called it a day.

Monday, Dec. 3

Our wake-up call came at 5:30 from a guide on the pathway. We had tea, coffee, or hot chocolate in the lodge and were off on our wildlife spotting trip by 6:15 . We drove to Tarangire National Park and saw unique birds, giraffes, elephants, zebras, ostriches, wart hogs, impala, and dik-diks. New animals spotted were lions, mongooses, and a red squirrel. We saw the carcass of a gazelle hanging from a tree, but missed seeing the leopard that others in different cars had earlier seen dragging it up.

We got back to our camp around 12:30 and ate at 12:45 . During our free time, Alex arranged for a Maasi guide, Nixon, to take Dick and I on a walk down to the edge of Lake Manyara . The group was going later in the afternoon, but Dick was afraid it would be too dark for good pictures by then. While we waited, we washed out more clothes and hung them on railings around the tent platform. A rainstorm blew in but by 3:30 things were drier, so we went off with Nixon with Vickie joining us.

Our first sighting was a Leopard Tortoise, crawling over the path to the tents. We walked past herds of zebra and a few ostriches on our way down to the lake. Water was low and the area well out from the edge of the lake was mucky with pink covered algae-rich mud swirled in interesting patterns. Nixon told us that the pink algae gave the distant flamingos their color, unlike the western flamingos that get their color from small shrimp-like creatures. I picked up a snail shell and two flamingo feathers as we walked. Dick slip-slid his way fifty feet or so into the slime area to get closer pictures of the flamingos then continued to get other bird photos all the way back to the camp.

We showered and rested for a while, then it was time for the evening Blah-blah about Maasi customs and lifestyle in preparation for our village visit the next day. Alex touched on food, clothing, and marriage customs and said how men with more cattle could have more wives. He talked about rites of passage which included circumcision for both males and females. Most of us could easily sympathize with the male public ceremony performed at age 15-25, where any show of pain would lead to ostracism and shame on the family. But we had more problem dealing with female circumcision, done mainly to keep women from straying from their shared husband, and, according to Alex, so ingrained in the culture that women felt they had to do it even though it was now prohibited by Tanzanian law..

We had beef, rice with rosemary gravy, green beans, and lemon cake, then followed the lantern-carrying Maasi warrior back to our tents for our last night in the Maramboi Tented Camp.

Tuesday, Dec. 4

Our wake-up call came at 6:30 , we packed our suitcases, put them out, and had breakfast at 7.

We rode with Marijan, Vickie and Donna to a Maasi village and were greeted by the women placing a multicolored beaded collar around each of our necks. The men first showed us how they bled a cow, dragging the protesting victim to the front of the corral. The patriarch of the village used a bow and arrow at short range to puncture the jugular vein of the cow. They used a gourd to collect the blood, then he pulled hairs from the hump of the cow, mixed them with his saliva and patched up the punctured area. Everyone was offered the opportunity to try it, but only Garrett from our group, and Eric, the guide tried it. The Maasi drank some, including a small boy who seemed to be asserting his manhood. Garret's tattoo was of great interest to the tribesmen who wanted their picture taken with him. In the group, along with men in traditional Maasi garb, was a tribesman with an “I Love NY ” T shirt!

Then the women danced in a circle for us, flipping their beaded collars up in rhythm with their song by shrugging their shoulders. They led us into dancing with them. After dancing, they moved on to the hut building demonstration. Several women in our group joined a Maasi woman, climbing a ladder to the roof and thatching a bare spot with grasses they had harvested. The next step was plastering and they mixed a batch of clay and cow dung on the ground, adding water and working it with their hands to make it uniform. Alex had joked earlier that I'd do the plastering part, and I did volunteer to do it, having spent some time in childhood removing cow dung from the floor of a milking barn. I squished the stuff, then scooped up handfuls and spread them over cracks and small holes with three or four of the women. When we finished, two women helped clean off my hands, using detergent to scrub them, straws they picked off the ground to clean under my fingernails, and a pitcher of water to rinse off the muck.

