Tanzania - Mt. Kilimanjaro

So I failed epically on last weeks promise to finish my Africa blogs!  I do have somewhat of an excuse since I was without internet at my new flat until last night.  Now I am up and running and I have lots to catch you all up on, but first I have to finish writing about my Africa trip!  This is the most important (and maybe most awaited) entry from my trip, since it was the whole reason for the trip in the first place!! It was funny, on the trip we were all saying how all we were focusing on and preparing for before the trip was the Kili climb and that we almost forgot about the safari and the Zanzibar portion! 

I left off on my last "Africa" post after we had spent about 4 days on safari in the Serengeti and we were on a small plane (being flown by Annie...still SO jealous I could scream!) headed to the Kilimanjaro Airport.  We had about a 2 hour drive to our hotels for the night, the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort. Let me tell you, this place was a treat!  It was such a nice place to spend the last night before we were going to be camping in tents for the next 6 nights with no running water or toliets.  We spent most of the afternoon in the swimming pool, gooding off and having out obligitory Kilimanjaro beer...they say it helps with the altitude, ha!  I, in true "lauren fashion", almost sprained my ankle the day before our climb...not surprising!  We were all taking running jumps into the pool and I slipped and fell into the pool (luckily).  Never fear, there is definitely a picture of me mid-air, flailing about with a look of pure terror on my face.  I am NOT, however, going to post that picture on my blog (for one, I am in a bathing suit and for two, the look on my face is truly embarrassing).  If you are so inclined, the picture is posted on my shutterfly site, you can go hunt for it if it really means that much to you.  Luckily, my ankle was only sore for a couple of hours...I can honestly say that I remember exactly what I was thinking at the exact moment the camera caught me mid-air with the look of horror.  I was thinking "OUCH...no friggin way did I just sprain my ankle the DAY before this climb...how typical!"  We also tested out the underwater feature on my camera and got some pretty good pics!  After our swim we had our preparation meeting with Paulo, when he explained everything we would need to know about the mountain, what to expect each day, etc...I was thoroughly horrified by the end of the meeting, even though Paulo kept referring to this as the "easiest part of our trip"  or as a "piece of cake".  I kept asking for my cake {one day we actually GOT cake on the mountain, i had 4 pieces, it didn't help}

The next morning we all brought our "Kili" bags down to reception, this of course after Annie and I packed and repacked our Kili bags about 10 times the night before.  We had a duffel bag that had been provided to us and we were only allowed to pack in that one bag, and it couldn't weigh more than 15kg...it had to fit our sleeping bag in it and everything!  That may sound like a lot for 6 days, but I had a small pharmacy with me if you will remember. We had to drive for a little over two hours to get to the base of the mountain where we would meet our porter and guides.  Luckily, I was in the Land Cruiser that did not get a flat tire as it was about 100 degrees outside!  We took the Rongai route, which is the only route that goes up the northern/Kenyan face of the mountain, so it took a while to get there.  When we arrived we were met by our 39 porters and guides. thirty nine. There were 10 of us climbing, but we had 39 porters!  We were quite literally a small village moving our way up the mountain.  Of the 39, we had 6 guides who stayed with us during our hike each day and helped up set our pace, made sure we were drinking enough water and kept us heading in the right direction.  The rest of the 33 were porters.  These guys are amazing, they truly have the most difficult job on Earth!  They carried, not only our 15 kg bags (on their heads, none the less!) but also their own bags, enough drinking water for all 50 of us, all of our food for the next 6 days, our tents, etc.  And not only did they carry this, but they would stay behind at camp each morning after we set off for the day and pack camp up then within an hour they were already flying by us on the trail and had our next camp set up and a hot dinner ready for us by the time the 10 of us made it to the next camp.  Ridiculous!

So after we met our guides, we set off!  Our pace was so slow it was almost embarrassing. I really couldn't believe how slowly they were making us walk.  This was honestly what I was most worried about, the pace.  You see in my everyday life I am a slow walker, I always say that I like to meander through life.  When you add an upward slope to the mix, I'm even slower.  I was so worried that I would be lagging behind at the back of the pack everyday trying to keep up.  But we seriously walked so slow I was at the front!  I have photographic proof!

