Back to "Lake Nakuru"

To and Through Tanzania

Southbound to Arusha

After packing up our gear, we headed south from Lake Naivasha back toward Nairobi (which incidently means "cold place" since it has cooler temperatures on average than the surrounding areas in Kenya). From there, we sped at about 15 km/h toward the Tanzanian border. Any faster, and we would have been bounced right out of the truck.

Our last stop before crossing the border was ??? where we camped on the night of October ???. That night, the staff at the lodge were nice enough to scare up a copy of the movie "Born Free" for us to watch. What a tacky movie! I was days getting the song out of my head!

The next morning, we crossed the border, first thing. The hawkers were out in full force, and we had to take turns slipping into the passport office to get our visas checked. I managed to get through without buying anything. On the other side of the border, there was none of that! There were no hawkers to be found and one can only presume that the border guards do not permit it. I decided later that the situation probably arises also from the much lower key approach taken by the Tanzanians.

We headed for Arusha, where we camped that night. This was a very pleasant campsite where we would leave our big packs, truck, driver, and (most difficult of all) our cook, Joseph, behind. Within Tanzania, the Kenyan companies cannot legally operate their tours, so they must contract out to Tanzanian companies, which meant switching into 4 landrovers. Daniel, our guide, came along with us.

October 19, 1996

A view down one of the main drags in Arusha, Tanzania. Traffic was heavy when we arrived as it was late in the afternoon. Here, we were able to hit banks as well as a lot of shops. The street vendors here were much more polite than those in Kenya and I was much happier spending money here. I returned the next morning and bought the majority of the goods I would bring back to Canada.

Mosquito Creek

At a campsite which, thankfully, did not live up to its name, we stayed en route to the Serengeti Plains. We were able to take in a night of entertainment there from a fantastic dance and acrobatic troupe. Unfortunately, I had left my flash in my big pack figuring that I would not need it. Silly me.

The next morning, my tent-mate, Parm, and I awoke to the sound of loud buzzing and were reluctant to open the tent for fear of having a swarm of mosquitos come in for a morning snack. Eventually though, we had to emerge and were pleasantly surprised to find that the buzzing was only the early morning feeding of small bees on clover. That was a relief! In fact, I only got two or three bites the entire time I was in Africa!

By this point, we had discovered that our new cooks (plural) were no match for Joseph at preparing meals. We found we were often waiting for several hours for dinner after we had pitched our tents, and then there was not always enough to go around. Alas.

Forward to "House of Snakes"