Next we went into the hut of the number one wife which was big enough to accommodate all of us and all the tribes' women. Flowered decorations were painted on the outer walls and when I took a picture of them, one of the women motioned to see the photo on my camera. She was very pleased to see the image there. It did seem like there was no jealousy among the wives of the patriarch of each Boma or village. They seemed to enjoy the company and companionship of the others.

Alex translated and told each woman of our marital status and children, the thing they were most interested in. When he explained that Jim had never married and had no children, they all went, Oooh, in sympathy. The hut had a center post with a shelf holding tin cups around it and a loft over one of the bed chambers that had stored coils of wire for beading. A cooking pit was beside the center post and windows let in more light than in the first hut we had visited. It seemed a much more prosperous hut and more prosperous village, with children dressed in nicer clothes.

One very cute 5 year old girl was very outgoing with us, dancing and holding hands with the women in our group. She tied together strands of fiber she found on the ground and made a cat's cradle game that she played with us. But after a move or two, our methods differed from hers and a tangle resulted. So we'd laugh and she'd move on to another person who might do better.

When we left the hut, the women demonstrated the grinding of corn, using the same kind of large mortar and pestle as at the cheese-making cooperative, and tossing the ground grain in a basket to remove the chaff. Then each woman got out her beading supplies and taught us to make a beaded bracelet, one on one. Dick did some basketry with a woman, making a coaster sized round. While we worked on the bracelet, the woman I worked with asked me about my children. We each got to keep the bracelet we made.

Then the beadwork of the village was displayed on blankets and tarps, for our buying pleasure. It was hard to make decisions amongst all the jewelry, decorations, baskets, and beaded animals on display. Dick finally chose a beaded collar.

We stopped at the Welcome Center for the Crater to use the “Happy House” and I washed my hands twice after my plastering clean up. From there our drive took about an hour and a half, going round Lake Manyara and along the rim of the Rift Valley. We got to Ngorongoro Farmhouse around 1 and were escorted to our rooms, duplexes with Kiswahili animal names. Our room was Pimbi, the cutest sounding name, but the name of a small rodent-like animal (hyrax) we saw later in the trip. We settled in a little. The spacious room had a brick fireplace, huge bed, and a true coffee table with coffee beans in various stages of preparation under the glass top. The back veranda overlooked a lovely valley and was a great place for drying the clothes we hand washed.

We went to lunch in the large, thatched dining hall. The menu offered crepes with either chicken and bacon or spinach. A large fireplace had a mantle with large elephant tusks, lanterns and a batik hanging behind. We went back to our huge bed and napped until around 4, then went out for the garden tour. Again only Vickie went with us. We walked through the coffee fields across from our rooms, then went down a hill to the main gardens. They were very impressive and provided fruits vegetables for their restaurant and several others, including lodges we had visited. Dick checked out the many birds as we went along.

When we got back, I bought an email ticket that gave us 30 minutes of internet. I sent a note about happenings so far to people. Then I went back to the room and read up on the Ngorongoro Crater until it was time to go to Blah-blah. Moses told us about the history of the crater area and the wildlife we were likely to see the next day. Dinner was buffet style with separate areas for soup and salads, main courses and desserts, including the richest (but not the best) home made ice cream I'd ever had. Stuffed from dinner, we walked the rather long walkway back to Pimbi where we showered, then read in bed until we fell asleep, once more curtained in mosquito netting.

Wednesday, Dec. 5

We got up at 6, had breakfast at 6:30 , put together our lunches at an outside pagoda, and were on the road to the Ngorongoro Crater by 7:20 . The ‘crater' is actually a caldera, a steep-sided valley formed when material escaping out a side vent left the center of the volcano empty, collapsing it. Within the valley, water supplies are constant so many of the animals in there have no need to migrate, creating a constant population of animals. There are only three roads into the crater- an “Up” road, a “Down “road and one on the far side from us that allowed two way traffic. We had to stop at the entry to the crater so our guides could pay our admission. When the vehicles stopped, young boys selling necklaces surrounded us and I ended up buying a couple of necklaces from one of them. In the information center I saw a bumper sticker that said “I Love (Heart) Warthogs and I had to get one, as did Vickie when I showed her.

