Brian’s Trip

LATE POSTING… this relates to Sunday Nov 2.
My biggest worry about canvassing today was, in a word, DOGS. I had to go door-to-door with a list of overwhelmingly Democratic voters and some undecideds.
One family I met had a granddad from Kilkenny. They asked me about health care in Ireland and I talked about the medical card mess. They even invited me over for dinner another day.
That was a great experience because there were four people very excited to vote for Obama. The very next door I knocked on was a real eye-opener. It was a young minority voter who asked me how he could be taken OFF the voter registration list. He had been trying to do this for years apparently. I gave him a number to call in the hope he might vote this one time as a thank you.
Most of the neighbourhoods I was in were working class, some rougher than others. One woman told me that children trick or treating for Halloween didn’t even stop in their house because of their Obama sign.
But the scariest reaction I got was from a house I called to in which I was looking to canvass a young woman. Her dad answered and said his daughter was working (on a Sunday). I asked if I could swing by again later on and then a young female voice in the background shouted “I’m not voting for Obama!” I then put my hand up as to say, ‘OK. that’s fine”. Then she shouted at me “Don’t put your hand up at me!” I left immediately.
I had just canvassed 105 houses. After a break for lunch I had to go back over the same streets to see if anyone was home who wasn’t earlier. I actually talked to about 40 people who were definite Obama supporters.
Some Democrats told me flat out they were’nt voting for Obama. They were Irish-American. I met Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans who were similarly disposed.
But the FUNNIEST reaction I got was this: I asked an elderly lady “Can Senator Obama count on your support on Tuesday?”
Her reply: “Who?”
“Senator Barack Obama.”
“What’s he running for?”……

Arrived in Philadelphia last night (Saturday) and after having a bite to beat I started working the phones, making sure people already committed to Obama knew where to vote, and still planned to vote for him. One guy threatened to NOT vote for Obama (even though he was down to vote for him) if someone from the campaign called again! So I marked him down for NEVER CALL AGAIN!
In the area of the city I’m working in, volunteers apparently made a “phenomenal” amount of house or phone calls on Saturday alone. Greater Philadelphia has a population of about 6 million, so there’s still a lot of work to do. But some people we called said that they had been called by people purporting to be from the Obama Camp, but telling them a different polling station to go to than the one we were directing them to!
Despite this alleged skullduggery, the mood is very confident here in Philly.
Also heard about a place called Fishtown where we have a reverse Bradley Effect. In the original version, white voters supposedly told pollsters for the Los Angeles mayoral race they would vote for the black candidate, Tom Bradley, in 1984. He lost the race, possibly because white voters lied about their intentions for fear of appearing racist.
In Fishtown, a suburb of Philly, white voters are apparently lying to their white neighbours because they are afraid they won'’t appear racist enough. Let me explain. Apparently they say they can’t vote for Obama “because he’s (the N word)”. But then they worry about the economy and feel they have no choice but to vote for Obama. Some of them have said to canvassers they will vote for Obama, but the canvasser can’t tell the voter’s neighbours what the voter just confided to the canvasser… presumably for fear of being a social outcast! A very twisted logic indeed.

I am jump-starting the blog again to write from the Obama campaign in Philadelphia where I will be volunteering for a few days from Saturday. Watch this space.

I catch the Royal Coach, another “luxury coach”, just after 10 a.m. to get to Dar tonight. I order a packed lunch for the 8- hour journey back to the capital, knowing that there’s only one food stop and it’s pretty quick.
The hotel manager drives me to the coach (so he can make the money instead of a taxi driver getting it) and tells me that Royal is “pole, pole” (Swahili for “slowly, slowly”, if I haven’t mentioned it before).
It certainly did feel a little slower than our helter skelter ride up but it was definitely safer, so that wasn’t bad at all. Our lunch stop was kinda bad though, cos the toilets were full of flies and I saw this big cockroach trying to crawl its way out of the sink faucet and onto the porcelain.
I had pre-booked lodging for Dar that night a few days earlier cos this is high season. So when I got into town one of the tour operator’s associates met me and took me to the Safari Inn.
They told me they didn’t have a booking and I argued and argued a little, but it was futile. I told them that they didn’t even care and the guy behind the counter said that that wasn’t true at all. But it was.
So I eventually found somewhere else with the help of Mako’s associate and camped there for the night. But it was nowhere near as nice as our accomodation in Moshi. I was really looking forward to getting out of Dar the next day.

