Family Tanzanian Vacation
These last couple of weeks have been full of adventures for myself, Barnabas Bear and my family visiting from the states. I met up with them in Istanbul, Turkey for a couple of days before we flew over to Nairobi, Kenya then drove to Arusha taking in a Safari along the way. In Arusha, we picked up the truck I use and I drove to Singida, then out to our site in the Iramba Valley before journeying through Dodoma, Morogoro and Dar Es Salaam to Ferry over and visit Zanzibar for a couple of days. This wall all about two weeks in length. And like most Hendrix vacations there was no sleeping past 7 AM so we could fit as much into every day as possible.
In Istanbul we had my parents, oldest brother and two friends from Germany. We spent a good chunk of our first day walking to visit some of the mosques which have beautiful architecture and tile work as well as one of the more historical church to mosque buildings in the area. We also visited the cisterns under the city which was probably most interesting to me the civil engineer. That night we did a river dinner cruise with entertainment. The best part of the night was meeting a lovely Indian couple who were traveling back from a safari vacation in Tanzania. They were sitting at the end of our table. On the second day the main attraction we went to visit was closed so we visited some other areas as well as doing one of the tour buses that goes over to the Asian continent part of Istanbul.
Our German friends stayed in Istanbul as we departed to go to Nairobi next. Here we met up with some of Bill, my brother, friends and stayed at their house. We went to the Carnivore restaurant (all you can eat meat and very touristy but good food), visited the Giraffe center for orphaned giraffes and the David Sheldrick Wildlife center for orphaned elephants and rhinos where the let you watch the noon day feeding of the 30+elephants under 3 years of age who have been orphaned. One of the highlights is getting the giraffes to eat a pellet out of your mouth or getting a giraffe kiss. The elephants played a good bit with each other and lead to many funny events as well as them spraying the crowd with mud.
On departing Nairobi, we drove via safari vehicle to the Rift Valley and stayed at a Tent camp which is nothing like I remember any tent camps being like. It was quite the luxury establishment. We did a safari into the Rift Valley park that night and the next morning hoping to get a good safari in before going back to eat breakfast and then journeying onto Arusha. The safari was much different than most I had been on in that much of the time was spent traveling around looking for the animals whereas in Ngorongoro it is a much smaller space they all share. The good part was the large herds of Elephants and actually seeing the Hippos out of the water.
We had traffic difficulties on our way to Arusha but finally got in and spent a short time with William and Martha, my in country hosts, and spent time at our hotel. Next morning it was time to load up and secure the luggage for a six hour trip to Singida where we got to my favorite hotel in town the Shining Star and then dinner with some friends from the Peace Corp at the Stanley.
The next day we went to visit the site and do some special activity with the kids at the pre-school. I had made catch toys from all my empty coke zero bottles. The idea was as they count how many times they can catch in a row and inadvertently will practice their counting.
My craft blog has the instructions shared to me by Lynda from Mauldin UMC on how to make them. You can read it at: http://theyarnsover.blogspot.com/2015/10/kids-catch-toy-made-from-old-coke-zero.html
After the trip to Singida we went to Morogoro for an overnight stay. Then finished the drive to Dar where we caught a ferry to Zanzibar for a couple of days. While in Zanzibar we visited Prisoner Island and the turtles. The place was nice but the hassle of dealing with all the "licensed" tour guides was more than I can handle. Hate to admit but that internal switch I have almost triggered a couple of times.
After the family left, I started my long drive back to Singida in three legs each taking between 5 and 7.5 hours. After getting back I spent the next couple of days resting my foot which is just now starting to get back to normal and the pain to a more livable level though much of that was due to the daily walks everywhere and long drives.
In Istanbul we had my parents, oldest brother and two friends from Germany. We spent a good chunk of our first day walking to visit some of the mosques which have beautiful architecture and tile work as well as one of the more historical church to mosque buildings in the area. We also visited the cisterns under the city which was probably most interesting to me the civil engineer. That night we did a river dinner cruise with entertainment. The best part of the night was meeting a lovely Indian couple who were traveling back from a safari vacation in Tanzania. They were sitting at the end of our table. On the second day the main attraction we went to visit was closed so we visited some other areas as well as doing one of the tour buses that goes over to the Asian continent part of Istanbul.
Our German friends stayed in Istanbul as we departed to go to Nairobi next. Here we met up with some of Bill, my brother, friends and stayed at their house. We went to the Carnivore restaurant (all you can eat meat and very touristy but good food), visited the Giraffe center for orphaned giraffes and the David Sheldrick Wildlife center for orphaned elephants and rhinos where the let you watch the noon day feeding of the 30+elephants under 3 years of age who have been orphaned. One of the highlights is getting the giraffes to eat a pellet out of your mouth or getting a giraffe kiss. The elephants played a good bit with each other and lead to many funny events as well as them spraying the crowd with mud.
On departing Nairobi, we drove via safari vehicle to the Rift Valley and stayed at a Tent camp which is nothing like I remember any tent camps being like. It was quite the luxury establishment. We did a safari into the Rift Valley park that night and the next morning hoping to get a good safari in before going back to eat breakfast and then journeying onto Arusha. The safari was much different than most I had been on in that much of the time was spent traveling around looking for the animals whereas in Ngorongoro it is a much smaller space they all share. The good part was the large herds of Elephants and actually seeing the Hippos out of the water.
We had traffic difficulties on our way to Arusha but finally got in and spent a short time with William and Martha, my in country hosts, and spent time at our hotel. Next morning it was time to load up and secure the luggage for a six hour trip to Singida where we got to my favorite hotel in town the Shining Star and then dinner with some friends from the Peace Corp at the Stanley.
The next day we went to visit the site and do some special activity with the kids at the pre-school. I had made catch toys from all my empty coke zero bottles. The idea was as they count how many times they can catch in a row and inadvertently will practice their counting.
My craft blog has the instructions shared to me by Lynda from Mauldin UMC on how to make them. You can read it at: http://theyarnsover.blogspot.com/2015/10/kids-catch-toy-made-from-old-coke-zero.html
After the trip to Singida we went to Morogoro for an overnight stay. Then finished the drive to Dar where we caught a ferry to Zanzibar for a couple of days. While in Zanzibar we visited Prisoner Island and the turtles. The place was nice but the hassle of dealing with all the "licensed" tour guides was more than I can handle. Hate to admit but that internal switch I have almost triggered a couple of times.
After the family left, I started my long drive back to Singida in three legs each taking between 5 and 7.5 hours. After getting back I spent the next couple of days resting my foot which is just now starting to get back to normal and the pain to a more livable level though much of that was due to the daily walks everywhere and long drives.
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