We drove down the steep twisty descent road and very quickly saw animals - elephants, zebra, wildebeests, Thomson and Grant's gazelles, warthogs, waterbucks, vervet monkeys, and baboons. New animals included two kind of jackals (one eating a baby warthog), Cape Buffalo, hartebeests, eland, and hippos. The neatest sighting was a nocturnal serval cat, a wild cat with oversized ears, trotting along the road- - a rare sighting according to Alex. Far in the distance we saw what might have been a rhino and hoped that photos would prove it. They didn't, but didn't disprove it either.

We were warned to stay in the car when eating our lunches at the hippo pool because swooping birds called kites were likely to try to steal our lunches and maybe even a bit of nose as they dived for food. A large troop of monkeys in the area were tame enough that we could get quite close to take pictures.

We returned to the Farmhouse around 4 and Dick went off looking for birds to ‘shoot.' I washed a few more clothes, then checked the internet and returned a message to Rob. I wandered around the grounds and saw more of the cottages for visitors. We showered and I tried to clean the lens cover of my camera so it would open more easily, with some success. Dick erased pictures he didn't want so he could run the battery down, then recharged it.

We went to the Blah-blah about the Serengeti or Sirenget as the Maasi pronounced it, to prepare us for our odyssey the next day. Dinner was a buffet again, including tilapia from Lake Victoria , made to order stir fry, and chocolate mousse for dessert. We did a bit of packing in our room and got ready for the most adventurous part of the trip.

Thursday, Dec. 6

We got up at 6:30 , had breakfast, and Dick used up the rest of our internet minutes. Our packed suitcases were taken to the vehicles, and were off, once again.

Our first stop was the Bashay Primary School of Karatu, Tanzania. The principal spoke in his office and showed us the improvement in test scores children had made since the Grand Circle Foundation began their support of the school. Classrooms, desks, and a lavatory had been built with the help, and school supplies provided. Many more children than before now pass their exams and go on to secondary education and even university. Still, the school was very basic with class sizes around 60-70 and no electricity. The principal said their greatest need at present was housing for teachers, which the government would supply and pay if they could house them. Everyone was moved by his stories and many wanted to contribute to this good cause. Some of us had brought school supplies to contribute and we gave them to the principal.

Then we visited a sixth year classroom where about thirty children were taking a practice exam in mathematics, sitting at double desks. The problems were written on the board and ranged from addition to geometry and algebra. The children seemed to be about twelve years old and sang a song of welcome, then got right back to work as the principal explained that school was out for Christmas break, but these children wanted to do extra practice for their exams. Children began formal schooling at seven and had to pass exams to continue on through their teenaged years. We watched the class for ten minutes or so, then left for our journey to the Serengeti.

We stopped for a rest stop at the Ngorongoro Hospitality Center once more, with the next stop in the wilderness where I picked up some quartz rocks. We drove on to the Serengeti gate, seeing three cheetahs resting by the side of the road just before we reached the parking area for the park. I got stung by something in the parking lot (a killer bee?) which hurt more than any sting I've had and made a sore huge lump halfway along my arm by night. Box lunches had been delivered by our camp staff and we ate under a pagoda slightly up the hill from the parking lot.

Dick and I followed the trail further up the hill and finished our cookies, sharing them with mice that came out from the rocks and birds, especially the Superb Starling- a glossy green and blue version of our very plain bird. Basking in the sun were also two lizards, one as spectacular as the starling in its coloring.

We drove on to a beautiful hotel where Jim's balloon ride for the next day had to be confirmed. Outside a lot of pimbis (hyraxes) climbed trees and scampered around, hoping for handouts. As we drove through the park, we saw Topi (a new-to-us cattle- like animal), lots of Grant's Gazelles, Cape Buffalo, giraffes, jackals, and a lioness eating a gazelle.

We arrived at the camp around 4:30 and were met with cool towels to wipe the dust off. We sat at the fire circle and got our tent assignments. We got Tent 6. Most of the people were impressed by the tents, which included bathrooms with a ‘throne' mounted toilet, a shower and sink. It was amazing that the whole site was portable and would be removed when our days there were done. One of the women needed ‘a minute' to adjust to the idea of living there for four days, but she quickly found her first camping experience to be just fine. Others reveled in the luxury of it all, including the hot showers that they supplied by hoisting buckets of hot water to the top of the tent and dumping them into the tank.