This morning I help Philip finish off the brochure. I read over a few drafts and make some final changes but our designer is getting a bit antsy and doesn’t want to have to make any more alterations.
That afternoon I walk around town looking for something to eat. I get hassled by this one guy who’s trying to sell safari paintings of animals and people on canvas and everywhere I go within a 90 minute period he seems to pop up. I tell him he’s following me and he protests that he “works on the streets.”
Eventually he goes away. A little earlier I had a terribly insubstantial lunch at one place that had no menu. And it was the second eatery that had no menu. I think it’s pretty common so I better get used to it.
Because I only had what I’d consider half a lunch I went in search of a burger and eventually found one, although service was slow.
When it came to dinner around 4 hours later, again I had an insubstantial first meal and had to order a second one which seemed to take forever to cook. I was so frustrated not to mention the fact that I was still trying to get over my protein deficiency thanks to our safari cook.
Earlier today I had decided to leave for Dar es Salaam the next day so as I could catch a ferry/plane the day after that to Zanzibar.

This morning my first priority is to burn my 1 gig Compact Flash card so as I don’t lose any of the 900 pics I’ve taken in just the last week. Crikey! This is gonna take two cards. I get directions from the hotel staff ($15 a night, so not a bad deal) and amble on up to a seemingly good Internet cafe. Luckily I have two CDs I bought in Oz and so it only costs me about $1 to burn each CD. I check the photos on a computer later but it’s taking foreverandeverandever for them to load on the pages, so much so that I can’t even see a full size of one pic after 90 minutes!!!
I ask the Web master to show me from his computer and they seem to check out quite well. I really wanted to see the shot of the kids I took the day before and I was very happy with it. So happy that I showed it to the brother of the guy who organized our safari, who happened to be in the same cafe right beside me. Philip, the brother, immediately said “I want that photo.” It turns out he was putting together a brochure for a nonprofit company he and three friends set up a few years ago to employ locals as guides, cooks etc. for tourists. It’s called Tanzanians and Friends Eco Tourism Ltd. and it seems pretty legit.
The brochure he was making was a double-sided A4/A8 page with some pics. They were supposed to have a photo of some kids on the cover (you fold the page into three) but the photographer apparently lost the shots so Philip was desperate for images.
I told him he could use it once he credited me in small type underneath the photo. I also gave them a few more shots I had taken the day earlier, which we could run smaller. I then offered to proof read the brochure and as I looked at it I realized that it was written by a nonnative English speaker. Some of it was like a bureaucratic version of pidgin English. I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were trying to say. A friend of Philip’s who works for a nonprofit wrote it with the best of intentions but Philip is travelling to Finland in August for a fund-raiser and I thought it should at least be a little more intelligible.
So I asked Philip if I could help rewrite it and he agreed. Still, I checked over everything with that we kept the main thrust of what the nonprofit was about. Well, between the CD burning and the brochure rewriting most of the day was gone, and we still had some more work to do on the brochure. We needed some stuff shifted around etc. and as it was done on Microsoft software I had no clue. Like I say, once you go Mac you never go back. The woman helping Philip on the layout had to leave after lunch so we’d have to come back the next day to finish off the job.

