But before we got to meet our newbies, we were going to visit the David sheldrick elephant orphanage, the giraffe manor, and then we were going to go to dinner at Carnivores restaurant for one last hurrah with everyone we had been travelling with for the last 2 weeks.
I'll start with the elephant orphanage. As the name suggests, they rescue and care for orphaned baby elephants, whose parents have usually been killed by poachers, and they raise them and then release them back into the wild. The public is only allowed to visit for one hour of the day, so it was pretty packed. And to be honest its not overly interesting, the baby elephants look cool, but all that happens is they play in the water and throw dirt on themselves and a guy gives a speech. Its great to see people out there are doing something like this, but it wasn't as exciting as the prospect of kissing a giraffe! Which was our next stop, the giraffe manor. Its a place were giraffes hang out and do giraffe stuff, but they have this big balcony thing that puts you at head height with the giraffes, and you get some pellet things and can go over and feed them, very very cool. Mardy put a pellet in his mouth and the giraffe came over and licked it out
with its big blue tongue. Amazing experience.
We jumped in our overly packed taxi (7 of us in a corolla sedan, was pretty friendly), and headed back to camp so we could shower up and make ourselves pretty for Carnivores. We were very excited about going here. Carnivores is apparently in the top 50 restaurants in the world (or top 10, depending on who you ask), and was famous for serving game meat back in the day, which they don't do any more, however you still get to eat some pretty strange meats that aren't endangered animals.
Vegitarians, this place is not for you. I don't think either of us has ever eaten so much meat in a single meal, it was full on. Upon being seated, you are given a cast iron plate that is scorching hot - do NOT touch it. Mardy burnt is hand touching it. The table is then given a Carnivores "flag", which you keep raised as long as you want them to keep serving you (they come around and offer you different things), and you put the flag down when you don't want them to serve you anymore, and they'll leave your table alone, apparently putting the flag down means you have been defeated. We never put our flag down.
The way they serve the meat is, they come around and offer you all kinds of weird and wonderful meats, we both tried everything, regardless of how disgusting they sounded. And say you wanted to try the lamb or alligator as they walked around with it skewered on a big fucking sword, they will put the pointy end of the sword on your cast iron plate and then cut off a piece of the skewed animal and it falls onto your plate, they will then suggest which sauce you should eat this particular meat with, as you have an assortment of sauces in front of you. Nearly everything was god damn delicious, alligator is particularly nice, but we also tried ox heart, ox balls, lamb, chicken, beef, camel, and much more that i can't think of right now. The liver was the only one we both thought was rank. I forget which animals liver it was, but liver just tastes like ass. Its a pretty tiring experience, eating all that meat really takes it out of you. We both highly recommend you
go there if you are ever in Nairobi.
The next day we met our newbies, we got a pretty good group again, lucky us. But there was going to be another truck running in parallel to ours run by a different tour leader, who was useless, we felt sorry for there group and how unorganised he was, we have been very lucky that our tour leader; Ruth, is extremely well organised, which means everything (within her control) goes smoothly. No mean feat, considering TIA.
So we left Nairobi/Nairobbery, and headed towards Arusha, were we would camp the night and from there head out in 4x4s into the Serengetti and the Ngorongoro crater to camp in the bush with the animals. On the way to Arusha we got a pretty good view of Mt Meru, which we could see when we were on Kilimanjaro. Which was cool.
So the next day we headed off to the crater, not without a bit of drama, as one of the 4x4 drivers turned up wasted. Of coarse he was supposed to be driving the other group, the ones with the useless tour leader, again we felt sorry for them, there safari wasn't going well. Anyway, we headed off to the crater, this time of year (the dry season), its not very green and lush. But there was still a lot of animals out, its a cool place, and I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but I think it would be much more amazing in the wet season, the same goes for the Serengetti.
The serengetti was incredible. Even though it wasn't green and lush, and the migration had left for the Massai Mara (where we saw them in the distance), but there is still HEAPS of animals. We saw a lion and lioness getting there bang on, right next to our truck, a leopard in the distance and heaps of other stuff, including a serval (a smaller cat), which is very rare. We were pretty lucky once again.
After the Serengetti, we had our longest drive day yet. From Arusha to Dar Es Sallam - 13 hours. It was brutal. Even though its only 600 kays, getting anywhere in Africa takes twice as long, because of the shit roads, constantly dodging random shit on the highway, and being stopped by corrupt cops. However we made it to Dar in one piece, slept like logs, in anticipation of our next few days in ZANZIBAR.
Zanzibar is a pretty incredible semi-autonomous island of Tanzania. It was famous for being a spice kingdom, and a large part of the slave trade. Our first night was spent in Stone Town, a world heritage site and good shopping to be had. We did a "spice tour" in which we saw where Freddy Mercury was from, some slave chambers of old stone town, and then went to a spice farm.
On the farm we saw how all the different types of spices are grown and then made into spices, and got to sample the raw fruits/berrys/bark it was pretty interesting. Then some dude climbed a massive coconut tree and got coconuts for us, which was pretty cool (of coarse they want to get tipped for this, even though you don't ask for it). And they made us funny hats and ties out of palm leaves. We then sampled all sorts of weird different fruits, like custard apple, rambucams, and one called a jerk, which was a cross between a pineapple and banana.
The next day we went to the north of the island to Nungwi, and had 3 days of partying. We are now sitting on the ferry on the way to Dar, and have both been pretty shattered. Did not expect to drink this much in Africa. There was party boats, full moon parties, and all sorts of debauchery involved. That we're not going to bore you with :p
See you in Malawi.
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| The elephant orphanage |
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| Feeding giraffes |
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| CARNIVORE!! |
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| Where they cook the meat in the restuarant |
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| Big fucking sword with meat |
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| The flag and Katie |
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| Woolworths, not the same as home, they sell clothes and shit |
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| The crater |
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| The cradle of mankind, pretty boring place, they could have made it more interesting. But it was special just being there |
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| Cracking shot Mardy took of Massai kids running abouts with giraffes on the planes near the cradle of mankind |
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| Mardy and Fran, burning down the road in the Serengetti |
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| The Serengetti, yes it does look this amazing |
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| Amazing shot in the Serengetti number #324523534634 |
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| Sunrise in the Serengetti |
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| Cheetah, we saw these guys run, but not at full speed, they were hunting, but disappared over the horizan, came so close to seeing them hunt up close, shame they changed direction away from us. |
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| A serval, very lucky t ot see |
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| The Serengetti planes |
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| Being silly buggers |
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| The crater |
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| In Dar |
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| Zanzibar |
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| Crazy clouds in Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown in Zanzibar |
