Monday, July 7, 2008

Back in the saddle!

Or probably more to the point attempting to re-mount after 2 weeks away and not getting back until Saturday morning after travelling for nearly 20 hours in total on two flights overnight.

I had intended to get a post going on the holiday experience and to post some pictures but things are not moving as quickly as I intended what with the garden and allotment deciding to become wildernesses during the 2 weeks away and Mrs DeeJay’s car refusing to start when we got home. Now I am back at my desk, I have some 225 emails to process – oh joy!

So to whet your appetite for some postings to come here is a synopsis of the holiday itinerary.


Day 1 Friday night/Saturday morning

Long, long day leaving home mid afternoon and arriving at first lodge at Mount Meru in Tanzania via Nairobi airport and Kilimanjaro airport some 18 hours later. Overnight at a Game Lodge with a small private reserve.

Day 2 Sunday

First real game drive in the Tarangire Game Reserve seeing many elephant, giraffe, gazelle, antelope, wart hogs etc.

Day 3 Monday

Game drive through Tarangire again seeing all of the above again plus baboon and vervet monkey on our way to the Ngorongoro Crater. We arrived there at a height of 2000 feet to rain and thick gooey very RED mud. It cleared as we descended into the crater where we once again saw many animals including lions feeding on a wildebeest (we didn’t witness the kill), a black rhino, cheetah, hyena, several types of gazelle and flamingos.

Day 4 Tuesday

Leaving a cold and wet crater rim with more gooey red mud we headed for the Serengeti Game Reserve via an authentic Masai village joining them in singing, dancing and buying jewellery from them. We visited their school and saw the delight in the children’s eyes when we left them with some colouring pencils. We arrived at the Serengeti (Masai translation “endless plain” and you can see why!) for lunch and an afternoon game drive seeing lions and their cubs and many gazelle again

Day 5 Wednesday

A 10 hour all day game drive where we saw all of the aforementioned animals again including 4 prides of lion, and the highlight – a leopard.

Back to the same lodge for a second night – bliss!

Day 6 Thursday

A very early start at 4 a.m. in the pitch black for a hot air balloon ride at 6:30. Amazing views and floating over the animals ending with a surreal experience of champagne and a full English breakfast under an Acacia tree in the middle of the bush just knowing that somewhere out there are wild animals.

Day 7 Friday

Left Serengeti and drove via Lake Manyara reserve on our way to Arusha airport for a brief 1 hour flight to Zanzibar.

Days 8 to 14 Zanzibar

Pretty luxurious hotel and spa with lots of service and good food, lazing on the beach and by the pool recovering from the rigours of the first weeks endless driving around on mud tracks in the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Days 14 & 15 – homeward bound

The previously mentioned 20 hour journey overnight to a real cup of tea and our own bed.


More posts later with some accompanying photos and I promise I will catch up with all your posts from the last two weeks

3 comments:

Axe Victim said...

Looks fantastic mate. Nice one.

Globus said...

225 emails? lucky monkey.

hope (and expect) you had a great time. pics look great.

jmb said...

Sounds as if you had a great time on this trip Deejay and I am looking forward to more posts and photos, besides the elephants above.