So it’s the last day of the safari and our driver and guide seem more than a little tense about what kind of tip they’re going to get.
When I get up the chef greets me saying “Gooten Morgen.” I think it was an attempt to suck up to me, but Andrea is the only German in our group of three.
We head out with our guide, Henry, shortly after 8 a.m. for our walking safari. It’s by the outskirts of Lake Manyara, so not in the national park itself. Even so, it’s quite the eye opener. We walk on what was once a lake bed, as in just 10 years ago. It’s all dried up now and as we get further and further along we see white salt deposits and skeletons of flamingoes. Along the way I ask Henry to identify different kinds of animal excrement … I figured it would make good video. It turns out that lots of animals will literally mark their territory with droppings and the little parcels can also serve as a scented trail back to where they cam from. Hippos are particularly adept at doing this and even go to the lengths of spreading shit with their tails. And another interesting fact: Did you know that dried elephant dung is an excellent mosquito repellent?
During all of this I can’t get over the huge African sky above us. It’s like you’re in one of those snow globes that you shake and has a curved exterior. It’s truly awe inspiring.
We see zebra and wildebeest during our walk, both of which are skittish, particularly the wildebeest. So they’re no problem at all. It’s the water buffalo you’ve got to worry about so Henry makes sure we walk in a direction whereby the wind doesn’t carry our scent.
Soon enough we head into the forest and take a walk among the nearby town’s agricultural community. As Henry is explaining something to Nick and Andrea, I ask one father if I can take photos of his children. He happily obliges and then the other three join me in meeting the family. I must have taken a couple of dozen shots and Henry explains to the father that I’ve been taking photos since I was 11. When we leave, the father tells Henry that there’s plenty of room for me to stay a few months if I want to. I tell him that I have a plane to catch, spreading out my arms in explanation, but thank him for the offer.
Henry later says that the man is from a tribe that used to be hunters and the town is trying to get them to become farmers, or gatherers, instead.
We continue walking through the community along a narrow muddy road that has crops of bananas and sugar cane growing in farms on either side of it. Henry stops every once in a while to explain the different crops to us and points out the multiple varities of bananas.
A little later another family invites us to meet them. Like earlier, I take photos of the kids and other family members and show them the images on my digital camera. As you can imagine, it’s a great ice breaker and the kids just crack up at the photos.
So some of the other kids in this extended family beg me to “take a picha.” I walk into one of their houses — four walls but empty inside — and walk to the “window,” which has a pane made of a few sticks. I peek my head out the opening and they see exactly what I want. So I go around to the outside again and, in sign language, try and get them to arrange themselves to fill the window frame. The smallest is upset initially but soon calms down. Then I take three shots and I look at them after and decide on the spot that I have my lead Africa photo for my flickr pages. I’m really excited about this pic and can’t wait to post it. But that will depend on finding a fast connection, so stay posted.
After a great walking safari we head back to the campsite for lunch. The night before, I asked the cook if we were getting meat for lunch and he gave an affirmative “yes” … I tell ya, he’s bringing out the good stuff in order to impress us.
After lunch we head out to visit an authentic Maasai community. And believe me, this was authentic. Henry said it would be no problem taking photos because we had already paid for the trip and it was all square. As soon as I whip out my camera, I take a picture of a young Maasai warrior and he asks me for money. Then he asks me a second time after another shot. So I ask Henry to explain the deal to him.
Most other members of the community were very camera shy and it was hard to get good photos. As for the living quarters, the houses were made out of dried cow dung and there were flies everywhere. And where there’s flies, there’s usually lots of shit nearby … not that I could see it. So I wasn’t exactly as comfortable here as I was meeting the families earlier today.
Just after we arrived, the tribe’s women laid out some mats to sell trinkets: bracelets, necklaces etc. they had made. So they were’nt missing a beat at all. But when cows are your only livelihood other sources of income shouldn’t be ignored.
After this meet and greet, we head on our way home after giving Henry a tip. In the car, the three of us discuss the tip and decide to give God Bless $60 and Waka $50. The guidelines are about $10 a day for the driver and $8 for the cook, so it was pretty much on the money.
When we get into Moshi that evening, go out for a meal and call it a day. A successful safari … and now we have a nice bed for the first time in a week.

With great hopes, we head down into the crater. But it turns out to be just as hard to spot lions here as it was in the Serengeti. For a place that’s supposed to be teeming with wildlife it seems that we’ve come at the wrong time of the year. We did spot some lions maybe on the hunt for zebras but it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.
That afternoon we leave for the campsite we were at on the first night. Again, we have to make sure we’re out by a certain time so as not to flout the 24-hour permit rule.
As I get back to the campsite we only have one more day of safari left and it’s a “walking safari” by Lake Manyara national park. So it’s kind of a rest day as far as I’m concerned.
So I borrrow a copy of the Lonely Planet for Tanzania (I have the East Africa one) and peruse through it while making notes. As I sit down at a table in the dining area I notice something funny about the tablecloth. Something familiar. In reality it’s a bed sheet that has been made into a tablecloth. It has images of lions (up close) and monkeys, hippos, elephants … all the kind of stuff you’d see on safari. But here’s the kicker: I had the exact same sheets on my bed 25 years ago when I was a kid and dreaming of going on safari in Africa. I had envisioned going to Kenya or Tanzania. It sounds like an unbelieveable coincidence but it’s true.
Kind of like a feel-good version of The Twilight Zone. I was so dumbfounded that I took a picture to remind myself. I had thought about asking the campsite manager if I could buy the sheet, but then decided that it was better to leave that part of me in Africa … a part that had apparently been there a long time already.
That evening we meet our guide for the walking safari the next day. There’s some confusion over whether we get to do the walking safari and meet a Maasai community also but this is later sorted out when we explain how that is what we had paid for. So we settle on the walking safari in the morning and the Maasai in the afternoon.

