This is the first part of three from this years adventure in Africa.
We started out from Arlanda International airport outside of Stockholm on the 17th of August. From there we flew to Addis Abeba via Rome, had a change of flight in Addis and flew from there via Nairobi to Kilimanjaro International.
At Kilimanjaro International we were picked up and driven to Karibu Home our first place to sleep. I was put in the Kilimanjaro room which I shared with Caroline, Emma and Hamid.
Karibu Home is quite a nice oasis, but I’m not sure I’ve ever found the way there if I had to drive there my self 🙂
Nice rooms and a great pool. We were a bit unlucky with the water pressure so having a shower wasn’t the easiest. But this is Africa. We got good food, but I guess they wasn’t prepared for hungry Scandinavians because we kept running out of some food so that the last in the line didn’t always get much.
And there was the case of the famous potatoes.
On of the dinners served was fish, which was great but we all wondered if the potatoes were missing. But the staff told us that there wasn’t supposed to be potatoes. Fair enough.
But then after we all had our fish and salad on of the waiters came with a huge pot of, you guess, potatoes.
So we had potatoes for dessert 🙂
Day 3 – 19th of August
Today we got up to have breakfast at 0800, which was server at 0900. Africa time, something we just had to learn. I guess people live by “pole pole” which means slowly or take it slow. And of course Hakuna Matata 🙂
We then got to meet our guide for the Kilimanjaro expedition and had a briefing on what was going to happen on the mountain.
Then we set out in the four hour drive to the Ngorongoro crater. We came to the parks outer gate just before 1800 and just in time to get into the park that afternoon. On the craters rim we spent the night in the Simba A camp sites and we had Zebras grazing around tour tents that night.
Day 4 – 20th of August – The Safari
We got up before first light so that we could be ready to drive into the park at 0600 when the park opened for visitors. We were of course a bit late, even if we were up and ready in good time.
When we first started out we hardly saw any animals at all, but I guess this is the time of day were you might be able to witness a hunt. The closes we came to that was watching an hyena eating in the distance.
We drove around and I got to see three of the big five. The first was the Elephant, then we got to see two male lions walking right past our car and to a waterhole to drink. After a long drink they came back and laid down to rest in the shadow of some threes. And of course we saw the buffalo.
And we saw a lot of other birds, animals and a lot of bugs, annoying flying bugs that clung to our vehicle and flew up all around us as soon as we stopped. Really annoying. But not dangerous the guide kept telling us.
We also did a stop where we could get out of the car and stretch our legs. While waiting there an big elephant came by and seemed to want to have a drink in the little lake we stopped by. But I guess that the amount of people scared it away so it just went past us.
In the afternoone we went back to Simba A for lunch and the we started on the trip back to Karibu Home. I was great to get back there and to be able to get rid of the dust and grime with a dip in the pool 🙂
Smart me wore my white Pink Caravan T-shirt on the safari so both the t-shirt and trousers eventually found their way to a dustbin. No chance at all to get it clean 🙂
Then it was time to to split the luggage. One bag whit the stuff we needed for the Kilimanjaro walk and another that was shipped right to the hotel were we would go after coming down from the mountain.
Keep reading about my African adventure in part II – Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro
Pic 25 = min favoritt!