The probability of seeing mountain gorillas on a trek in Bwindi National Park is about 100 per cent. Trackers keep tabs on all the different groups and the gorillas are visited every single day by someone, habituating them to human contact. Seven people and one guide plus a guard form our group of trekkers. Jim and I have trekked to gorillas once before but we are as jazzed as the others and believe me, these peopl
e are over the top excited. They can scarcely stand still and when one fellow sneezes he really is worried that the guide will turn him back – don’t want the gorillas to catch a cold. No worries though, all of us sneeze a little while tramping through thick underbrush that the guide is slicing with his machete. The trek is respectable, up one hill and down another until the trackers meet up with us and we d
itch our gear and step into the magic of gorillas in the wild.
To be up close to gorillas is to wonder just how close humans are to our cousins from a different branch of the evolutionary tree. Their faces reflect emotion and it is difficult not to anthropomorphize. Why does this black-back, a 12-year old male, look so sad? Is he lonely? Can we talk to him? I know that 
sounds silly, you had to be there. Our guide David explains the young male cannot hang with the others, it is too much of a challenge for the silverback leader. But by hanging back, a willing female might accept the black-back’s advances. Well, maybe “willing” isn’t the correct term. David shares that females are afraid of the males and come mating time it is chaos and panic for them. Beatings are common and females bear scars and torn ears. What would it be like to 
watch a group day in and day out and witness all these fascinating interactions? It is easy to imagine how Dian Fossey was seduced by these gentle giants and she gave her life for them. As it so happens in Africa, her story was not all what it seemed. Farley Mowatt wrote a terrific book about Dian Fossey, Woman in the Mist. The Community Library has it – check it out. The story is as tragic as these great apes. Who wouldn’t love them?
The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is not a large forest. Agriculture marches right up to the edge and there are crops inching into the forest. People are poor and families are large. Gorilla trekking is a great help to the community – if you visit there, the Buhoma Community Rest Camp is a welcoming and comfortable place to stay before you trek. Good food, great deck, very warm and friendly staff. We enjoyed chatting with a couple from Los Angeles who’d left their careers 
and sold their home to travel for a year and then resettle somewhere new. Needless to say, we highly recommended Idaho. Who knows, maybe this couple will show up on our doorstep some day.
There are more than twice as many people in Uganda now as when we visited 13 years ago. The population has doubled. Doubled, as in every person times two. It is almost inconceivable. Where do they live? What do they eat? Crops are grown on every surface that can be farmed and no slope is too steep. Agriculture keeps much of the population busy, but it is not a high paying industry unless you own the farm. We spoke to local people who told us teachers are poorly trained and rarely paid and the local paper’s headline said a high percentage of children cannot do sums and subtraction. From Rwanda to here, it is out of the frying pan into the fire. No wonder so many people ask us if anyone can make it in America.
We enter Uganda at the crumbling Katuna border post where the trucks are 
stacked 10 long and three deep. It is surprisingly efficient and we quickly adjust to driving on the left again – Rwandans drive on the right. Best to drive sober in all these countries. A few kilometers from the border, Lake Bunyonyi has facilities for us at the edge of lake – we are the only campers on this steep and lovely piece of property. There’s bandas (rooms) and a restaurant and since it is Sunday the local folks are making an outing of it, visiting the lake and having lunch. A group walks into our camp and exclaims, “look at the white people” to their children. They whip out their phones and pose for photos with us; they have me hold the baby and take photos, all the while chatting in their local language. What a hoot.
Uganda is a former British colony and to honor the visit of Queen Elizabeth back in the day, they renamed the Kazinga National Park – it is now Queen Elizabeth National Park. I find that charming for some reason. Queen, as it is called, is the second largest park, consisting of rivertine areas, huge grass-covered plains, and the remnants of volcanic explosion craters. Large mammals are a bit scarce, decimated by poaching in the ’70s but coming back slowly. Lions, elephant, elusive leopard, and prodigious bird life make it interesting. Here we scouted for the famous tree-climbing lions – their favorite fig trees are marked on the map! 