The first day was actually a really nice hike, it was pretty warm down at the base, but for most of the day we were in the rainforest so there was lots of shade. The incline wasn't very steep and we only hiked for about 4-5 hours.  Our first campsite we had all to ourselves, one of the benefits of hiking the much less used Rongai route. We all got settled into our tents and then had our first dinner on the mountain.  I was shocked at how good the food was on the trip.  They cooked everything on a couple of gas burners and they turned out food that I wouldn't be able to cook in my kitchen at home!  Annie and I shared a tent the whole time, and we were SO glad that we were sharing with a friend.  There is absolutely no privacy in these tiny tents and they are tight quarters! Plus, it was FREEZING at night, so we snuggled.

The next morning, after barely sleeping a wink (due to the fact we were on a slope and kept sliding down!), we were woken by our porters at 6 am with "morning tea" and "washy washy".  Seriously, this kind of camping is awesome! The porters wake you up and ask if you want coffee, tea or hot chocolate...how many sugars, milk, they make it just how you want it.  Then they pass it through your tent and you get to stay in your sleeping bag and have morning tea while waking up a bit!  Then they bring you a bucket of hot water for "washy washy." To be honest, I didn't even bother after the first day, I just gave myself a wet wipe bath and used the hot water to soak my feet in!  We had breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, fruit and oatmeal and then we were on our way for day two on the mountain!

Day two was going to be quite a bit longer than day one, we hiked for around 8 hours the second day, athough we did get about an hour break for a hot lunch!  The second day wasn't very steep, we were crossing around the side of the mountain, so it was just a gentle slope, but a very long time to be on your feet.  Day two was going well until it started raining. And raining.  And raining.  The last two hours of our hike it rained steadily the whole time.  Genius that I am, felt like I had spent too much money on equipment already so I didn't buy the waterproof pants like they "highly recommended".  I did have a rain jacket and a rain cover for my daypack (thank goodness!) but from the waste down I was absolutely drenched!  I'm not going to lie, it was pretty miserable.  Oh and I also had a pretty epic fall, again, not surprising at all!  To my defense the rocks were really slippery and we were going down a big rock face at the time. 

We finally made it to our camp that night and it was still raining and kept at it through most of the night. It was impossible to dry any of our wet clothes, so I had a disgusting bag of mildewed clothes when I got back! We were all pretty miserable that night, but when we woke up the next morning, it was a beautiful day and I woke up to a fantastic view from my tent!

The peak you see is Mawenzi.  Mt Kilimanjaro actually has three peaks; Kibo is the highest and the one we were going to conquer, Mawenzi is the second and served as out campsite for the next night, and Shira is the third and smallest. With the sun shining, we set off towards Mawenzi.  This day was a little steeper than the other days, but was also shorter at only around 5-6 hours total hiking.

This is our group of 10 at 4000 meters, were were all pretty excited about this milestone!

As you can see, a little steeper this day...

This is us at the top of the Mawenzi ridge on our acclimatizing hike. Most days after we arrived at our next camp we would go on an acclimatizing hike, these were only about an hour or so, but they would help us acclimate to the altitude better.  As you can see the altitude had started to affect us all!!

This night we slept at the base of Mawenzi and it was C.O.L.D. We woke up early, around 5 am, on our 4th day and headed off. We were all getting excited and nervous as this was our final day before our summit attempt!  This was a long day to say the least. I think we hiked around 8 hours this day.  First we had to decend from Mawenzi and cut across to the saddle. Don't get me wrong, the downhill was a welcome change, but why did I have to go up the day before just to go down the next day???  The saddle was the most deceiving thing you've ever seen!  We could see our next campsite as a spec in the distance. It only looked like it would take a couple of hours to get there, oh how wrong we were! about 5 hours later we finally had conquered the saddle.  The saddle is almost completely flat (except for the last half hour, which was pure hell bliss) but it is grueling.  First off, it is never-ending, second we are above 4000 meters and altitude is starting to really affect your breathing and third, did I mention that it is never ending!!! 

This is the whole group about to take off across the saddle.  Basically, it is that whole stretch of land between where we are and the base of Kibo. Oh yeah...that's Kibo!!!