In our tent we stood under a dribble of water from the shower head and both managed to get a bit clean with just one five gallon bucket of water. But the next day, when we heard everyone anticipating their hot shower, we figured something must be wrong with ours- which wasn't worth raving about certainly. So we told the camp staff who came in, cleaned out the shower head and gave us a shower worth raving about! We were also supplied with hot water in two tripod wash basins on our porches to wash up in the morning and evening before bed!

Each room had two metal cots, a table with the requisite machete and alarm whistle and a table at the head of each bed. The dinner tent was lovely with its serving tables, one with coffee, tea and wine and the other for buffet serving at lunch and food storage for the cooks when they served us at night. Then a long lantern-lit table had places for all of us. One evening each of our glasses even had a napkin folded like a long tailed bird! And the meals prepared there were excellent as well.

After we showered and rested up, we went to the fire circle for Blah-blah. On each chair they had placed a shuka (Maasi robe) that we would use throughout our stay there. Alex talked about our game drive the next day and what we could expect to see. Jim was to be picked up very early for his balloon ride and we would meet him for the remainder of our morning drive.

Then we had our first camp meal there- poached tilapia, spinach, carrots, potatoes, and Bananas Foster for dessert- not exactly beans and franks around the campfire! After dinner some people went back to the fire circle to talk and others headed for bed- to listen for animal noises as we spent our first night in the Serengeti. Most of us heard a ‘lion' which we guessed was Alex giving a growl to warn us to stay in the tents at night.

Friday, Dec. 7

We were up at 6, had breakfast at 6:30 and were off by 7:15 . Jim had already gone off for his balloon ride. We saw a cheetah mother with her son and daughter, lots of elephants, lions, zebra, Grant's gazelles, wildebeests, impala, and giraffes. We saw another group of cheetahs and two tiny leopard cubs up in a tree, while their mother was off hunting, but keeping a watchful eye out, no doubt. Dick got lots of good bird pictures too. I took a picture of the metal sculpture of a rhino at the hotel Visitor's Center, figuring that might be the only one we'd see close up. We saw one lonely hippo in a pool. The weather was lovely until we were about fifteen minutes from our camp, then it rained.

We talked over lunch and found that one woman had had trouble with a mouse climbing over her in bed the night before. The only problem we had in our tent was that something stole our soap from the shower, probably the same kind of critter. We agreed that we'd heard hyenas during the night and Alex confessed he's been the ‘lion' we heard. We had spaghetti with meat or vegetarian sauce, fried eggplant, and fruit cocktail for dessert. All through the trip the fruit was great, especially the fresh pineapple. After lunch we all headed back to our tent for Discovery Time, as Alex called it, when we could discover anything we wanted, including our pillows. Some read, some played cards, and everyone got refreshed for our second game drive of the day.

We took a different route in the afternoon and didn't see as much wildlife as in the morning. At a waterhole we saw a tree full of Maribou Storks, hippos, and two lions. We saw a Thomson's gazelle racing at full speed, crossing the road in front of us, and that was spectacular. Near the camp a large group of banded mongooses crossed the road in front of the vehicle.

We got back to the campsite around 6 and had an hour to shower and get ready for Blah-blah. Our shower head was fixed and we had a lovely shower each. At our fire circle the rain began again, so we moved to the dinner tent where we finished the freshly roasted cashews the staff had made for us. Dinner of lamb, coconut rice, broccoli and zucchini, and green beans followed.

Saturday, Dec. 8

We were wakened at 6 instead of 5:30 because rain in the night, sometimes very heavy, caused the guides to change their plan. We saw the usual zebra, giraffes, wildebeests, warthogs, and hyenas, some lying in puddles on the road. The two baby leopards were still in the same tree and we saw topis, hartebeests and a large pool with lots of hippos. Our guide said that elephants don't like the mud and take to higher ground when there was lots of rain. The only new critters we saw were crocodiles in the hippo pool.