We did not see them, the weather was quite unsettled and much rain came down so likely they were wet and miserable under some bush. However, I did not feel skunked as I spotted this bird – the Ross’s Turaco – 
and it was kind enough to sit still for photos. I’ve seen it twice before, both times at Kapishya Hot Springs, and it was so twitchy I could never get close. These shots don’t do it justice – on the wing it has gorgeous magenta feathers that flash like neon. It is one of few birds with that color feather. Isn’t it adorable?
Other species spotted include this African Blue Flycatcher and this Fan-tailed Widowbird. The Black headed Gonolek has become quite common, I don’t go all primate when I see one now. Fire finches and Fine
-spotted woodpeckers are lovely. They are not on the “Ugly Five” list – not to be confused with the Big Five (lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo
). This Marabou Stork qualifies, in fact I think it is on the top of the ugly list. But what can you do when you’ve evolved this big air sac for flying high and it happens to be pink? Deal with it.
Nyungwe Forest, near the southwest corner of Rwanda, is one of the oldest forests in Africa, if not the oldest. For hundreds of thousands of years, minute by minute, day after day, the process of photosynthesis from the Nyungwe has spewed oxygen into the earth’s atmosphere – we should all be thankful. 
Remarkably, Nyungwe is generally intact, still in pristine condition. There are threats of course, illegal logging, poaching, and the like, as explained by the brilliant modern interpretive center at the main campground. Still this forest has survived any number of climate changes and if Homo Sapiens can be kept at bay, there’s a good chance for continued success. We need the oxygen. At any rate, we came to experience the deep green scenery and the primates. Heavy black cloud unleash great buckets of rain on us as we arrange camping. There are beautifully built teak shelters and we can back the Beagle right up to the shelter for cooking and relaxing. The view is stunning, the horizon full of forest stretching on and on, green and thick and unlike anything we have seen so far in Africa. Rwanda is full of surprises.
To walk anywhere in Nyungwe you must have a guide. Trails are variously strenuous, all are steep and slick with rain. I know I’d have to watch my step on a guided hike – to look up or around is to ensure a fall. We elect to hang around and see what happens instead of hiking. Monkeys visit us every morning, calmly walking around the truck checking for edibles and the bright yellow bananas on the dashboard attract attention. Other than that, we must seem pretty boring to them. They are anything but boring to me. Their colorful fur and big eyes, their little fingers and long toes; I find them endlessly entertaining. L’Hoest monkeys, blue monkeys, black and white colobus, all are found here. Not one of them bares their teeth at me and tries to steal lunch as happened in Botswana – I heaved the box
of flatware at that one, I was hungry and not about to share. We don’t share anything with these fine primates either but they don’t care. There is plenty of food in the forest for them. Humans would starve in these woods – the trees keep all the nutrients for themselves and there is little forage for human taste. Could be that is why this place is still so fresh and vital. Chimpanzees live here too and a guide can take you to look for them. No guarantees though, you may or may not see these wonderful creatures. Chimps in the wild are shocking – if you’ve only seen them on TV, you’ll be aghast at how powerful they are as they move about their own environment. We spot two of them on the road as we leave the park; they quietly move off into the trees and I’m glad for that, I would not want a chimp to be hit by a truck.
Nyungwe is the last park we visit in Rwanda. As we leave, I think that Rwanda fits perfectly the pattern I’ve noticed in African countries. That is: nothing is what it seems. Rwanda is practically litter-free, has marvelous roads, beautiful parks, solemn memorials (all over the country), good hospitality service – all the things a tourist would compliment. On the other hand, it is run by a heavy-handed dictator, Paul Kagama, who has been in power for 23 years. Many praise his positive achievements but of course there is a dark side. Opposition leaders tend to disappear. Militias in Congo are armed with Rwandan weaponry and they facilitate the theft of Congo’s resources by Rwanda, who then sell it to the west. To be fair, Uganda (run by another brutal dictator) and other countries are also robbing Congo – there is plenty to go around there for now. Where will it
all end? Will Rwandans really recover from the genocide? Have free elections? We cannot know. It is time to enter Uganda and the Katuna border crossing is ahead of us. We’ll see what happens there.