I’m starting to discount the possibilty of seeing a lion up close so as not to be disappointed. Even so, we’re up for an early game drive (leave about 7 a.m. or so) in a vain attempt to find the king of the jungle. After a few hours of that, we return to camp for another vegetarian meal (where’s the beef?) and I’m beginning to suffer from a serious protein deficiency.
On the way out of the park, we go to the Visitors Centre near the Kenyan border where there’s a walking trail all about the wildebeest migration. The wildebeest are apparently one of the lynchpins for the Serengeti ecosystem and the exhibit was quite the eye opener. Here’s what I learned:
Wildebeest spend three weeks birthin in February and produce around 30,000 calves a day. That’s a quarter of a million new wildebeest every year that engage in the migration. During this, if a mother and calf get lost, they take themselves out of the herd and call to each other.
Ostriches conserve water by turning their urine into a concentrated paste.
Hippos weight the size of a Land Rover, eat 30 kilos of grass a day and run faster than humans.
Hyenas can move freely into other hyenas’ territories once they don’t go near nests of baby hyenas. Also, hyena mothers do the hunting while one mother will look after a whole bunch of hyenas communally.
And guess who the biggest funders of the Serengeti are…. It’s the EU and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (cos a German man helped set up the Serengeti with help from Tanzania’s first president. The German and his son are both buried in the hinterland, with the former dying in a plane crash while trying to do a count of animal populations).
After this walking tour, we head for the main gate of the Serengeti at a good speed so as we don’t miss our deadline for leaving the park. As we sign out, God Bless tells me that a park official looked at his papers and incorrectly thought God Bless had been reported for a violation. Apparently someone with a similar license place had been reported because one of their passengers had stood on their jeep to get a better look at the wildlife. The fine: $200. He was laughing cos he thought it was pretty funny, although some of our crew were pretty close to being fined by those standards.
That afternoon we head for Ngornongoro Crater, said to be one of the best places in Africa to see predators. I’m foaming at the mouth at the possibilities.
When we get to the campsite I check out the facilities. The toilets are basic, mostly pit/squat efforts. There are a few outlets to recharge my camera batteries but they’re already being used for cell phones. Luckily I have a few sets of spares I bought for about 7 bucks each. I plug in my iPod to save photos onto it but it’s taking forever and draining one set of batteries. And that night at dinner we have another meatless dish. So it’s really quite the banner evening. Oh yeah, then there’s the guy cleaning the pit toilet that overflows into the area where there are sinks to wash our hands. A few of us left as fast as we could, lest we be caught in the undertow.
About three hours after I plugged the iPod in for the photo transfer it still hadn’t received all 900 pics. So I just gave up and unplugged it. Now I’m worried that I’ve somehow corrupted the memory card. Then I get an outlet in the dining area that’s free and plug in my rechargeable batteries. But all the electricity is cut off at 11 p.m. so now I’m worried that I don’t have enough batteries left.
Finally, I can’t get any sleep because the wind is howling and almost blowing over my tent. About 4 a.m. I turn on my cell phone to see the time and it rings to show me I have a new text. I’m worried I’ve woken my neighbors, but it seems OK. It’s from my cousin Mary Kelly and says something like: “Hear you’re having a great time. I’m so jealous.” Uh huh!

