Tanzania - fun stuff

After having tons of fun in Nairobi we boarded a six hour minibus ride across the border to Arusha, Tanzania. This turned out to be another one of those rides from hell over a road that was nothing more than a carved out gravel path with a million pot holes on it. Lucky for us, being the seasoned travelers that we now are we have become completely immune to such modes of transportation. The minibus would take us to a drop off point that all travelers pretty much go to be picked up by either a taxi or someone from your hotel or a friend waiting for you. We called someone from the orphanage center to pick us up. He showed up about an hour and a half later. We would soon learn that the phrase TIA (This is Africa) would have multiple meanings.

We finally checked into the orphanage later that afternoon. It was actually better than I had expected in terms of landscaping, etc. There was a nice little garden area in the middle where we would eat lunch every day and be served tea at the end of every day around sundown. On the other hand, the living arrangements were not so good. To start off, the living quarters were way in the back where it was totally secluded and dark with no lights on the path to light the way. Just to give you an idea of how dark and secluded it was we had to be escorted with a security guard every night at lights out all the way to our room just to make sure that no one jumped us on the way there. Nice, huh. And to make things worse, we were the only volunteers that were staying in the 15 to 20 room living quarters. Apparently the reason for this was because this was a brand spankin' new compound, at least that is what it felt like to me. They had just moved into it a couple weeks before we had arrived. So we were to be the guinea pigs. Geez, thanks. We soon learned that being test cases no matter where you are or what you are doing means that nothing has really been used and you are supposed to be the one (at least in theory) that lets them know what needs to be fixed that might have been overlooked during renovations. So, TIA. As you might guess, the bed was made of a foam substance that would sink in with the slightest of weight. Now I may be a big guy, but this would be ridiculous for anybody. So I had them pull another mattress from another room which made it not much better but at least bearable so that I could get some form of rest. As if that wasn't bad enough, the shower did not have any hot water at all and we were to be volunteering for two weeks. To make things worse, the toilet did not work either. It would run all night, every night. It sounded like someone was stirring water in a bowl right next to your ear. How can anyone sleep in these kind of conditions? So we dutifully informed the orphanage that we noticed some living condition problems that needed immediate attention. Of course, nothing was done the whole time even though we brought this to their attention on several occasions. So much for being guinea pigs. TIA!

As Katie mentioned, we were charged with teaching teenagers computer skills even though this is not what we had asked for when we first signed up. We thought we were going to be with the little guys the whole time we were there because this is what we did ask for. We soon learned that you hardly ever get what you ask for in Africa. After sizing us up and going over our CV the guy who ran the place basically said "I'm sorry, I know you wanted to work with the kids, but your vast skillsets are better used elsewhere". The guy was drooling at the fact that instead of him having to teach the teenagers himself he would just appoint the new talent to the task and he would just resume being head rooster and tend to CEO duties only and maybe even take a small vacation now that he had two people who could aptly run the place without him. He just could not pass up the opportunity. It may sound a little selfish, but this is not what we had asked for! I mean, it's one thing to volunteer your time but it's another when you just plainly get taken advantage of. Maybe I should have lied and said that I have never sat behind a computer in my life. Would that have given me access to the little ones? Who knows. I would not have been so butthurt if they would have at least given us 2 or 3 days with the little ones. But they couldn't even do that for us! We got only one morning the day after we arrived to spend with them. After that we were locked up in our compound never to be able to see them again. The little ones were not actually on our compound, they were at a different one. Our compound was strickly for the teenagers. All the buildings there were set up as classrooms for the older kids. But in hindsight after all things said, it turned out to be a rewarding experience afterall. We took the cards we had been dealt and made the most of them. We got up every day fully eager to teach these kids some very valuable skills. I must say that we both did a bang up job of teaching these kids new skills. I am so proud of Katie and myself. It was obvious in the end that the kids appreciated very much what we were teaching them to do. We ended up establishing a good repore with many of the kids and that in the end was our reward. As a bonus Katie came up with a great idea to show the kids our appreciation. We took them to a local internet cafe and showed them all how to set up their own email account and how to navigate and email each other. The look on their faces after realizing the potential of the internet was priceless! In the end it was a very rewarding experience from the aspect of being able to interact with the teenagers day in and day out. I definitely improved my teaching skills dramatically.