Rwanda is a lovely country from what we have seen and the people smile and wave at us along the road. It is green and hilly, quite different from other places we’ve been. We know something about the country’s recent history, as anyone our age must – it is the site of the horrible Tutsi genocide in the early nineties. I’ve read about it, the Community Library has an excellent selection of books on the subject. But now that we are here we are perplexed. How could something so abominable happen here? The Museum and Memorial is within walking distance from our hotel, we can see it from balcony. We walk there hoping for something, anything, to gain some understanding.
In the relatively short time since the horror, this Memorial and many other smaller ones have been erected around the city and country. At the post office near our hotel I stopped and read all the names on a large plaque, the names so African: Innocent, Gift, Honor, Reginald, Finite. I am a little shook up when I get back to the truck. Rwanda wasted no time in trying to heal and with the help of many, the impression is that the country is doing what no other has done, learning quickly to live with its past. That does not mean it has swept the nightmare under the rug. Far from it. At the Museum documentation, photos, artifacts, and the actual bones themselves are on display so that all can know – this really happened. This is how it happened. It has happened before. It could happen again. Other genocides are presented, their commonality to Rwanda explained. While the genocidal process becomes clear, we cannot learn “why?” That short, three-letter word, can only end with a question mark.
The Museum exhibits explain how Rwanda as created, using many of the facets of local life and beliefs, a court of public confession and forgiveness and reconciliation. Some measure of relief for at least some of the victims has been accomplished. There are so many victims. Coming from the west, from America, we struggle to comprehend it all. The Children’s Room moved us to tears. The text explaining that older Rwandans were especially reviled by the murderers broke my heart. We took no photos here. We walked back to our room on sidewalks full of Rwandans going about their day. We took shelter under a filling station roof with dozens of pedestrians and motorcycle drivers when the rain came pouring down. Little kids said hi and everyone laughed about the weather. The Kigali Genocide Museum and Memorial is open every day. Take a walk to it when you are in Kigali, in the world of now. Remember what you see.
Rusumo border crossing is at the eastern end of Rwanda, calm and peaceful. We are approached by a fellow just as we arrive who wants to sell us insurance but we aren’t sure what we need so we say no thanks and proceed into the building. There are numbered windows (yes!) and even a bank where we pay our visa fee – this being quite the opposite of handing over $100USD to a guy who puts it in his pants pocket, as happened at Chirundu. From window to window we go, finishing up with a police inspection of the vehicle; opening all the doors and the back really impresses them although the truck is a mess. Thinking we are cleared we drive past a small building and a uniformed guard with a gun waves us down. Good to stop for these guys. He asks where is your insurance? Oh, 
now I get it – we must get some third party insurance. The guard says we can cross the border, just be sure to buy some soon, he says. How pleasant is that? Over in Rwanda, a few meters away, we find Jimmy the salesman and he says I told you so. Yes. Well, at any rate a few minutes later we are off to Akagera National Park and camping in Rwanda.
Akagera was originally formed in 1934 and is the oldest park in the country. In its prime it likely rivaled any park in Africa but as has been the case in so many 
countries, war devastated the park. Reference to the 1994 genocide is constant – it says “before the genocide” and “after the genocide” on many of the interpretive signs in the visitors center. People use the terms in conversation to explain how things are now and why – although “why” is too big a question for a simple conversation about wildlife in a park. A massive NGO has taken on the project of bringing the glory back to Akagera much like Greg Carr is attempting in Gorongosa, Mozambique, another war-torn park. It is a long slow process.
Mixed savanna, woodlands, highlands and lakes and wetlands make for varied scenery and the park is so green it almost hurts. The regulars are here though not in profusion. What the elephant lack in numbers they make up for in size – the bulls we saw were the biggest we have encountered. We were warned of one tusk-less male who is said to be twitchy – he was quite content when we came upon him and we gave him plenty of room. Another bull just roamed around us, showing off his (enormous) good sides. 