We get up early to head out for a game drive around 7 or 7:30 a.m. because the early morning and early evening are the times when wildlife come out of their hiding places and can be more easily spotted. And we’re still searching for a close up lion, an obsession that’s beginning to drag on me. The Serengeti’s tall grasses make it hard to find animals, especially those like lions that blend in with the background.
We did find a pair apparently feasting on a zebra but they were too far away for my Olympus although I did catch them on my 10x zoom on the Sony camcorder. When we went back to the camp we started to get the first in a series of lunches or dinners that consisted primarily of veggies and little if any meat or fish at all. I found that quite disheartening and was beginning to yearn for meat.
That afternoon we went out for another game drive, but this time God Bless took us to the hippo pool. It was easily the best thing so far. Imagine about 40 or 50 hippos all crowded together in this pool of water that is so dirty from hippo droppings that you can’t see into it at all. Add in constant bubbles from hippos with major gas problems and you have a natural wonder. I ended up taking a buttload of photos on my digital camera, in search of a pattern of hippo heads or something that would make a picture relatively unique. Just a little down from the pool was a Nile crocodile, all by himself. He was about 3 metres long and apparently asleep. That was until (with the guide watching) I approached him to within 5 feet and then zoomed in on his head. When he opened his eyes it was definitely a creepy moment. If I had been so startled that I fell forward instead of back, then I’d be lunch. But it was fine.

After a crappy sleep what with a nearby nightclub ending festivities at around 2 a.m. and then a Muslim prayer call about two hours later, I was ready to hit the road.
We head off to the famed Serengeti, Tanzania’s most famous wildlife park and a world famous eco system. On the way there we have to pass through the Ngornogoro Conservation Area which includes villages (or bomas) of Maasai people. Apparently, when Ngornogoro was created, the Maasai were dispossessed of some lands. The government gave them grazing and irrigation rights in return, so they herd their cows around the conservation area. Many of the younger ones also jump up and down along the roadside looking for tourists to stop and take a photo of them or with them. The catch is they always ask for a dollar and it was sad to see them reduced to this.
Along the way we see a dead water buffalo with its rear end chewed out. Our guide said that this was the work of hyenas because that’s the only part of the water buffalo they eat. But he wasn’t sure if the beast was roadkill or attacked by other animals.
We’re supposed to spend three days (two nights) in the Serengeti but when the tour companies book safaris they arrive at the major parks around 4 p.m. because the daily permits are for any 24 hours, hence they can be in the park for the greater part of three days yet just pay for two daily permits. This is often to allow tour groups to pitch camp at the next park the night you leave a major park like Serengeti.
We do a short game drive for a few hours to look for some animals we hadn’t seen before and find a lion on top of this rocky outcrop. But it’s too far away and I’m yearning for a close up after hearing other stories of lions walking right by jeeps etc. And our driver, in his broken English, did say “Serengeti, lions … lions, Serengeti.” So you get the picture.
That night when we pitch camp, I’m less than impressed with the facilities. There’s a few pit toilets that are very stinky and a big water tank, but no basin for hand washing. And this is a campsite in one of the world’s premier parks. At any rate, before we go to be we’re told that we should be careful at night because sometimes lions do walk by the tents and there can be hyenas. Apparently it’s crucial not to make eye contact with lions because if they see pupils, they know there’s something to be eaten. So I decide I won’t leave my tent for any reason at all during the night and just hope my bladder can keep its part of the deal.
Later that night we heard lions roaring and hyenas doing whatever they do. A little scary, but in a cool way. And I didn’t peek my head out the tent at all. Not even once.

