Tanza Week 2

Day 6. Woke up at 5am in the pitch dark and cold of Ndarakwai camp for the last time. We said our farewells to the staff then got the coach to Arusha. A good 3hour drive. There we changed some more currency and got into our Toyota Land Cruisers which we'd be in the next two days on SAFARI!!! The group split into three but I got on really well with the bunch in my jeep so it was awesome. (To be honest the whole group are really lovely so would have been happy anywhere) In Arusha we stopped off at a supermarket quickly where I bought the all important flannel! (Washing inches of mud off with just your hand and a bucket was pretty hard work!) Stocked up on snacks and bits there too. Then we had a long ride down to Tarangire National Park. Best Day Ever! Saw some impressive 400 year old Boaboa trees which were SOOOO wide! Godfree, our driver and guide, was really great at stopping and telling us about everything. The park was incredibly vast and so much to see! Zebra, wilderbeast, dikdiks, Elands, Impala, giraffe, elephants, buffalo and lions! Seeing the first elephant was incredible then the lions were awesome! We witnessed a big stampede as the lions hunted the zebra and wilderbeast! It was immense! Lots of monkeys, warthogs, mongooses and baboons everywhere but nothing jumped up in our van or anything. They were all pretty passive - must be pretty used to safari people by now I guess! That night we stayed in a pretty cool camp site up by the rift valley. There was a very impressive sunset over the mountains with a very purple haze. The facilities were the best of the trip here. Proper beds in the tents, showers and toilets which worked. Although only if you were lucky enough to time it right when the generator was on like me! Woop. After dinner we joined some local dancers in a good old sing and dance! Fantastic stuff.

Day 7. Woke up to some impressive bird calls and amazing sun rise. Got back into our safari van with Godfree and off to the Ngorogoro crater today! Best Day Ever. Took us 45 minutes to get to the national park but a slow 20km of bumpy tracks to the ridge of the crater then down into it! Spectacular views of the mountains, forest, vast plains and maasai villages though. Pretty cold up here this morning. I was actually wishing I had a jumper! Went past a cactus which has milk inside which could blind you! Saw some really amazing things this day. Thompson Gazell, warthogs, zebra, wilderbeast, Martial Eagle, HIPPOS! Loved that, they were sleeping in a little oasis with a heron perched on one of them! There were flamingo on the alkaline lake and we saw them flying too! Grey crowned cranes, white stalks, sacred ibis, Hyena, Kori Bustards, Hartebeast. A serval (Cool little mini cheetah thing) More lions and waterbuffalo, ostriches and best of all a black rhino! There are only about 100 in the whole of the wild so we were pretty lucky to see one! There was a big lake where we ate lunch with tens of hippo just chilling out in which was really awesome cool. I also saw my first of many GIANT butterflies. I mean really big. Like everything out there actually. Just missed out on seeing a cheetah as we went past a group of jeeps who just saw it walking from a carcass now covered in vultures (which are enormous by the way) and hyenas. The journey back to camp was even pretty good. The views were incredible. It was weird because you see that sort of thing on the tv all the time but seeing it with your own eyes was just phenomenal! We stopped at a big souvenir shop on the way back and I did some recreational bartering but didn't buy anything. Gwyn bought a cool chess set which we played later on. Had a good night having a laugh with everyone back at camp Haven Nature. Couldn't believe it was only day 7. We had done so much by now it felt like months since we were in Godalming.

Day 8. A very average day compared to recent excitements. Mostly spent in the jeep getting all the way to Moshi. There we stayed in the back garden of the keys hotel just outside the main city. We had toilets and a kitchen/mess area thing but the showers didn't work so great which was a blow. Staying in same sorts of tents as first week. We could use the swimming pool though which was fantastic for cooling off. It was a lot hotter in Moshi than up in the mountains! Very stuffy.

Day 9. Started our project work for the week. We were based up at a school 20 mins up the road from the hotel walking, in the hot hot hot! We got set the task of making more furrows. This time for drainage for the playing field so they don't lose all their grass in the rainy season. Such hard work getting rid of the roots and the soil was pretty solid as it was just compact red dust basically! It was great to be in amongst all the kids though. They were all pretty crazy. Trying out their English on us was funny. "What is my name?" but we did our best to speak some swahili to them which we'd picked up from the camps staff. Walked back to camp for lunch for nice lunch of rice and fried fish. Headed back to the school for 2pm where we whipped up some cement to fix rocks to the side and bottom of our new ditches. It was so hot I had to stop and seek shade and water every few minutes. Sam and I got chosen to give an English lesson to the kids on Friday morning which was exciting so we went to meet the teacher and find out what we'd be doing. On the way back we walked the kids home, they all wanted to hold hands and things and made a friend called Barrack Obama. He was 10 so much just be coincidence! Straight in the pool to cool down at camp. Met lots of people who has either just been or about to climb Kilimanjaro. Did some much needed clothes washing. Most of it was stained brown by now from all the dirt everywhere! Charlie H's birthday today so had another little party which was good fun! Saw a goliath beetle which was like a massive stag beetle the size of a water glass! insanity!