As part of the volunteer program each volunteer had access to the many safari destinations through the orphanage itself. It was partly designed to bring more money into the orphanage and as Katie mentioned partly designed to give some of the students there some on the job training for future placement purposes. We chose to climb Mt. Meru with them mostly to give money to the orphanage and in small part to climb the mountain with some of our students. Meru turned out to be one of the most challenging activities on the entire trip. We were tetering on whether to climb Mt. Meru or Mt. Kilimanjaro. "Kili" as it is affectionately named is the most famous of the two peaks. They actually stand side by side, very close to eachother. Kili is a 7 day climb while Meru is a 4 day climb. I am so glad that we chose to climb Meru instead of Kili. For one, to be able to see the slightly taller snow-capped peak of Kili from Meru was priceless! Secondly, we learned later by exchanging stories at the local bar with people who had climbed both Kili and Meru that Meru is actually a harder more challenging climb than Kili because it is a much steeper peak. That made it that much more rewarding to reach the top of Meru. There were two camp sites on the way up to the peak of Meru where we would stop to eat and sleep. Each had a mess hall and a small lot of of cabins to sleep in. Nothing fancy, after all it was meant to be set up this way so you could get the full effect of roughing it all the way to the top of the mountain. In the final stage of the climb they would wake us up at 12:00 am (midnight!) so that we reach the top of the mountain just in time to see the sunrise. For those of you who can't do the math, that is roughly a six hour hike starting at the wee hours of the morning up the steepest and hardest part of the whole trail in pitch darkness. There were some very rocky areas that we had to literally scale like spiderman that were quite daunting. In fact, there were some climbers in our group that almost gave up at this stage and thought about going back down. But with the help of expert guides we were all able to negotiate the hard parts together, albeit very slowly. No matter, we all ended up making it to the top. The feeling of accomplishing such a challenge was a rush like none other I have ever felt before. I mean in this wonderful journey of ours we have had the opportunity to do many extreme activities all which have been so rewarding and climbing Meru was just another way of experiencing life and getting a natural high in the highest of extremes. I will never forget how it felt to climb that mountain and what it felt like to see to sun rise over Kilimanjaro as my reward. I know I sound redundant but it was so priceless! Nothing like it in this world. Such a different and rewarding experience altogether. Especially because we did it in Africa! That my friends was the so-called icing on the cake.

After volunteering for 10 days or so we decided to pack up our bags and leave. Unfortunately, this decision was made because of some bad dealings we had gone through with one of the staff members there. I know Katie feels that this part of our time in Tanzania is not worth mentioning and I respect her for that very much. But I on the other hand feel differently. I am compelled to share this bad experience I had with everyone mainly because I want to create an awareness and to educate everyone that there are bad people everywhere in this world even in the most unlikely of places such as an orphanage. To make a long story short, we were extorted for money while we were volunteering by this staff member that somehow for whatever reason had managed to gain employment at this orphanage. Now I have been in my fair share of bad situations before but this was different. We were being extorted for money in an undeveloped country with very few laws to protect us. This made the whole experience even more nerve-racking and unsettling. Without going into detail I will just say that it was not a pleasant experience. Even though it was not for a large sum of money, relatively speaking, it was nonetheless enough to make us decide that we were not having a good time and more importantly were uncomfortable being there. That was enough to make us pack it up and leave. So that is exactly what we did. I know they say that Africa is a very dangerous place and that you have to always being on your guard at all times but sometimes no matter how careful you are there will be times when you will be faced with a situation that is unexpected when traveling especially in a place like Africa. Lucky for us it was a minor infraction but it served as a lesson to us both that will always remind us that you can never be too careful when you are traveling especially in undeveloped countries.

After leaving the orphanage and finding a more suitable place to stay in Arusha we immediately searched out a tour company to take us to the Ngorongoro Crater to do more animal watching. After about two hours of evaluating tour companies and negotiating for a reasonable price we settled in to our new hostel. The best part about our new hostel is that it had a bird's eye view of Mt. Meru in the restaurant area. So nice to just sit there and have a beer gazing at the mountain and remember exactly what it looked like at each stage when we were climbing it. Hard to forget.