My wake up was punctuated by two roosters duking it out from about 5 a.m. over who had the best early morning call. I wasn’t exactly cock-a-hoop about this.
After breakfast, Nick, Andrea and I are met by our driver, our cook and a weathered looking Land Rover, the kind of one Russell Crowe might drive. The driver said: Hello, my name is God Bless, like God Bless You.” I thought he coudn’t be serious but apparently he was. And the cook’s name was Waka … which happens to be the Swahili word for cook. God Bless also asked me if I was afraid of lions because They can be heard close by at night when we sleep in the Serengeti campsite.
Our tour operator then said to us, remember: good trip, good tip … bad trip, bad tip. He made sure God Bless and Waka heard in an effort to hammer the point home.
Before we leave, God Bless tells me he’s going to teach me some Swahili along the way so I decide to at least make an effort to take up his challenge. Shortly later we stop to buy food and water and I feverishly go through my Lonely Planet for the basics in Swahili. All proud of myself, I’ve already got a phrase to show off to God Bless. I wait for him to get back in the car and can hardly contain my excitement. When he comes, I say “Usivute sigara. Nina mimba.” He laughs. I’ve just told him “No smoking. I’m pregnant.” Again in Swahili, I tell the cook I don’t like onions or beans just in case he’ll actually listen to me.
After a few hours drive we get to our first stop, Lake Tarangire National Park. All the parks have set roads and routes and drivers face penalties if they go off road, no matter how much someone wants to get that one shot.
The trails through the park are relatively narrow and among the first animals we see near the side of the road are zebras and wildebeest. It turns out that they’re great buddies because the zebras watch out for predators, while the wildbeest are too dumb to spot danger coming but sure know how to find water. I’m very excited about the zebras and really want to get one of those shots that is a close up of a series of black and white lines with a pairs of eyes indicating they’re zebras.
But my lens isn’t big enough at 5 times zoom (and that’s after I bought an adaptor lens in Sydney that turned it from a 3x to a 5x).
A little later we see our first elephants from maybe 70 metres away. It’s a family drinking at a water pool and very exciting to watch. I thought they’d be bigger for some reason but a little later I found they were big enough. We saw an elephant from about 40 feet away, the closest our guide would get because he said elephants in Tarangire are “very dangerous” because of poachers i.e. they often think any human is a poacher and show their anger.
As we feverishly got our cameras ready to take a shot we saw first hand what the guide meant. I was already nervous about how close we were but when the elephant trumpeted his disgust with a huge blare I couldn’t even stop my legs shaking never mind hold my camera still. A little later I regained my composure in time to take dozens of shots of baboons, particularly these four baby baboons who were having the time of their lives swinging from one branch of a small tree to another. I could have watched them for ages. We also saw vervet monkeys a little earlier although they weren’t quite as animated. I was surprised how close we were able to get to the wildlife and felt that my zoom was able to get in pretty close after all.
That night when the three of us got back to the campsite we were all pretty excited. We were spoiled on the first day after seeing elephants and those hilarioius baboons. As we were having dinner I spotted someone who looked a lot like a guy I knew to see from my former gym in Salt Lake. He was with two younger people who looked like they could be his kids. I asked him if he was a member of the Metro and I was right. He’s David Mecham and works as a computer consultant in Salt Lake. It was quite bizarre to me that someone from my gym would be at the same campsite halfway around the world.

I’m picked up at 7 a.m. to get an 8 o’clock bus to Moshi from where we will start our safari. Along the way to the bus station we collect Nick and Andrea who seem just as excited as I am to be on safari. The bus station is chaotic and when I look at my ticket it says that the coach company is not responsible for passengers’ luggage. The ticket is $14 and it’s considered as “luxury coach.” It’s kinda like a Greyhound but not as nice. And there’s no toilet on board, which Mako had promised. Although, in fairness, by the time he had booked all our tickets, the bus he wanted was already full up.
As we leave the central bus station there’s about half a dozen guys hawking packets of cashews, biscuits, Coke, Sprite, water and even toothpaste. We seem to pull into a few other minor pick up points before we finally leave the Greater Dar area.
The buses in Africa go at speeds of between 80 and 100 kmh and as we’re darting along you can hear other buses and minivans swooshing by at what seems like warp speed. The dalla dallas are the minivans kind like the old VW ones and they’re packed with people. Doesn’t seem like a safe way to travel at all. Most of the buses/dalla dallas also have stickers going across the top of the windscreen which appear to be bus nametages. There’s names like “Tiger Woods,” “Unique Sister,” and “Fast Coach.” All the hawkers we meet along the way are also wearing T-shirts with American names or references. I spotted one guy wearing something from Indiana.
The luxury coaches have an in-flight service (in-flight because of the speed they’re travelling at) with an attendant handing out Cokes etc., later on biscuits and then sweets. I pass on the drink cos I’m trying to hold on until we get to a rest stop. I ask one of the two assistants to the driver if we stop for a toilet break and he assures me it’s coming soon.
About 45 minutes later the bus stops on the side of the road and all the guys jump off as if they know exactly where to go. They walk into the bushes and it’s a group leak of about 20 guys in unision, thinking nothing of it. “It’s Africa,” they might say. “Hakuna Matata.” Needless to say I joined the group for my baptism in the African bush toilet.
About 7 hours into our trip to Moshi we pull into what an official weighing station. All buses must go through here before heading on to Moshi and if they’re overweight they will be fined. That’s for two reasons: Safety and wear and tear on the road system. The road, thankfully, has been paved all the way so far.
But the weighing station is taking way longer than it should. The guy next to me tells me that it usually only takes 5 minutes. We end up waiting about 35 to 40 minutes as drivers jockey for position as they get in line to be weighed. I’d call it a scene of disorganised chaos. For example, one agressive driver tries to pull up to our coash and smashes his side mirror against the bus just below my window. Our driver is either oblivious to this or doesn’t give a toss and bulls on ahead to be weighed.
When we got into Moshi about 4 p.m. I was definitely having second thoughts about getting a bus to Kampala. Not to mention the fact that at every stop I was worried that someone would pull out my big Western bag hoping to find a treasure trove. All they would find would be clothes, cables and rechargers, because I had my valuables on the bus. But when the bus company says it’s not responsible for your luggage it makes you feel a little paranoid, especially when touts crowded around an attendant when he opened the luggage bins at one stop earlier today.
That night myself, Nick and Andrea have dinner at the IndoItaliano restaurant from where you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro. Africa feels so intoxicating at that point and I’m so glad I’m here. After dinner I catch up on the blog although I’m having trouble posting, a connection-related problem which I think will come up again and again in Africa.