The bird life is terrific – two new birds in an hour, the Black-headed Gonolek and the Long-crested Eagle. A black heron showed off by “umbrella hunting” – spreading its wings over the water so it could see the fish more easily. Wonderful game driving.
The animal encounter of note was this Black Mamba. Jim knew right away what it was, there was no mistaking it. Ready for breakfast and coffee, we pulled into this picnic site that looked vacant. 
We weren’t expecting a snake, never mind a snake this big and this venomous. Even if the mamba wasn’t extra deadly, the size alone kept me in the truck. Mambas have a reputation for actually attacking people, not just biting when they are bothered. The mambo can rear its head up by half of its body length – and this one was about three meters long. That’s nine feet, in case you are wondering. Holy cow (or words to that affect). It slithered off to some grasses and we cautiously parked far away and had breakfast. We might drive around all day looking for cats and birds, but now I have seen the Black Mamba and don’t need to see another one. If I have too, though, I hope to see it before it sees me.
Our final night in Tanzania (that’s Tan-zaney-ah with a short a) is spent in the courtyard of a 1902 German fort in the town of Bilharagara. Another funky campsite on a long list of funky places we have stayed. 
Signage (pieces of copy paper stuck to the walls) notes that the fort was built on the backs of slaves from the local area. What a surprise. There are three interesting photos of tribal chiefs visiting the fort, nothing said about why they were visiting. Not much to do here, but the birds
keep us entertained especially this delightful waxbill. We will miss this huge country. It took some getting used to, being not as warm as Zambia, but its treasures are many. English is second to Swahili, so to learn a few (or more) Swahili words was very helpful. Several people we met mentioned they thought self-drivers weren’t allowed in Tanzania but we had no problem. There weren’t many of us though we did bump into a self-drive couple we’d met back at Kapishya Hot Springs and had a nice visit with them. We noticed a heap of big overland tour trucks, the kind that hold 15-30 people. How in hell do they maneuver those beasts on the Tanzanian roads? Many campsites are set up for these types of tours, we camped among them at Kipepeo Beach i
n Dar es Salem and at Snake Park Camp outside Ngorongoro. The Tanzanian parks do draw the crowds. The days of us being the only ones in camp are long gone.
Apparently enough tourists and tour operators complained about the poor to awful facilities at park campsites that Tanzania cleaned up most of them. NGOs provided funding for building new ablutions in some camps. Ngorongoro gets the prize for the worst ablutions ever. Considering the price and the number of people camping there, you’d think that particular place would
be modernized. Too bad the elephant didn’t walk right through the toilets, it would have been an improvement. Staff was minimal in all the camps, with the Serengeti providing the most efficient and knowledgeable help. You are on your own most of the time. We don’t expect to find parks like these in any other countries on the drift, at least for rest of the northern route. With any luck we will swing through on our way south, whenever that will be, and maybe pay a second visit to one or two of our favorite Tanzanian parks. Until then, so long.
A simple signpost marks the south entrance to the Serengeti National Park, three torturous hours or so after the Oldupai Gorge. I feel a momentary stab of anxiety at this desolate place- we must have our exit pass stamped for leaving Ngorongoro/Oldupai by 2:30. The parks are strict about the 24-hour pass. There is not a ranger post or uniform in sight, just dust and a handful of Maasai herd boys. Jim points out that there is only one road, a terrible road, but it is the only one. We will get to a ranger post soon enough. When we do arrive at the formal gate a park employee is happy to stamp the exit pass and give us advice on Serengeti, the last park we will visit in Tanzania.
The Serengeti is so big it is broken into sections. Seronera is in the eastern center, the Masai-Mara area is north on the Kenyan border and the western corridor borders Lake Victoria. The Maswa Game Reserve holds down the southwestern section; there are few roads there and I can well imagine how sorry they must be. The wildebeest are in the north in huge numbers, crossing the Grumeti River towards the Mara but we elect not to drive that far – it would mean two days driving on bad to awful roads and one day hoping to get very lucky and witness a crossing. We opt for the public campground at Seronera. Camping is $30 per person per night. Conservation fee is $40 pppd and the vehicle fee, based on weight, is $50 per day. Then there is the 18% VAT. So figure $200 per 24-hour period. It is worth every penny.
