Day 4 - Ngrongoro Crater

We saw: lions, hippopotamus, zebras, elephant, grant gazelle, Thompson gazelle, hyenas, wildibeest, heartbeest, Cape buffalo, jakals, warthogs, baboons, rhinoceros (very far away - no pics).....

Gavin looking down into Ngorongoro Crater

Thompson Gazelle

Pumbaa has to kneel to eat off the ground.

Hippos

Gavin & Connie

Muddy hippo footprint

We also stopped to learn about the Masaai Tribe.

"Welcome" Dance and Song

Making fire

Cow Dung hut - takes 2 weeks to build and will last 20 years.

Day 3 - Tanzania - Tarangire National Park

We saw: elephants, giraffes, impalas, dik dik, zebra, wildebeest, banded mongoose, Cape buffalo, water buck, ostrich, warthogs, baboons.....

Elephants

Giraffes

Wildebeest, Zebra, Ostriches

Elephants

Zebras

Elephants digging for water in a dry river bed.

Impalas (I think)

Good Looking Warthog

Day 2 - Tanzania - Hike, Mnambe Falls, Coffee Processing Tour, Banana Beer & Banana Wine Tasting.

We were picked up at 930 sharp. We met 3 locals, Joyce (tour guide), Richy (hike guide and coffee conneissure extraordinaire), and Jimmy (the driver braving the bumpy yet interesting roads). Off we go for a drive to the location of the start of our hike. Our drive took us through many villages. Everywhere you looked the men, women, and children were hard at work maintaining their land or transporting their goods to their homes. Mode of transportation: on their heads. It is amazing to watch them do this, it really is second nature for them. Walking around with a whole bunch of bananas on your head and nothing in their hands. Truly an art. We get to our starting point and off we go. We started our hike from Richy's house and we would end up at Richy's place at the end. 

I cannot even describe the scenery. It was breath taking. We literally stopped to smells the plants. On our trek we saw avocado trees, lemon trees, eucalyptus trees, orange tomato trees, passion fruit trees, apricot, coffee, banana trees, yam potatoes, uka plants, big giant banana leaf tree, rosary flower, white bell flower, corn, cabbage, lettuce, and probably more. 

Mnambe Waterfall

We got to the largest waterfall on Mount Kilimanjaro. Gav was brave enough to go all the way in the water; I just put my feet in. The water was so cold! Obviously since it is the run off of the snow from Mount Kilimanjaro! Once we were done playing at the falls we stopped to have our boxed lunch in a little hut overlooking the falls. 

After lunch our return trek began. This hike was lots of ups and downs and quite tiring in some spots. Our tour guide wasn't even out of breath and I could hardly stand! He told us he's been hiking this trail 2-3 times / week for most of his life. We finally made it back to Richy's place where he showed us how to process coffee beans into coffee. He had some beans that had already been dried out for a few days. We took those beans and "tonga'ed" (pounded) them until the skins were off. Then we sifted all of the dried skin to leave us with just the dried beans. These dried beans cannot be broken with your teeth (or the club we were tonga'ing with). On the fire they go for 15 mins to roast. Once they're roasted we tonga again. Then the crushed beans go through a sifter and only the fine grinds are used. Richy took a cup of the fine coffee grounds and mixed it with some sugar. He asked us to put our hand out and he filled it with a spoonful of the mix; 1-2-3, down the hatch! I loved it; Gavin didn't! Then Richy put the pounded coffee grounds into the boiling water to brew. We waited for a bit then he siphoned it into a thermos. We had all had our cup of coffee in his backyard, chilling with his cousins and neighbors.....oh and the chickens that came around. After a few cups of coffee off we go to find some beer.......banana beer. 

Connie Tonga'ing

Since it was Eid day lots of shops weren't serving beer. We finally found a place we could enjoy a bucket of it. That's right. We all shared a bucket of warm banana beer. Lucky for us, one of the kids went to another shop to get us some banana wine. We both enjoyed it and could've easily had another. We drove back to our bed & breakfast showered up and off we went for a quick walk down the street while there was still daylight. We loaded up on a bunch of goodies to take home with us.

Banana Wine

Banana Beer

Day 1 - Tanzania

We woke at 3 am to catch our flight. Everything went smoothly at the airport in Dubai. We landed a bit late in Doha and had to speed race to our gate to catch our connection flight to Dar Es Salaam. The flight to Dar was 6 hrs. I was sat in front of the brattiest 6 year old in the Middle East. Before we even took off I was asking the kids dad to ask him to stop kicking the back of my seat. By the end of the flight, I had asked his mom and his dad both to ask him to stop. Oh maybe I should add that their small baby was screaming the whole time too. I didn't care so much about the screaming baby. You can't help that.....but a six year old kid should listen to his parents. Anyways, I was glad when that flight was over. We landed for a short while in Dar to drop off a bunch of passengers and back in the air for our final destination - Kilimanjaro International Airport. We landed at about 4:30 pm local time, got our visas processed and we're on our way to our 2 night home Bristol Cottages Bed & Breakfast in Moshi. We can walk outside the property and see Mount Kilimanjaro. The locals call it "Kili". We checked in and I thought I saw something interesting on the page before ours.....the person checking in before us....is Canadian! What a small world! We settled in our room and off we went for dinner at the restaurant in the B&B. Everything is home made to order. Can you imagine? I ordered a chicken wrap and even the tortilla was freshly made while we waited. Yummy food. We went back to our room for an early night since we were both exhausted from the early start on our travel day. Lights out 8:30 pm.

Mount Kilimanjaro

BEER!

Photoshoots

I've been doing a few random photoshoots.

One I did was with the Playa Animal Rescue.  There are putting together a calendar for a fundraiser.  Here are a few of my favorites that I took :-).

It's a bird... it's a plane... no... it's a dead plant. haha

It's just a yellow/old plant.  I'm not a good enough whisperer to ask him to pose in a different location.  I am thinking of printing one of these though and it is actually a good idea to remove that yellow plant first.  It IS distracting, I'll give you that.

Really!

Between the deer and the tree trunk, about at the top of the deer's ears, I swear the yellow and black looks like a bird....either I have a good imagination or the computer monitor is much better than yours.  Either way I'll take the peacock, you bird whisperer....LOL.  I can't believe WB didn't even cross your mind.  Probably because I was taking deer pictures and you were pushing Mr. Fischer's old car with your buddies.  Remember that?  That huge boat you guys bought.  LOL.