Python shows, break dancing, camping in the Serengeti,
beautiful beaches, and a Masai goat slaughtering at the local car rally…. JAMBO
(hello in Swahili), welcome to Africa! When Ace first told his stepfather about
everything that we had seen in such a short amount of time, his response was
very appropriate: “Well, what do you expect??? It’s Africa!”
For the first time in a long time, we were delighted to have
company from Montreal on this part of the trip – Marty B himself. The three of us had initially planned to
spend more time in Kenya but, given the escalating violence, opted to limit our
stay to a weekend visit with Ace’s cousin who lives in Nairobi with her
boyfriend, a “Kenyan Cowboy” (a term used for Caucasians born and raised in
Kenya). Julia and Francesco were great hosts, taking us out for dinner and
drinks (where we got to try some delicious ostrich steak), a car rally
(Francesco is the Kenyan motocross champion so a total “petrol-head”), as well
as a local market and BBQ with their friends. While we loved our short stay in
Nairobi, we recognize that it was not a typical visit – they live and took us
out in Karen, a very wealthy suburb of the city not at all representative of
the country as a whole. Staying in this neighborhood showcased the disparity in
racial class in Africa, which we suppose should have been expected but was
nonetheless somewhat shocking.
We left Nairobi very eager to start our next adventure… SAFARI
TIME! This was something completely new to all of us, and definitely did not
leave any room for disappointment. We were
lucky to have a young, highly knowledgeable and motivated guide that brought us
to three Tanzanian national parks over 5 days: Tarangire (home of the gigantic
bilbao trees, abundant elephants and giraffes), the Serengeti (the more typical
African landscape, where we saw thousands of wildebeest and zebras, dozens of
lions, as well as everything else you can think of including gazelles, boar, hyenas,
buffalo, cheetahs and much more), and then finally ended with the Ngorongoro
crater (which is enormous – total area of 400 KM squared), and had most of what
we had seen elsewhere plus hippos, rhinos and flamingos. We were continuously
amazed with how close our guide got us to the animals – smack in the middle of
a herd of elephants (see the video to get an idea), and almost close enough to
reach out and touch any of the “Big 5”. Needless to say, mid-afternoon beer
breaks were an added bonus J.
However, the most special aspect of the safari was the
private camping – at night we would arrive at an unenclosed site in the middle
of nowhere in the national parks, where two helpers had set up our tents, prepared
a hot shower and were already cooking our dinner! It was incredible (and a
little bit scary) to be so close to the animals - one night a few elephants
came strolling through our campground; another, none of us could get up the
nerve to leave our tents to go to the washroom because the hyena howls were way
too close for comfort! Overall this was a priceless experience and it should be
on everyone’s bucket list.
Our final destination in Tanzania was Zanzibar, an island
renowned for its beautiful beaches and the main city (Stone Town) with its eclectic
blend of Arab, Persian, Indian and European influence. We started our week in
Zanzibar with 5 extremely relaxed days at a hotel on the beach – having a
visitor from Montreal on a normal holiday forced us to truly slow down our
pace, so this was kind of like a “vacation from our vacation” ;). Then we spent 2 days in Stone Town, where we
had the biggest dose of culture shock so far (but in a good way). The
combination of a beautiful hotel, extreme poverty, one of the most chaotic
markets one can imagine, and narrow streets filled with unique artisan shops
has left us with both great memories and souvenirs.
So this concluded our first 2 weeks in Africa. We will admit
that we were a bit spoiled, having dipped into the piggy bank and planned this
part of the trip well in advance. Now we are on to a different type of
adventure: an improvised road trip down the South African coast!