Timing is everything for a 24-hour permit. Ideally entering at 3:30pm gives plenty of time to do an afternoon drive/recognizance and plenty of time to make the exit gate upon departure day. It is 34 kilometers to DikDik public campsite from the Serengeti entry gate; we have to be at DikDik by 7pm. Lots of time to explore, right? There are rock koppies in the distance; they symbolize the Serengeti to me – unending grass plains broken by these hills of rocks and trees. I can’t wait to see one up close, and this one is special indeed. There is a pride of lion with cubs hanging around the rocks. We barely make it to our campsite in time, there were so many lion to stop and admire, not to mention birds and countless ungulates. Welcome to the Serengeti.
Mapmaker Veronica Roodt has produced a map/guide for this park and it matches up well to the Garmin; there are game drive tracks all over the place and it is good to have two sources. Still, early the next day we find ourselves on a track that doesn’t appear on either Garmin or the Roodt – how does this happen? Fortuitously as it turns out. We spot a lioness with two cubs in the long grass. She appears to be alone and the cubs are fair-sized, not nearly as tiny as the ones we saw at Buffalo Camp. There are no other lions around we can see. We can suppose she is meeting up with her pride rather than trying to raise the cubs on her own, but we will never know that. We drive on – the road is good, there are many prey animals about. If we were cheetahs, we’d be right here. And wouldn’t you know it – here are two cheetah on a dirt mound sitting high and surveying the possibilities. It is 10am. Unlike other cats, cheetah hunt in the daytime. We find a good viewing point and park, waiting is our modus operandi. There is no one else in sight and we can see a very long way. Who knows what will happen.
Are these cheetah mother and son? It looks that way – one is clearly female, smaller and more delicate. The male would likely be her son, mating pairs aren’t generally seen hunting. These two are nonchalant about the prey around them. Some meters away there are springbok, big and small, and lots of warthogs – good cheetah food. There are zebra with foals as well, meaty but dangerous. Cheetah can’t afford to get hurt, there’s no pride protecting them. Time passes. We shift around in our seats – we won’t be able to photograph much and sometimes it is just more fun to watch and not worry about the camera. About an hour later, the female rises up. The springbok males have started jousting and rushing about. The female springbok rush around as well and one baby bokkie runs this way and that, not knowing where to go – and the cheetah make their move. Slowly they stride, then they trot, then the female rockets forward with the bokkie in her sights. A zig, a zag, a shower of dust and up she comes with the baby bokkie firmly in her jaws. Success! Her son lopes over, he was happy to let mom do the hard part. We see all of this; it is the sighting of a lifetime for us. There was no one else watching. 
And on it went. The Serengeti gave up lion and leopard like they were common impala. Elephant, giraffe, zebra, hyena and eland were regulars in camp. There were Ruppell’s and Lappet-faced vultures, D’Arnoud’s barbets and red/yellow barbets, superb starling and Shelly’s starlings. . . the list of birds to investigate grew by ten-fold. We stayed an extra day it so was intoxicating. How sad it to was leave this splendid park. Everyone anywhere who helped to make Serengeti happen and who keep it well-tended deserve much praise. May the Serengeti always be here.
In Arusha, looking for a campsite by a small lake, we follow Garmin until we admit we are lost and pull into a driveway on a steep old street to turn around, never easy in the Beagle. A woman comes to speak to us, turns out she owns the lakeside campsites. “But you don’t need to go there” she says, “just camp here in my yard”. Her name is Janet and her yard looks at the little lake on one side and Kilimanjaro on the other. It is colonial Tanzania at its best, the big house (which she rents out) and the small servant house (where she lives) on a huge overgrown piece of property. There are several dogs. 