So the above picture may give you some idea of how difficult the summit climb is. Like I mentioned above, the saddle took us about 4-5 hours to cross and it was relatively flat.  You can see that Kibo is obviously jutting up pretty steeply and we climbed from the base of Kibo to the top the next day, so that is a lot of altitude to gain in one day!  So we finally made it across the dreaded saddle to our next campsite, Kibo Hut.  This is the base camp for the summit and where all trails converge.  It is a much bigger camp with a lot more people, it reminded us that we weren't the only people on this mountain! We had an early dinner and then were meant to go to "bed" by about 6 pm just to be woken up at 11pm to start getting ready for our middle of the night summit attempt!  I say "bed" because we clearly didn't sleep!  It was so friggin' cold there was no way I could sleep.  Plus the altitude apparently affects your ability to sleep as well.  If anyone is keeping track, at this point I had only "slept" for a combined total of maybe 5 hours the entire 4 nights we had been on the mountain.  Delerium.  So we "woke" up at 11 pm and put on our million layers, which the sheer act of getting dress had me out of breath!  I wore 5 layers, top and bottom and was still freezing.  You do the summit hike in the middle of the night because the mountain is made up of scree (loose gravel) but in the middle of the night it is so cold that the scree freezes into a more solid form making it easier to walk up. How convenient. I, of course, wasn't ready on time so I didn't have time to eat a full breakfast or re-adjust my backpack to accomodate for the 4 extra layers of clothes I had on under it so I got off to a rocky start. 

Promply at midnight we started our ascent. I was quite flustered from the whole no food, awkward backback issue.  About an hour into the hike I was done.  I knew there was no way I was going to make it to the top. My backpack was not adjusted properly and was causing my sciatica in my back to act up, I was freezing, I was starving and I wasn't able to drink enough water since it was packed away in my backpack. {word of advice for anyone who wants to hike in general...buy a camelbak! I didn't have one and it is very difficult to reach around and get your bottle out of your bag, especially with 28 layers of clothes on} On the way to the top we had 5 check points along the way to know we were on track and also to take a small break (1-2 minutes small! If we stopped longer than that we would start to freeze).  At this point we were still about 45 minutes from our first marker and I was this miserable, I didn't see how I could make it to the top.  Isaac, one of our guides, literally saved me! He offered to carry my backpack for a while so I could rest.  After this, I figured I had to carry on at least to the first check point. In my mind I had already decided that I was going to turn around at the first check point.  So for the next 45 minutes I just kept thinking "left, right, left, right" to keep moving one foot in front of the other. Somehow I made it there, I was still really considering quitting.  At this point they decided to split our group of 10 into two groups, the "fast group" and the "slow group".  I don't think I need to tell you which group I got allocated into!  This made me feel a little better as I knew I could keep my pace slow and now I wasn't worried about holding any of my other group members back.  So I decided to keep on going. 

The second checkpoint was another 2 hours away.  This entire 2 hours, alternated thinking my usual "left, right, left" with "you can do this, you can do this, you can do this" and also a little "how embarrassing will it be to tell everyone at home you didn't make it" {just for good measure} and good thing I did because somehow I made it to the next check point!   They told me the third checkpoint was only about 45 minutes away and it was called Jamaica Rocks...I liked the sound of that.  So I kept on going.

About an hour later we were at Jamaica Rocks, now you have to keep in mind that it is pitch black outside and all you can see is directly in front of you from the light of your tiny head torch.  I was ectatic to be at Jamaica Rocks, the next stop was Gilmans Point!  When you looked up into the darkness all you could see were little trails of head lamps weaving their way up the darkness. It was really cool, but also really discouraging, I kept thinking they looked so far away!  We started weaving out way around some boulders and climbing up and over some.  I didn't mind too much, I was still just concentrating on keeping one foot in front of the other at this point. After about an hour the sun started to rise, we faced back to watch it for a few minutes and it was an amazing site.  It also gave me hope that we must be close to Gilmans point since we were supposed to watch the sunrise from Gilmans Point...so we couldn't be too far away, right?? 

Me and my life-saver, Isaac, at sunrise

So I turned back to face the mountain and look up to see how close we must be now that the sun was shining its light onto the mountain. This was the second time that I was sure I had to quit and go back down.  I was staring up at a never ending boulder field up, up, up. I was exhausted. I had no energy. I had barely been able to drink a liter of water (I should have had at least 2 by this point).  I was so done. This was all an internal battle I was having with myself.  I never actually voiced that I wanted to quit, but I think they all knew it.  Somehow we kept each other going.  Jamaica Rocks took us over 2 hours to get up, I was so weak at this point that I kept falling over.  Not because I would trip, I would literally just take a step and fall over. 