We got back to the campsite just after noon and washed out some clothes. Dick hung his on the thorns of an acacia tree, then was a bit sorry when he had to hurry to take them in when it started to rain, and the tree didn't want to let go. Lunch was beefsteak, veggie pizza, and chocolate pudding. When we went back to the tent, Dick worked on alphabetizing his list of birds and we read some. The rains continued.

Alex said he was willing to go out on our afternoon game drive, but laid the chances at 90% that we'd get mired in mud somewhere, so we all agreed to take the rest of the afternoon off. We did our Blah-blah in the dining tent, then played a card game called Pig and toured the camp kitchen when the rain let up.

The kitchen was much like the other but had a more sophisticated ‘oven' with shelves in it, but still the coals above and below to bake the breads. A generator ran their freezer and veggies were on the floor at the back of the tent. It still amazed everyone that they could produce such amazing meals in such a simple setting, but the cook had been to hotel school and done extra coursework in camp cooking.

When we went back to the tent, they filled our showers, then we read, courtesy of solar powered lights, until it was time for dinner at 7. We were in bed by nine in preparation for our 5:30 wake-up the next morning.

Sunday, Dec. 9

We were up at 5:30 and took a pack of cookies to munch on as we drove. It was rainy on and off and the roads were pretty muddy. We went to the Rhino Center which told about the lives of rhinos. Driving on, we saw two young male cheetahs on the hunt.

Then Alex got a call that Eric, who had gone a different way than we did, was stuck in the mud. Both Moses and Alex rode to the rescue. When we got there, Eric's vehicle was axle deep in mud, with all his group standing up looking out the roof to see what would go on. After some consultation, Alex decided to try to push him out and told us to close up the roof before he began. He tried, but the jeep wouldn't budge, so Alex went into reverse. Unfortunately no one had told the people in the stuck jeep to close their roof, and when Alex backed up the spinning wheels threw mud all over, including through their open roof. Everyone, but the ones being rained mud on, thought it was hilarious and the expressions of horror on faces as the mud fell, only added to our unsympathetic amusement.

The guides, being the only ones allowed outside the vehicles, continued to confer. Right behind the jeep, but through a wallow of mud, was a pile of road construction gravel. Moses and Alex dug the areas in front of the stuck wheels, then got shovels full of gravel to put under. Eventually Eric was able to ‘rock' the jeep out. We headed back for our brunch, forty-five minutes late for the first lateness of our trip. Other than that, the guides, especially Alex, were able to go wandering around the multitude of paths throughout the various parks and still get us home right in time for meals, which seemed amazing. Making us even later was a huge herd of Cape Buffalo assertively crossing the road in front of the vehicles. We managed to see zebras, wildebeests, and wart hogs as we drove back. Dick got seven more new birds that morning.

In the afternoon everyone went off to see the Center at the hotel we had visited twice, but Dick and I decided to stay at the camp. We played Scrabble and I read, while Dick wandered around the camp area. We weren't allowed to leave the immediate area, but Dick saw gazelles grazing on the hill behind the tents and took me out to show me. He thought he got a photo of a waterbuck as well as a few new birds. When the group got back, they said they had seen a couple of lions, but we didn't miss much.

We had our showers, then went to our African meal- polenta, hot (spicy) salad, banana stew (not sweet with meat in it), roasted beef and chicken. We passed a basket for tips to the crew and thanked them for all their hard work. They would spend the next couple of days breaking the camp down and moving everything back to Arusha. Many of us heard real lions growling late that night, as well as zebras- a very fitting end to our Serengeti stay.

Monday, Dec. 10

We were up at 6:30 , had breakfast, finished packing and were on our way by 7:55 . The roads were still very muddy, but not impassable. On the way out we saw three hyenas chasing down a gazelle, which fortunately ended out of our sight. We stopped at the park entrance to use the “Happy House” and for the guides to sign us out. We got to Oldavai Gorge (Oldapai in Kiswahili) around 9:30 and heard the history of the discoveries there from the guide. Then we walked through the museum and saw information about the fossil skeletons of prehistoric mammals, including man, and a history of the Leakey's discoveries. One room held a reproduction of the footprints of early man discovered by Mary Leakey, as well as reproductions of the bones discovered in the Gorge. They had a great variety of Maasi-made souvenirs and I got a bead decorated Maasi club for Rob.