Day 10. Sausage and beans for breakfast! What a result. Had quite a few mozzy bites by now but no malarial symptoms so the tablets doing the job or just been lucky! Saw some hornets sleeping on the floor on their backs then wake up and take off. Very odd. Massive, scary things but so common that we were just used to them by now. The goliath beetle of yesterday was found decimated. Apparently by ants... Don't want to angry an African ant! They are big boys. Bit of cloud cover today to my relief! Still very sweaty though. Today I did lots of woodwork for the new dining hall. We built window frames and a shelving unit. It was great how limited health and safety or any sort of useful tools there were. The nails were really soft and we just had hammers, chisels and hand saws so most jobs took ages. Putting the shelves up was fun. I had to just climb up 8ft off the ground and hammer the top shelf in while sitting on it with no support! Great stuff. The local carpenter, Bando, didn't speak much English but we still learnt so much from him about carpentry. He could do one handed press-ups on his knuckles... What a legend. Managed to get the frisbee out and play with the kids for a bit before sam got out his football which would inevitably win them over! Still great fun though as they all just charge after you or the ball with no game rules just chasing essentially! Shakira one of the staff was very funny that day demanding I get her water and things. She didn't speak very good English either but enough to have a good giggle. Swam again back at camp. Played a quiz that Adam and Amy (our teachers) had sorted. Good fun.

Day 11. Had to lug some bags of heavy cement up to the school this morning. I did more carpentry when we got there though, building a few doorframes and a door. Much hotter today so glad to be inside. Saw a snake on the way back for lunch (flat and dead on the road though) lunch was lush, rice and beef stew! I always found I was more hungry at lunch and not at all at dinner. Explain that?! That afternoon we finished our door and I made a special stool. Had to finish it off back at camp though. Had a kiswahili lesson with Anderson and planned my lesson with Sam for the morning. He learnt 'if you're happy and you know it' on the ukulele. We all played card games and had a good fun evening. (Forgot to mention there was a bar at the hotel we could go and get drinks from so that was great)

Day 12. Best Day Ever. Sam and I had to leave for the school early with Amy and Adam to teach Temu's class. Amazing experience. There were about 25 kids aged 8-11. We introduced ourselves in swahili then took the lesson in english. They had little old text books which we set work from. We were looking at the daily routine so we read and did actions for things then got the kids to read out loud to us. Then there were some questions we set and went round marking. They were all so attentive and wanting to learn it was amazing. Some of them were really very good at English too whereas others struggled more. We did our happy and you know it song and they all joined in with the actions then a girl called Mary sang us a song in English. She had previously been to international school and was by far the best at speaking. She told us she wanted to be a pilot! After the lesson we were back to work cementing the drainage tracks. Cloudy again this time which I loved. Didn't even put on any suncream! After lunch we carried on as before then, since it was our last day, we all gave out little bits and bobs to the kids and we basically started a riot. My arms took days to recover from the scratches! It was mental mad! After that had calmed down a bit though we arranged for the worlds largest hokey kokey. I've never shouted so loudly in my life! There must have been at least 200 kids and us lot in a bit circle! Brilliant fun. Then the children sang their national anthem which was really sweet. I gave Temu my stool and she was very grateful saying 'now I will never forget you'. What a sweetie. Straight for a swim back at the keys hotel. Had another swahili lesson with Anderson. Much better this time, we had a good laugh too. Nice pasta and tomato sauce for tea. Went out at 11pm to a club in town called Club la liga. 10 mins drive in 4 taxis. Such an immense club, massive dance floor with screens and speakers everywhere. DJ's booth was a VW van and we just danced away. However I had a bit too much Konyagi (Locally brewed gin) so was a little worse for wear by 2:30 and I can't really give much of a description of what happened after the dancing! Great fun though I'm sure!!

Day 13. 'Rest and Relaxation' day today. Thank goodness because I was tired! Had to wear the policeman's hat of shame today. It was really hot too which was a disaster. Also we went into town shopping and so I got some pretty interesting looks! Bit of a waste of time unfortunately going into town. Although good seeing a few things it was mostly all just really basic market stands and we were walking round for ages and it was so hot and all we wanted were souveniry type things not everyday things that the locals get. But oh well, the view of Kili was pretty spectacular! Then on the way back we found these really good souvenir shacks where these guys had done really great art and craft things. I bought a couple of paintings and bracelets and things which were all really cool. That night I had to do a few forfeits 1. Dress as my favourite safari animal. 2. Paint yourself as a zulu and sing I'm a little tea pot then 3. Do the makarena... Crazy times. Had another good night getting Konyagi sachets a plenty from the bar and Anderson gave us another fun quiz.