See exhibit A.

This picture should also give you a good picture of what Jamaica Rocks looked like. Needless to say, I no longer like the sound of Jamaica rocks!

At one point, I remeber hearing Annie (who was in the fast group), cheering me on from Gilman's Point.  That gave me a lot of encouragement to go on and also that we couldn't be far away.  I was wrong again, it was still about 45 minutes before we finally reached Gilman's Point.

My first steps up on Gilman's Point

By the time we reached Gilman's the fast group had already gone on to Uhuru Peak, the true Summit of Kilimanjaro.  Our group decided to finish at Gilman's. Gilman's is actually the top of the mountain. Kibo is a giant crater and Gilman's is on one side and Uhuru is around on the opposite side standing only a couple hundred meters higher, making it the true summit.  It is a 3 hour round trip journey to Uhuru and I was so weak I couldn't stand, literally...you saw the picture of me falling and it wasn't the only one!  Plus, it is considered a successful summit attempt to reach Gilman's Point and you get a certificate and everything...so count me DONE!

Me, looking across the crater at Uhuru, thinking "No thank you"

The "Slow Group"

The worst part was that we still had to go down!  It took us about 2 hours to go down what had just taken us 7 hours to go up!  It was exhausting, but at least I got to "ski" down the scree! The gravel was now loose since the sun was up, so you literally just run straight down letting the gravel carry you down.  It was actually really scary at points and I had a few tumbles, but none of them hurt, it was actually kind of fun to roll down!

This is from the bottom of the scree hill looking back up, you can see my tracks down.

I know this post has been so long, so I'll spare you the details of the next two days descending the mountain.  The highlights are that the journey down was much more difficult than I anticipated. I forgot to put on my sock liners and got some wicked blisters on the last day to show for it.  My knees were killing me. I was so ready to be off of the mountain. No shower for 6 days. Yeah that about sums up the descent!

Here is a picture of us with our 39 porters and guides on our last morning on the mountain.  They sang us some songs and were on there way!

This last picture is me with my new luggage for the rest of the trip. I left my backpack with the porters on the mountain and all we could find for me to put my stuff in was this awesome mail sack.  It got dubbed the "white ball" and I even shrink wrapped that sucker at the airport and sent it home with me to London!

That's all for now....up next, Zanzibar!

A{nother} Change of Address

I'm goint to take a small break from my Tanzania posts (still two more to come!) and write about my past week, maybe you'll understand why I have been so delayed in posting all of my pictures and stories from Africa!  Last weekend I finally finished packing up my old flat at 5 am, just in time for the movers to arrive at 8 am! We loaded up and moved over to my new address in Camden!  I am so in love with my new flat, it is so much smaller than my old flat, but it is so cute and I LOVE my new location.  I am so much more centrally located and it takes about half the time to get to work every day {best perk ever}.  I am only one block from Regents Park, which will be so great in the summer!  I am {of course} still unpacking, I swear it is never ending!  I didn't get to spend my first night in my new flat because my friends Elsa and Laura Gray had a Mardi Gras party at there house over on the West side of town.  The party was fantastic, Laura Gray went all out and made Jambalaya, homemade King cake and Milk Punch!  Milk punch, is my official new favorite drink...milk and whiskey mixed together, it's like it was made just for me!  Now, I don't know all of the ingredients but it tasted kind of like a white russian, but better.  I was planning on spending the night at my old flat, since it was closer to the party, but we ended up staying up until 4 am so I just stayed at the girls place.  The next morning I had to go over to pick up some final things and let the cleaners in to my old flat. I dropped 8 trash bags of clothes, shoes, etc off at the charity shop...EIGHT!  How is that possible?? 
This week I have meant to focus on getting unpacked, but I have had a hard time getting that done.  Monday night Annie came over to see the new place and we went out for Thai food and then came back and I tried to help Annie enter the 21st century by uploading her new iPhone!  Tuesday I headed over to Meg's to watch The Bachelor with Meg and Lauren {downloaded from iTunes, of course}.  Vienna.....seriously!!! That is all I have to say about that.  Wednesday, I was planning for a night of unpacking, but Kelly called and invited me to go see Vampire Weekend with her at Brixton Academy since she had an extra ticket.  The concert was great, but I think my favorite part was sushi before hand at Tsunami...amazing! Thursday, Meg came over to see the new flat and we cooked dinner in my new "kitchenette".   We had a great time catching up and cooking a healthy dinner (we were both in need of some vegetables).  Then Friday, again I planned for another night of unpacking but Meg called and was going to see a Valentine's Day at the movie theatre that is just two blocks from me so how could I resist! If you see a trend developing, it is that my new neighbor Meg is going to keep me from being productive!!
Today I am going to get my flat totally unpacked and then I have all of next week to finish my Africa posts!  If I blog it, then I have to do it, right!?!

