Category Archives: Tanzanian

It was a good thing we couldn’t stay wake past 8:30 in our arrival day as we needed to be up at 5 for our next part of the trip: safari in Serengeti National Park. Our driver was being overly cautious though as our 6 am arrival at Arusha Airport was followed by 20 minutes of waiting for security to open and then another 40 minutes waiting for the check in desk to open for our 7:20 flight.  We were the only passengers on the Cessna for the first part of the flight but we picked up 4 people at the first stop who got off at the second stop and then we were on our own again. Each of these stops was a dirt airstrip in the middle of nowhere- Lake Manyara and Seronera – the finally to Kogotende airstrip in Serengeti National park. We were met by our driver Chonjori who would look after us – and just us – for the next two days. Apparently this is one of the benefits of visiting during the low season. It turned out that there were only 3 out of 15 tents occupied at the lodge so we each had our own attendants for meals as well. 

Although it’s only 30 minutes to Lamala Kuria Hills lodge, we took our first game drive along the way and spent 3 hours driving through the bush looking for animals. And we were not disappointed! Hippos in the Mara River, followed by elephants and a solo giraffe 🦒. The best part was the herd of elephants including a baby that was less than a year old! So adorable! Plus hundreds of different kinds of antelope and gazelles. Topi and impala are everywhere. We got to the lodge in time for a late lunch and a short rest in our tent villa. I took advantage of the private plunge pool while Frank just chilled. Then it was off for the evening game drive which was less successful. A lovely dinner and an early night rounded out the day. 

Good thing we hit the hay early because the second day started with breakfast before dawn and then we headed out for nearly 11 hours of driving. We were greeted right outside the lodge by a family of giraffes! We proceeded to spot baboons, mongoose, a huge family of impalas and lots of other kinds of antelope. We spotted a lone female lioness in the grass. But the high point of the morning was finding a pride of lions resting in the shade of an acacia tree. Two male, four female and half a dozen cubs. We watched one mama play with a baby while another mother nursed two other cubs. Absolutely amazing! We followed that up with more hippos, crocodiles, and a family of zebras!

We stopped for a picnic lunch atop a hill just a few kilometres from the Kenyan border. Curried chicken and rice, salad and South African Chardonnay was the repast, all enjoyed under a tree with an amazing view. Once it was time to move on, we started the trek back to the lodge. And that’s when we hit the jackpot: rhinos! Three of them! At a distance of course but our guide told us it had been more than 6 months since he’d spotted a rhino so we were very lucky. 

The drive back was less eventful- our search for a leopard or cheetah didn’t pay out but the day was amazing regardless. A lovely hot bath before a delicious dinner and the day was complete. 

The challenge here was to find half a dozen or so photos to share out of the literal hundreds we snapped. Here’s the winners.

We knew it was gonna be a long travel day. In our heads we realise that leaving Aberdeen at 8:30 to get to Edinburgh at 11 for the 2 pm flight that would take 7 1/2 hours with two hours of connecting time followed on via a five hour flight meant that we were gonna be up for a long time. However, the reality is always more painful than the expectation.

Leaving Scotland really wasn’t a bother: we miss the major crash on the M90 going south that closed the motorway; we got to the car park exactly on time; we sped through security right when we were supposed to. We had a lovely lunch with a couple of drinks and got on board with absolutely no problem. then the small annoyances began…

Public service announcement: when booking a flight on Qatar Airways, if it looks like there’s extra space between rows 12 and 14, there is not. Apparently the seat mapping software gets confused by the fact that there’s no row 13. So we paid extra for seats in row 14 thinking that we will get a little extra legroom for Frank’s 6’ 2”frame. That was not the case. 

Again, a minor annoyance. They didn’t mess up like gluten-free meal. We got a reasonable glass of wine. There was lots of good movie choices. So the longest leg of our flying journey went by rather smoothly. We landed in Doha at midnight local time. My experience of any airport after 9 pm is that you’ll be lucky to see a cleaner with a hoover if you see anyone at all. That is not the case with Doha airport. There were more people up and about in the middle of the night, then there are in Aberdeen in total! The number of flights leaving between midnight and 6 am was astonishing and the number of people milling around waiting to get on those flights was also astounding. We’ve boarded with relative ease but the second small annoying thing happened: even though it was the exact same plane (Boeing 787) with the exact same seat configurations and we were in the exact same seats, Frank had even less legroom for this five hour part of the journey. That the two gentlemen sitting in the row behind gossip like old fish wives for the entire five hours in a language that I did not recognise but was nevertheless an incessant buzzing in both of our ears all night, and we landed with very little sleep and more than just a tiny bit cranky.

But we made it! A plane touchdown at Kilimanjaro International Airport at 7:30 in the morning local time. After slowing down to nearly a complete stop it proceeded to DO A U-TURN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RUNWAY. Apparently, taxiways aren’t a big deal at African airports? We proceeded inside where our next hurdle faced us: my Tanzanian e-visa had arrived in time; Frank’s had not. So I breeze through immigration while he had to wait in the queue for the “Visa on arrival” paperwork. Where the computers were running very very slow. And the card payment machines weren’t working. So even when he got to the front of the queue and he got his paperwork finally sorted, he wasn’t able to pay the $50 (again) for his visa because the card machines were not working. We had to get escorted out of the secure area to a cash machine to pull out enough Tanzanian shillings to convert to dollars to then pay for his visa paperwork (again).

Two hours later, we’re finally in the van heading to our temporary home for the evening: the Gran Melia Arusha, a swanky 5 star hotel where we’ll crash until our teeny tiny bush plane flight to the Serengeti in the morning. The only things on the agenda are food and sleep. And maybe a little time in the sun. We kinda managed all 3.