I don’t much like Dar es Salaam and am itching to get out of the city. It’s kinda big and impersonal with little character and I feel like a walking dollar sign.
I talk to Mako about the gorillas and there are apparently no permits left for Bwindi in Uganda. He says that getting to Rwanda is quite tricky but it’s easier to go to Uganda first because they have better transport links to Rwanda.
Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo all have gorillas because the mountains where they live border on all three countries. The DRC is obviously the dodgiest of the three countries with an ongoing civil war there. Some guerillas from the DRC recently shot two gorillas in one of the parks, hoping to hurt that country’s tourism industry. As a security measure, trackers are accompanies by armed guards to safeguard foreign tourists visiting these countries.
Meanwhie, Mako says there’s an English guy and his German girlfriend who are going on safari from Wednesday and wants to know when I want to do mine. I decide to go with them and sort out later on what I’m going to do about the gorillas. I decide I’ll think about whether or not I want to take a bus from Moshi (northern Tanzania) through Nairobi (”Nairobbery”) and onto Kampala. It would be a 24 to 30 hour journey on bus (regional flights are too expensive) and more foreign workers in Tanzania die in bus crashes than from any other cause.
Some buses are more reliable than others so I would obviously pay top end for a ticket. But then there’s the problem of having to pay for a Kenyan visa (twice, because I would be going into the country and then returning from Uganda) and a Uganda visa. The double on the Kenyan would cost $100 and the Uganda would probably cost about $50. Because my Tanzanian visa was free it would probably be free on the way back, too.
I call the Kenyan consulate and find out that you can pay $40 for a transit visa as long as you don’t stay in the country any longer than 7 days. They can issue it all in the same day, so I hop in a taxi around lunchtime to the consulate to apply for it. Then I have to come back at 2 p.m. with a passport photo. I end up having to pay for two round trips (total $12) and the cabbie seems pretty happy. He doesn’t speak much English but I ruefully pretend to be hoisting a beer and point to him, joking that he’ll be out on the town tonight. He thinks this is very funny. I just shake my head.
That evening I go to a nearby hotel for happy hour where I meet, by chance, a Belfast man who’s doing business in Dar. He mistakes me for a business contact but then buys me a few drinks (at $1.20 a beer) anyway, although they’re on the bar tab of one of the people he’s meeting.
Shortly after, I head back to pack for the safari. I’ve been wanting to do this since I was a kid and had always known it would be either Kenya or Tanzania. Let’s hope my camera holds up and I can get close enough to the animals. As for the camping facilities, I’m saying my prayers.

I spend the morning walking around town near my hostel and then have a nap in the afternoon. I tried in vain to find a TV that had the Live8 Concert but only caught a quick glimpse of it on Sky TV.
That evening I watched the Wimbledon Men’s Final at a nearby hotel where they had a happy hour. I really wanted Roddick to win but that Federer blew holes in him like he was a piece of Swiss cheese.