Janet’s father was Henry Fossbeck, the first park supervisor for Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Arusha and Kilimanjaro National Parks, back in the British day. His crypt overlooks the little lake. There must be a million stories in the walls of his house. Janet grew up in the parks and her favorite is Ngorongoro. We were fortunate to turn up in her driveway, we thank her profusely and head for the Crater.
It is windy, foggy and cold at the Crater rim, draped in green jungle vegetation. The public campsite is right on the edge with enough flat ground to host a crowd – and a crowd is there. Tents carpet the area in front of the long mess hall and kitchen. Safari rigs and overland trucks are parked willy-nilly. Young people, heads down on their phones, mill about. There is a weak wifi signal and that’s all it takes to concentrate them. Zebras watch from the bushes.
The kitchen is lively, filled with Africans fixing dinner for the guests. Vegetables being chopped, music playing from iPhones, oil sizzling for samosas and banana fritters, potatoes boiling, the scent of garlic and ginger and fresh bread, all spiced with Swahili, make this a happening place. We build a fire in the charcoal trough for a braai. Guys come by to see what we are cooking and ask where we are from. Amid all the hustle, an elephant trumpets very close by. 
A big male elephant has walked all the way past all those tents and vehicles and gotten right to the door of the kitchen with no one saying a word. Now that he is announcing himself everyone with a phone comes running – so that is everyone, believe me. We watch in awe. He finally wanders off with half the crowd following, holding up their phones. What a scene.
The Crater is part of a large conservation area adjacent to the Serengeti Park, the area encompasses Maasai grazing lands and the Oldupai Gorge, the site of magnificent archaeological discoveries made so famous by the Leakey family and others. 
Standing at the edge of the Gorge, it is so easy to imagine the years slowly going by as humans made their way through evolution. Footprints discovered nearby at Laetoli in the 1960s date upright forms of hominids at 3 million years old. If that doesn’t sound like such a long time, think of it like this: 100 years x 10 = 1000, and we can relate to this history. 1000 x 10 = 10,000. Now we are getting out there. 10,000 x 10 = 100,000. 100,000 x 10 = 1,000,000, and so on, day after day, year after year. Then here we are. We cannot go to the actual footprints, sadly. There is a cast replica, it sends shivers up our spines to look at it.
Oldupai, not Olduvai, we are told, is named for the ubiquitous plant used by Maasai in this area. A new state of the art museum is being built at the Gorge which will be good reason to revisit – the current museum is ok, but there is so much more to show. With any luck, there will be some money left over for fixing the roads – the African Massage, they call it. No wonder the Maasai walk so much, it is easier.
The road to Tarangire leads through a parched landscape where Maasai children herd goats and cattle; some look to be only six or seven years old. They run to the dusty road as we pass, holding their hands to their mouths indicating they want food. We are really struck by this – as proud as the Maasai are that they would allow their children to beg by the side of the road. And who stops and gives them anything? Has anyone ever? Or are we putting western values into the equation? But what a can of worms this opens. With as many goats and cattle as the Maasai have you’d assume there would be meat to eat or to barter for corn or millet. But Maasai (and other pastoralists) don’t eat their livestock. It is all for prestige; the more animals kept, the higher your standing. The pressure the cattle and goats put on the dry grazing land is extreme and leads to illegal grazing in the parks and poaching. The future is at stake here and right now it looks bleak as the dry landscape.
Tarangire Park gives respite to these troubling scenes. The park is fairly new, located below Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, and a river meanders through it. Even bigger baobabs than Ruaha Park grow here, as if to show up the trees in the south. At the public campsite elephant, giraffe, eland, impala, zebra and wildebeest wander by the first evening and an eland races past the truck after dark, running from who knows what. We are up early to explore. As the morning rolls on we find ourselves having coffee at the picnic site overlooking the river and as usual I find a bird to fixate on – the Ruppels Parrot. 
