Eurafrika Pt 8 - Arusha National Park

After lunch, we headed for Arusha National Park. I did not each much lunch as my appetite was still missing (I would only rediscover it on safari). I was, however, soothed by a local ginger beverage called 'Stoney' - sweeter than ginger ale.

My family hopped in the Leopard Tours jeep and we were off. I mention the name of the company as is I have heard from friends nightmares of crooked tour companies: stories of jeeps running out of gas, stranding its scared occupants in the middle of the ever-hungry Serengeti. Leopard Tours is a very professional operation; in the lobby of the lodge, I had seen a video of their operations, how they maintain the jeeps and so on. If you ever plan on touring Tanzania, I recommend using them.

Riding to Arusha was an adventure in its own right. Abruptly, the road changed from a two-lane paved ribbon, to a dirty, bumpy, roller coaster of a road. And a roller coaster of a ride it was! - A ride that took us past coffee plantations, banana trees with midget sized bananas growing underneath their canopies and simple masonry buildings that were ubiquitous over the Northern Tanzanian landscape. This was a rural landscape, but different from the rural I was used to back home. The earth near was different from the dark, black loam of the prairies I was used to: this earth was a rich reddish brown, as if stained with the blood of a violent volcanic past. And there were people; people everywhere! There were woman carry huge items on their heads, children riding tired bikes and men riding into town on simple motorcycles. And instead of an endless flat horizon, we lied in the shadows of the towering Mt. Meru.

And so we arrived at Arusha National Park. Armed rangers welcomed us in. The trees of the plantations had disappeared making way for grassy plains with Mt. Meru hovering over everything; its peak was hidden in the clouds. We stopped briefly at the entrance; there was all kinds of information about the wildlife in the park. A lot of the information was put together by donors, mainly coming from Italy. I looked at the map and saw that great Kilimanjaro lay not too far in the distance. I thought back to my buddy Hunter who had climbed this majestic mountain not too long ago. I told myself that someday I would conquer this mountain - with friends. But not this time; this time I could only hope to get a look of it.

So, my happily hopped back into the Jeep and we drove into the park. The first thing we saw was a group of lazy buffalo lying underneath a withering acacia. We excitedly got out of our seats to get our first glimpse of African wildlife. With the hunter binoculars the picture became a rich tapestry filled with zebras, warthogs, gazelles and giraffes, yes, big tall giraffes in the background. This would prove to be one the least memorable sights of the trip, as we soon be spoiled with wildlife. But, it was our first look, and we excitedly clicked our cameras.

Our guide drove us further into the forest. We stopped so see a group of Colobus Monkeys. They were calmly perched on branches high in the tree canopy. An then all of a sudden, one of them dart off the end a bunch, leap like an acrobat and latch on to the nearest branch for the neighbouring tree. It was quite the dramatic act - and the monkeys performed it so nonchalantly.

We moved out of the forest into a desolate plain. Warthogs, Zebra and a large deer-like species were foraging on what was left. What caught the eye was a parade of mongoose, zooming across the plain kicking up dust. Who knew what their hurry was about, perhaps the prospect of a delicious serpentine meal. And there are plenty of snakes around in Africa, deadly ones too! (W didn't see any that day) In fact, our driver told of us a story where he narrowly avoided the death bite of a Black Mamba, a bite that can kill a man in 7 minutes. Apparently, the snake had slithered through a jeep, and then just slithered on to a herd of wildebeest. He came back a half later and they were all dead.

So our Jeep drove on, through forest, plain and scrub land; it was like a miniature version of East Africa itself. We briefly paused to photograph a cuckoo stately perched on an acacia before heading to the small lakes in this park where we would see the most interesting sight of the day.

Part of me moans the fact that the most interesting thing we saw on our short trip were living garden ornaments. But there were so many of them that I wouldn't do this story justice if they weren't included. The lake we found was coated swamped with flamingos, thousands upon thousands of flamingos that created a pink ring as if the lake were a giant bathtub. The flamingos were feasting of algae that grows off underground streams that feed into the lake. Never have I seen so much pink.

We stopped by the lake to take some pictures of the silly pink birds. In the distance I could see Mt. Kilimanjaro, the roof of Africa, shyly poking its head above the clouds. It towered above like nothing else I have seen before. To think one of my friends and stepped on that peak was an astounding thought, one that made me want to climb the mountain itself.

The trip ended with a visit to one of the park's volcanic craters. We rode up increasingly steep dirt roads. I asked the driver if elephants used the roads we were driving on. It turns out I had it all backwards: we were driving on roads that used to be elephant paths through the woods. Our jeep crossed paths with baboons, bushbucks (like deer) and blue monkeys. We got to the crater rim and were treated to a spectacular view, though one in retrospect that would be dwarfed by the crater at Ngorongoro.

And so we returned back to our lodge with the first taste of wildlife fresh in our months. I looked out the window and so locals smiling as we went by. We passed a game of soccer, one that I wanted to join in on, but we had to go back to the lodge. There were far more adventures to come.