Tanzania - Serengeti

After we left the amazingness that was the Ngorogoro Crater after my lunch from hell, we struck out west headed towards Serengeti National Park.  The drive took ages and it was hot and dusty! We all spent most of our time over the next 4-5 hours in the 'Mean Green' like this.....

I woke up from my nap sunburned on my left side with a thin layer of orange dust coating my body.  The highlight of the trip came at my expense, obviously, when a HUGE dung beetle came flying in the top of the vehicle and pegged me on the arm! I thought a rock had hit me, it hit so hard.  After I screamed I looked on the ground of the truck and saw a little guy very similar to this...

I mean...sick! Those guys are big and I can assure you that their shell is hard and durable.  He was still moving so Annie started screaming and crawling on top of her chair.  Dave came to the rescue and flung him back out of the truck.  I mean, seriously, hit by a dung beetle in a moving vehicle...I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!

We finally made it to the entrance gates of Serengeti where there is a big gate, so like the tourists we are we all got out to take a picture under the gate.  The local Masai ladies have caught onto this, so they were there to greet us at the gate and were more than happy to pose for a picture with there precious naked babies...and then accost you for money afterwards.  And then follow you to the car and ask you for more as the 1000 ($1) shillings you gave them was not an adequate payment for a photo.  I mean to their credit, they did get up and put on all of their fancy jewelry and do their hair and everything...okay so they just put on their fancy jewelry.

After we sufficiently filled their pockets we finally got our group photo...

We stopped at the rangers station/rest stop to register and they have a big rock outcropping that we could climb up to have a view of the Serengeti.  When I made it to the top (I said big, it was really just one big rock that took about 2 minutes to climb up) I was gasping for air.  I was beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea for me to climb up Kilimajaro in a few short days.  But alas, the others were a little out of breath too so I made myself feel better about it.  The view was pretty spectacular, my photo didn't really grasp the magnitude of the size of the Serengeti or how beautiful it is so I'll spare you that photo since there will be many many more photos in this posting. The one photo from the rock I will share is slightly disturbing.  We found this creature on top. 

I wasn't quite sure what to make of him.  Opposing forces were tearing me in two different directions.  On the one hand he is a lizard and by sheer principle, I hate lizards, all lizards.  But on the other hand he was half hot pink and half purple, my two favorite colors!  I decided to hate him in the end, because lets face it, he's still just a lizard.  I did actually, in true curiosity, ask the Paulo if he was really that color or if someone spray painted him.  True story. Sometimes I even embarass myself with the things that come out of my mouth.

That night we stayed at a permanent tented camp just outside of the Serengeti, the name escapes me at the moment, but it was pretty cool.  There were permanet tents with cement floors and real bathrooms with running water attached.  Not too shabby. We got there just at sunset, which was gorgeous, but then we quickly realized when it was time to walk to dinner that we forgot to bring our flashlights with us. Now to say it is dark in the middle of Africa, miles away from civilization, is the understatement of the century.  It's comparable to saying something along the lines of The Hangover was funny or that George Clooney is handsome, while both are true they are both gross understatements. You see my point. Good.  So it was dark and Annie and I were stranded a 5 minute walk away from the dinner tent with only the light of my iPhone to guide us across the wild plains of the Serengeti to dinner.  A bit dramatic, I know, but it was really scary, we could only (just barely) see the ground in front of us and we had no idea what was lurking around us waiting to jump out and get us.  I mean, seriously, at night they had guards walking the perimeter of the camp with bows and poison arrows.  Luckily, we survived the walk to dinner and they kindly provided us each with a flashlight.