The road around Ngorongoro was as bumpy as usual and we stopped once more at the Visitor's Center, then arrived back at Ngorongoro Farm House Hotel after a short drive. We got Pimbi again and washed clothes and put them out to dry on the back railings. Dick went off checking out birds, then we went to lunch. Alex passed around a paper for all of us to write our addresses and email and Vickie gave me her business card with all their information. After lunch I was going to check out the gift shop again and Dick was going out after birds, but thunder and high winds convinced us to head straight back to our room, where we brought the damp clothes in from outside and hung them on hangers to dry.

It poured for a short while, then stopped and Dick went out to photograph birds and I headed for the gift shop. I got a beaded bowl, carved spoon and beaded angel for gifts. I continued walking back down to the farm area, taking photos of birds and flowers. We showered, then went to our final Blah-blah where Alex asked each one of us what we liked best about the trip. He wrote down our answers to pass on to Overseas Adventure Travel to help them in their continuous modification of the program for the tour. We all had different things to say, but were in agreement that it had been an exceptional vacation. We got the copied lists of everyone's contact information, and went inside to dinner.

We sat by Vickie and Marijan and talked through and after dinner, repeating invitations to stay at each other's houses if we traveled that way. About 9 we went to bed and read, our last night in a bed before the long flights back home.

Tuesday, Dec. 11

We got our wake-up call at 6:30 , by phone for a change. At breakfast we gave Alex the second bag of school supplies, meant for the first school which was off for Christmas break when we were at Kilimanjaro, and a bag of clothes, which I didn't think I'd wear again. He had decided he'd give them to Mama Anna at the cheese cooperative and let her distribute them to people there.

We finished packing and put our suitcases out to be carried down to the vehicles. Then Dick and I wandered around the grounds a bit, while he took pictures of the birds there for the last time. We left in Moses's car and stopped at a T-shirt shop they liked. Each of us got T-shirts, then Dick walked around shooting birds again. During the drive back to Arusha, Moses asked what we thought of President Bush, and Dick, who was sitting next to him, couldn't resist saying what he thought. Unfortunately we were not in a car full of kindred spirits, but it didn't go too far, and Dick apologized to one of the men of a different political bent after we arrived at the African Heritage Center .

I bought another bag of spices, some coffee beans with tiny bone-carved elephants on top and inside (like my cousin Alan used to bring us when I was a little girl and he was off sailing the seas) and we got a CD of African songs- including the Hakuna Ma Ta Ta one the first camp crew sang to us as we left.

At Mama Wilson's we each got a ‘day room' on the other side from our previous rooms, where we could hang out, shower, and otherwise relax before the long flights home. We went down for a dinner of tillapia with crème caramel for desert. It rained on and off, so we went to our room, where I slept for an hour or so, then showered. At 4:30 we put our bags outside our rooms, then went down for a light supper of spaghetti, before heading for the airport around 5. We had from 6-9:30 to hang out at the airport, so we browsed the small shops, bought nuts to eat, and went to the restaurant upstairs where Dick and I shared a dinner of beef (that was supposed to be chicken, but who cared at that point?)

We went back downstairs when our flight was called and went through into the inner boarding area. The flight first went south to Dar Es Salaam , then headed for Amsterdam , so it took two hours longer than our flight down. Around midnight we were finally headed in the right direction with eight hours more of flight.

Wednesday, Dec. 12

On the flight we slept a little and talked to the folks from our tour group. We reached Amsterdam after 7 AM Tanzania time, but 9 AM Amsterdam time. All of us had to get boarding passes with seat assignments, since they had been unable to do that for us at the Kilimanjaro Airport , so we talked with the others in line while we waited. Then we headed directly through security for a short wait until our flight boarded. We were lucky because some of the others had quite a long wait there.

The final 8 hour flight was very sparsely populated, so we each could get three seats to lay down- a real luxury! I read, did crossword puzzles, and slept which made the flight seem fairly quick and painless. We arrived in Boston just after 10, waited for our luggage and then the bus, and got back to Manchester around 1:30 . A stop for groceries and we happily made it home, to rest up, get over our jet lag- and work on our thousands of photos! It was an amazing trip.