I spend the morning looking for some breakfast from guys selling oranges and bananas on the street, the latter being particularly hard to find. Eventually with a little help from some locals I find a vendor for my favourite breakfast food.
There was also some aggro on the street with parking cops demanding that a driver pay up for parking along a downtown street. The driver had attracted a large crowd after a little while. He then refused to pay the fee and sped off. So did the parking cops, in hot pursuit of him.
Mako had arranged to meet me that afternoon and bring me to his nearby hotel to show what kind of safaris he had on offer. So he turns up right on time, takes me over, and after two and a half hours of discussions we have a deal. I’m doing a six-day safari that includes three days in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Tangire and Lake Manyara and a visit with my peeps, the Maasai. I still want to do a gorilla trek and ask him about Uganda and Bwindi National Park. It’s quite hard to get permits ($360) for Bwindi cos they have more than half the area’s population of mountain gorillas and therefore the best tracking opportunities. We decide to wait until Monday to see from an operator in Kampala, Uganda what the chances are of getting a permit, a factor that will decide when I do the safari.

I board the Emirates connecting flight from Dubai to Dar es Salaam and prepare myself for touchdown in a continent I’ve always wanted to visit. It’s a pretty boisterous flight with one passenger apparently having a little too much alcohol. As we arrive in Nairobi en route to Dar es Salaam he needs to take a pee but is told repeatedly by the flight attendants to take his seat for the landing. He still gets up and at this stage the attendant is about to lose it. So during our one-hour layover in Nairobi (where we can’t get off the plane) he is taken off the plane and questioned by airport police.
The rest of us fly on to Dar and after being up for almost two days straight I’m feeling pretty wrecked. I had pre-booked my hostel for two nights so I try to get a taxi at the airport. A tour operator called Mako spots me as a potential client (maybe it was my whiter than white complexion .. though maybe not quite as white as Conan) and helps me get a taxi. That night I rest my weary bones at the Luther House Hostel next to the Lutheran Cathedral.

June 30/July 1
I spend the morning putting whatever I can in three small boxes and shipping them back to Dublin so as I don’t look too conspicuous in Africa with my bags.
That afternoon I catch the first of three flights from Sydney to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The first flight (9 hours) takes me to Bangkok and on the way there a flight attendant on Thai tells his female colleague that I look like Robbie Williams. I laugh. But it turns out it’s a pattern. When I check in at Bangkok to get my bags transferred to Emirates Airlines the attendant there points out that I have the same last name as a singer famous in Thailand.
After a 7 hour layover in Bangkok I catch the Emirates flight to Dubai. Emirates have TVs on the back of each seat just like JetBlue in the States and it was a pretty comfy setup.
After my 7 hour flight to Dubai I have to wait around for 6 hours before I can get on the next plane. So I happen across a small lobby that says Emirates Transit Passenger Meals. I enquire hopefully if this is what I think it is. Sure enough, it’s free tucker for Emirates passengers en route to somewhere else. Of course, I was then as happy as a pig in excrement and had a really nice curry.

Fergal and I catch Batman Begins this morning at a cinema just outside the city. It’s $15 for a ticket. Can you believe that? But the movie was great and well worth it.
That afternoon I stock up on hand wipes etc in preparation for Africa and sort out some last minute stuff. Before myself Fergal, his girlfriend Arissa and their friends head out that night I notice a Mastercard ad on TV like the ones in the States. It shows a couple on holiday and it’s end tagline is “Finding comfort outside your comfort zone: Priceless.” All I can think of is Africa and how that pertains to my OCD when it comes to cleaning up after using the toilet. I take it as a good sign, a gentle word of encouragement.

It’s still dull and dreary so I decide not to do either the dolphin kayaking or the whale watching cos it would be kinda miserable. So I get a flight to Sydney from Coolangatta Airport and the Virgin rep at check-in promptly puts a $10 surcharge on me for overweight bags.
Our flight is delayed at least an hour and when I leave the gate to board, there’s about 5 planes lined up outside with no clear route to the one going to Sydney. Then a Virgin rep tells me off for walking on the tarmac … turns out it’s the same woman from before. I almost blew my top but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. But when I got onto the plane it was half full … so much for the overweight baggage.
I arrive in Sydney later that night at Fergal’s apartment to hang out with him and Belle for 36 hours before I head to Africa.