We had a great dinner that night, but the highlight was Paulo telling us all about the Masai and their customs and traditions.  Paulo is full blood Masai and is also a revered Masai warrior.  My failing memory would do a disservice to the stories he told, but I vaguely remember the following being mentioned:  A lot about bringing disgrace to your family (and how to avoid that), killing a goat with a single punch, being circumsized infront of the village without making a single sound, being left in the wilderness by yourself over night, worshiping trees and rocks and such, again...I have a failing memory. Anyhow, it was all very captivating and I loved hearing his stories. You'll have to go meet your own Masai warrior if you want more details.

After dinner Annie and I made the treacherous journey back to our tent and decided to sit on our back porch and star gaze and such.  That is where we met our friend Sam.  Sam is one of the aforementioned guards with bow and poison arrows.  Sam joined us on the porch and showed us his poison arrows and let us hold his bow.  We asked him to protect us during the night.  We think he may have misunderstood our request as he showed up on our porch the next night and sat on the chair outside our tent for an uncomfortable amount of time while we were inside of the tent getting ready for bed.  Awkward.

The next day we headed out into the Serengeti, whose size is unimaginable. It seems to go on forever! Unlike the Ngorogoro Crater, you can go for long stretches without seeing a single animal, but then all of a sudden stumble upon a lone leopard resting in the branches without the slightest warning. That is the beauty of the Serengeti

To avoid being too long winded here are some of my favorite pics from the day with a few stories along the way....

Giraffes in a V formation

Peekaboo!

We went to this hippo pool that was FILLED with hippos, literally hundreds! We were able to get out of the truck and stand on the side of the pool up on a ridge and watch them for about 30 minutes.  Hippos are loud and smelly!! They poo all of the time and they flip their tail around while they are doing it, flinging the poo everywhere. so gross. My feel also got attacked by ants while we were at the pool...I got 27 ant bites on my poor feet, I'll spare you the picture!

When we were crossing a river we pulled over to look at some crocs and notices a whole troup of monkeys on an island in the middle of the river.  One of the crocs slid into the river as the monkeys were crossing, and we quickly realized why they were jumping across the river!!  They would each back up and take a running leap one by one, I managed to catch this one mid-air!  The last monkey that you see on the left standing on the rock alone had cold feet! It took him a few minutes of pacing back and forth to gather the courage to make the leap.  No worries, he made it over just fine.

Some more baboons, hanging out on a bridge

Some impala displaying a little male bravado

This lady was NOT pleased with us being so close to her family...she danced around our truck, trumpeting for a while until we decided to save her the heart attack and drive away!

we drove right into the middle of a huge heard of elephants, we were completely surrounded.  it was a little scary to have so many of them around us with really no way out.  They weren't too bothered by us luckily.

One of my favorite pictures of the trip! We came across two eagles fighting it out.  You can't see the other eagle because he is hiding out in the grass.  When this guy took off the ground, I had my camera zoomed in so tight on him, I actually jumped back because it looked like he was coming at me!

Love me some lions!!

I LOVE these gnarly trees that are stripped down to their bark, against the blue skies...gorgeous!

After our time in the Serengeti was up we flew from a dirt airstrip in the middle of the Serengeti back to the Kilimanjaro airport to start the "easiest part of our trip" as Paulo would say!  

Annie flirted herself into the cockpit with Pilot Sean and he let her FLY THE PLANE for about 10 minutes, I have literally never hated someone so much in my life, I wanted to die with jealousy!!  I have since forgiven her.

There are many many more pictures on my Shutterfly site

Tanzania - Ngorogoro Crater

Okay, here I go...the first Africa installment of several more to come! I am up to my ears in pictures and I am still very early in the editing process.  I need to get my 1000+ pictures down to a more manageable number, even I get bored after the 50th picture of the leopard in the tree! It's so hard for me to stop taking picture, I am VERY trigger happy on safari!  Every fraction of an inch an animal moves warrants at least another 10 pictures! 

I'll start off by saying my trip to Tazania was beyond amazing and exceeded my expectations, which I didn't know was even possible! When I went to Botswana last year, my love affair with Africa began.  My trip to Tanzania has deepened that love to the 10th degree. The landscape of northern Tanzania is awe inspiring and quite literally leaves you a little breathless. See below for proof if you don't believe me!

