Safari Weekend

Sorry for the delayed post but I had a few thousand safari photos to sort through after getting other people’s photos. So here is the story of our safari weekend:

We got picked up early Saturday morning by a caravan of three safari cars (we had a group of 23 people going).  Our first stop was Lake Manyara National Park.  We got there at noon (after having to change a tire on my safari car and later jumpstart the engine after stalling out over a speed bump).  But once we got to the park it was great!  We put the roofs up on our safari cars so we could stand up and see out the top.

Lake Manyara is 300 sqkm, and the lake takes up almost half the space.  No big cats are found at the park but we saw baboons, elephants, water buffalo, hippos, zebra, giraffes, flamingoes, and amazing birds.

We spent the night at a campground/hotel that overlooked the lake and the mountains.  During the dinner they served us, we were surprised with an acrobatics performance (that even included a woman contortionist). 

View from our campsite

Lake Manyara

Lake Manyara

Our hut/tent!

Acrobatics Performance

Sunrise over Lake Manyara

We were planning on heading out at 6:30 am the next morning in order to get to Ngorongoro Crater early.  However, after much beating around the bush, our driver informed us that one of our cars had broken down in the night and we had to wait for a replacement one.  When the new one came it was smaller so we had to squish extra people into the other cars, but finally we were on our way. 

Ngorongoro Crater used to be a volcano that collapsed down into itself.  The animals were able to go down into the crater, but couldn’t get back up the steep slopes, so they all learned to coexist within the 250 sqkm park.  When you enter the Crater, you start on the rim and work your way down steep and windy dirt roads, but the views are amazing.

View of the crater

The crater walls

My safari group the second day

We drove around the park all day and saw wildebeest, zebra, water buffalo, hippo, hyena, flamingo, ostriches, warthogs, weird birds, elephants, and lions.

We finally started the drive out of the crater at about 4 pm.  Again, the views were amazing, but this time we had a little bit of a scare.  When we were about halfway up the side of the crater, the clutch on our car broke and the car stopped.  We quickly got out of the car and walked a little ways up the mountain.  The driver had to roll the car backwards in order to jumpstart the engine, which eventually worked.  But I can now say that I’ve walked through an African National Park! 

It turned out, though, that our adventures wouldn’t stop there.  The driver of the new car we got in the morning stopped in a small town and refused to drive us any farther.  Our drivers couldn’t convince him at all, so they found a private van and paid that driver to take six of us home.  I stayed back with the two working safari cars, and again we went on our way.  About an hour later, the safari car that I was not in broke down.  We turned back to help them, but the van kept going.  This was about 7 pm, so it was getting dark.  The drivers were trying to find a way to patch a hole in the radiator while we were pulled off on the side of the road. 

A couple hours later, they were able to fix the problem with a tea bag Daria found in the pocket of her jacket.  However, the drivers didn’t want any of us students driving in that safari car in case it broke down again in the middle of the road.  So we managed to put all 16 of us in our 8-seater car.  It was cramped an uncomfortable but we didn’t have to sit like that long because about 5 miles later the other car broke down again.  This time we decided to stay put and wait for another safari car they were sending from Arusha to take us back in.  At this point we decided to call the people in the van to see if they had gotten home safely.  Just before we called them, they had been stopped by the police because their driver did not have a license.  Apparently he paid off the policeman and kept driving them back.  However, he did not take them to their homes (like it had been arranged) and instead he stopped in the parking lot of a big shop/grocery store called Shoprite and refused to go any farther.  Everyone got out of the van and walked into a well-known sports bar and called their host parents to pick them up.  Meanwhile we were still waiting on the side of the road.  But when the replacement car finally arrived, my car wouldn’t start.  After jumpstarting the engine, we completed the rest of the drive home.  My mama was waiting up for Daria and I when we got home at 12:30 and had dinner and a hot bath ready.  It felt so good to be home!

When we told the story to our teachers the next day, they simply said “TIA”—“This is Africa.”