The next morning we set out for a three day tour of the Ngorongoro Crater. It was about a five hour drive from Arusha to the base camp at the bottom of the Crater. After settling into our tent, we had dinner with our new friends that would be going to the Crater with us the next morning. We hung out and got to know eachother a bit and were treated with an exhibition of African gymnists as our entertainment for the night. It was a good night and we had fun getting to know eachother. The next morning we had an early breakfast and set off to the crater. Unfortunately, we got off to a bad start. The first sign that is was going to be a long day was when we pulled up to the park entrance. The safari truck overheated and the radiator began to smoke. It was kind of funny now that I look back at it because all the other people that pulled up in their own safari jeeps were just looking at us as if to say "surely you guys are not going into the crater with that vehicle". But that is exactly what we did. We had no choice. The driver had opened up the hood and did a makeshift job on the radiator by putting some sort of bag contraption on the radiation and said that we were all good to go. Of course we knew better. I tried my best to convince him to order another jeep for us but he would have none of it. So after putting a bandaid on the radiator cap, off we went. Now I know you know where this story is going but I will tell it anyway. So on our initial decent into the crater the jeep dies, of course. Dumbfoundedly, the driver gets out yet another time and tries to tie yet another rubberband on the radiator cap/hose. After spending at least 40 minutes there trying to rig the damn thing "again" he finally decides to call for help. After waiting for at least another two hours a replacement jeep finally arrived. At this point we had already lost three hours of a promised five hour game drive. So we all piled into the new safari jeep and speed hastily down to the crater floor where the animals awaited us. Since we had lost so much time sitting in a non-functional jeep our new driver decided that it was a good idea to just speed right through the crater so we could play catchup with all the other jeeps that entered the crater that day. The good news is that even though we only got to see the crater for a short amount of time it was a memorable experience. We got a chance to see many lions, zebras, wildebeests, kudu and gazelles in one of the most interesting and most famous and sought after natural settings in all of Africa. Now here is the best part of the story. After seeing all the animals and heading back up the crater wall our driver took us to a drop off point. To our amazement there was our original driver still tinkering with the old jeep. As we all looked at eachother simultaneous with that certain gaze we all contemplated that surely we are not going to get dumped back into the piece of junk. Sure enough that is exactly what they did. Our original driver even had the gaul to ask us if we had a good time as if nothing ever happened. Anything to make sure you get a good tip. TIA, TIA, TIA!!!!

After a brief huddle we all agreed that we were not going to give them a standard tip. In fact, in the end we did not tip them at all. To my chigrin, they were not surprised. But it was not beneath them to try their hardest to get an undeserved tip in the end. An effort on their part that did not pay off. TIA, TIA, TIA!!!

After piling into the old jeep we steamrolled to a local village area where the jeep yet again started to smoke. Unbelieveable! This time our original driver decided to draw his white flag and finally decided to give in. After accomodating an apppropiate means of transportation we speed our way back to Arusha where a twin engine prop plane was waiting to take us to the island of Zanzibar.

Zanzibar proved to be one of the most special places we would visit up to this part of our long journey. Zanzibar is an island that is situated right off the Tanzanian coast. It is one of the most beautiful places I have even seen. Understand that we had already seen some of the most amazing islands and beach settings in Thailand and Indonesia. Zanzibar would trump them all. Nowhere have I ever seen the elements come together quite like they do in Zanzibar. White milky sands that don't exist anywhere else on earth with crytal blue waters where the air and water temperature are the same at all times of the day. Just to give you an idea of the level of paradise this place was, Hawaii would be a distance second place. Seriously! It was that perfect. The pictures give you a very good idea but don't tell the full story. What an amazing place. It is one of the many places that Katie and I have visited on this trip that we have both decided that we will go back to someday. A no-brainer! We settled into Stonetown which is the capital city of the island on the westcoast side. We spent a few days there and meandered around doing the activities that Katie mentioned. We then headed to the eastcoast to the beach community of Paje. This part of the island was the most spectacular for me. We purposely picked a non-touristy area where we could just spend time together enjoying eachother's company while not having to deal with overcrowded beached and tourist sardine can areas. The time went by so fast. I could have stayed there for a year and not even notice the time go by. It is that kind of place. Simply amazing! After endulging ourselves fully on Zanzibar we took a scary boat ride back to the mainland town of Dar es Salaam and hopped on a plane that would ultimately lead us to the country of Zambia and Victoria Falls ( one of the seven natural wonders of the world) where we would began a whirlwind three week journey from Livingston, Zambia all the way down to Capetown, South Africa (the very southern tip of the African continent) on a huge safari truck with 19 other people.