Annie and I set off for Tanzania on Kenya Air, which my mom was a little worried about (but lets be honest, what wasn't she worried about!)  In the end she had nothing to worry about, Kenya Air was great and they even had little animals on the pillow cases, love it! We flew into Kilimanjaro Airport via Nairobi and met our new travelling mates and soon to be friends for the first time.  We had a very diverse group of 10....Annie and I were the youngest at 27 and the oldest was Mama Jenny at 63.  I believe the word is gumption, yes, Mama Jenny has gumption. She is one tough lady! We also met our tour leader, Paulo, who became a great friend over the two weeks.  Paulo is a fierce Masai warrior and shared his amazing stories with us...more on those to come! 

Upon arrival we piled in our minivan and headed off towards our first destination, the Ngorogoro Crater, also catching our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro!  We pulled over to the side of the road for pictures and the butterflies began, the mountain is HUGE! It took us a couple of hours to reach the crater, but we stopped several times along the way to enjoy the roadside scenary...like the picture above! The above picture is the eastern wall of the great rift valley that runs along the entirety of Eastern Africa.  Spectacular views! We finally had our first view inside the crater by late afternoon before reaching the Rhino Lodge, where we would stay for the night.

Me and Annie looking over into the Ngorogoro Crater

More roadside scenary

Sunrise at the Rhino Lodge

The next morning we woke up really early, the first of MANY early mornings! At least in Africa early mornings are rewarded by the most amazing sunrises! We ate some breakfast and headed off into the crater for a day of game viewing.  The Ngorogoro Crater is was created when a volcano imploded and is like it's own little (or not so little) oasis.  It is absolutely over run with wildlife, most stay in the crater their entire lives, they really have no reason to leave.  We were amazed once we got onto the crater floor at how many animals there were EVERYWHERE! The previous day when we had looked down into the crater, you couldn't see anything, it just looked like a giant empty crater filled with grass and a lake.  It just went to show us the sheer size of the place. Zebra and wildebeest were in the most abundance, they are scattered everywhere, intermingling and leveraging off of each others natural abilities.  The zebra don't have the best sense of smell but their eyesight is excellent while the wildebeest have a great shnoz but can't see too well.  They are a match made in heaven!

We were super lucky and within about 5 minutes of being on the crater floor we came across two cheetah roaming around together. I was thrilled as I didn't see any cats on my last trip to Botswana!  They said these must have been two young brothers, as they were still travelling together, adult cheetah travel on their own.  I will say that the cheetah is one of the most majestic animals I have ever seen.  They have so much grace and their bodies and quite svelt! Their heads are super tiny, pretty funny looking!  The black tear drops under their eyes are one of their defining features.  These guys are notoriously shy, but these two brothers didn't seem to notice us at all. They just carried on as if we weren't there crossing the road right between our two vehicles.  Then they just wandered off into the distance until we couldn't see them anymore.  It was definitely a highlight of the day!

After the buzz of our cheetah sighting wore off, we continued on and saw many animals all living together.  It was amazing, I kept feeling like I was in some game park where the animals had all been placed there for me to see, I had to keep reminding myself that this was nature at it's best! We saw herds of elephant, 1000's of zebra and wildebeest, both grant and thompson gazelle, many warthog families, monkeys, hippos, a lake full of pink flamingos (!), rhino, ostrich, etc etc etc!! Being on the floor of the crater was a truely incredible experience.  You look around you and you are surrounded by these giant walls, it makes you feel so tiny.

In the distance we saw several safari vehicles congregatings so we headed over to see what the big fuss was.  It turns out it was two lions having a little mid-morning snack...I think some sort of gazelle...sorry for the graphic photo!! We watched these two guys for at least 45 minutes as they devoured this little guy.  We didn't see the actual kill, just the aftermath.  They seemed to keep the carcass in between them and then they would just get up and go grab another piece, go back to their spot with it, lay down and tear in...then repeat until they were satisfied.  Towards the end, the hyena's started closing in, hoping for some scrapes.  They patiently waiting their turns, waiting for the lions to leave before closing in.  You could tell it took all of their restraint to wait their turn, as they kept inching in ever so slowly.

After the lions it was time for lunch and we headed to a nice little corner of the crater by a small pond and ate our packed lunches that we brought with us.  We couldn't get out of the safari truck to eat our lunches because the birds are onto the fact that this is where the tourists come to eat lunch!  They literally start dive bombing the cars!  So we staying in our trucks and ate our lunches...this was the lowlight of the day for me, but I think the highlight of the day for the others in my truck!  To start with, most people know I am scared of birds, well these little guys started perching themselves all over the top of our open-topped jeep and staring us down with their beady little eyes!  The bigger birds were dive bombing back and forth.  I was already on edge when I opened up my lunchbox to find that our main entree was a chicken leg! ICK!! I HATE eating meat off of a bone. I think this stems from the fact that I don't like eating anything that resembles the form it had when it was alive.  Hence I don't like shrimp, meat on bones, etc.  So there I was cowereing in the corner of the car, grimacing as I choked down what little meat I could get off of the chicken leg without actually touching the bone, all while keeping my eyes glued to the birds looking for any sudden movements.  I was a mess! I was laughing that is was my own personal hell.  Everyone on the trip was wondering how I had lived to the age of 27 by the end of the trip with all the things that I was afraid of!

Our lunch locale

After lunch we headed back up to the rim of the crater to make our long drive to Serengeti National Park.  On the rim of the crater and all along the roads almost the whole way to Serengeti there are tons of giraffes...I mean seriously, thousands of them!   There are actually no giraffe inside the crater because they can't get down the steep walls, so they just hang out up top with all of the trees!

When driving from the crater to the Serengeti you are in the heart of Masai country.  The masai are everywhere herding their cattle around to greener pastures.  It is pretty remarkable to see a huge herd of cows with one red spec in the midst.  Cows are everything to the Masai.  They are a reflection of status, food, currency, they are their sustanance.  I did find out that with my fair skin and my blonde hair, I'd be worth at least 20 cows, which is 13 higher than I was offered in Botswana.  So I think my future husband definitely resides in Tanzania rather than Botswana!  The Masai are nomadic, moving to the greenest pastures for their cows.  They belong to no single country and are allowed to move between Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda freely.  Some even make it as far south as South Africa.

Masaii and their noble steed :)

A Masai village, called a boma

By late afternoon, after 12 long hours in the safari vehicle we finally reached Serengeti National Park, which is where I will pick up next time!! As usual, there are many more pictures on my shutterly site. lwaterfield.shutterfly.com

Passport in Hand

Phew, my passport is back in my possession!  Yesterday I went back to the Tanzanian Embassy to pick up my passport with my Visa for the trip. To be honest, I was a little nervous leaving it there.  It wasn't the most organized place and to just hand over your passport to a perfect stranger in return for a little pink slip 6 days before you are supposed to leave the country, it was a little nerve racking!  But I should have never doubted them, it all went very smoothly.   Don't make fun of the photo, sometimes they don't accept photos where you are smiling, and I haven't really mastered that whole "smiling with your eyes" thing that Tyra goes on about even though I've watched just about every season of America's Next Top Model! It really is ridiculous, they make you pull your hair back and not smile...can we say Mug Shot!

Long Time, No See

I just couldn't stay away, iPhone, oh how I've missed you!  I will admit, I am usually pretty late in jumping on the technological bandwagon.  But with the iPhone, I was actually all over that, I had the 1st generation iPhone when it first came out a few years ago.  It served me well until the day that I moved to London and has sense taken over as my main ipod, since my original ipod was only 4GB.  When I moved to London I went back to the blackberry, for reasons that I can't really remember now.  I did love my Blackberry, especially her keyboard and most recently I have become obsessed with BBM.  For a while there I only had a couple of BBM friends, but recently I have had an explosion of BBM friends so you can guarantee that my BB was glued to my hands for the last few months!  I think BBM will be the hardest to let go of, why hasn't Apple come out with the equivalent for iPhone yet, I mean seriously!!! But as much as I loved my Blackberry I also missed my iPhone, so when my contract was up for a free upgrade, I just couldn't deny myself any longer!  It actually works out perfect, because I almost asked for a new ipod for Christmas because the battery on mine wasn't holding up too well anymore.  So I killed two birds with one stone!  I am all synched up and ready to go!  The first time around there weren't all of these Apps like there are now.  I am very intrigued by these little guys, but a little lost. So please, all my iPhone buddies out there, let me know your favorite Apps!!