It is posing nicely, we admire it for a bit. Then suddenly there is a commotion directly below us in the riverbed. An impala and a waterbuck burst out of the bushes and right behind them is a lion giving chase. We see all of this from above, an uncommon view, and it is so cool. A second lion joins in but the hunt is unsuccessful even with us cheering them on, haha. The lion stroll off to give a herd of zebra a try. Unsuccessful again, they lay down in the shade. That they were hunting in the daytime is unusual; they looked quite healthy and it was almost as if they were just goofing off before it got too hot.
The iconic photo of Kilimanjaro, with the vast plain below it filled with animals, is taken from Tarangire and we drive over the hills to see this view. At last, here is Kili without cloud cover, standing tall on the plain. We chat with a fellow at the view point about game he is seeing in the park; he tells us there is a leopard kill in a tree on river route #4. Late in the day we park the truck there, and we wait. Vehicles come and go but since we are camping nearby we have plenty of time to get to our site by the appointed hour. So we do what we do best. We wait. It is finally quiet. I look at my bird book and Jim looks at photos. 
Movement in the bushes – and here is the leopard hoisting itself up the tree. It is simply stunning. Patience pays. We watch, take a few photos. The cat is shy and isn’t ready to dine on the impala while we sit there. We leave it be and wander off, back to camp. What a day.
In the night we hear many lion and we are off to find them before dawn. The plan is to go back to the leopard tree by way of the lion sounds – but we miss a turn. Not a problem. . . we drive through the half light and Jim slams on the brakes. The pride is laying in the road in front of us. “Nice spot” I tell Jim. Any less light and we’d have run over one of them. They are full of mischief this morning. The little one comes over to the window (yes, it is closed) then does a full truck inspection, as if to say “Now that’s a proper vehicle!” She motions her cousin over – “Check out this spare tire, cuz.” We are watching them in the rear view camera. Two more lion take a seat in front of us, hemming us in. Then a Land Rover pulls up behind us. The lions look up. They shrug. It’s just a Land Rover.
Finally they have had enough of us and the whole pride lies down in the rocks and falls asleep. We move on to enjoy more birds and mammals until it is time for us to relax around the fire at camp. We leave Tarangire for the road to Ngorongoro Crater tomorrow.
The ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar es Saleem holds nearly 1000 people and I would guess that half of them were sick on the voyage; seas were high and rough. Imagine a ship big enough to carry that many people being tossed about by the waves. I made my way to the outside deck, very carefully, and spent the trip out there having never before felt so seasick nor so happy to see land. Jim wasn’t bothered by the motion – I found him with his hat over his eyes trying to avoid the mess around him. We left Dar the next morning and only made it 90 kilometers, both of us a bit wrung out. Mount Kilimanjaro and Marangu town await and we commenced the long drive through desert landscape and sisal plant plantations. Row after row, acre after acre, the agave sisalana plants march toward Kilimanjaro. It appears the leaves are cut by hand – whew, what a job that is; the sharp points and razor edges of the leaves cannot be pleasant. Sisal is stripped and dried in the sun but we only see a couple small operations, this is not the cutting season.
Marangu is nestled in the foothills of the famous peak and is one of the four routes climbers use to ascent Kilimanjaro. The town is hilly and cool with tropical vegetation. Arabica coffee is grown here under banana trees; this type of coffee plant needs shade. What a great combination – coffee, our favorite drink, and bananas – one of our favorite foods. Kilimanjaro is hidden by clouds so we will have to make do with coffee. We find the Coffee Tree House Community Camp and arrange for a walking tour with William and Nelson, the camp liaisons. We walk downhill for an hour and I’m already thinking of taking one of the many bota-botas (small motorcycles) back up to camp when we are finished. 
First we visit the Chagga Caves. Chagga tribespeople dug a system of tunnels to hide themselves and their livestock from Maasai warriors intent on invading, stealing and killing. The tunnels bring to mind the Vietnamese who also lived in tunnels to hide from invaders. How the Chagga (and the Viet Cong) got enough calories to do such arduous work under such pressure is uncertain. There are only so many calories in rice. The Chagga Cave guide tells us of how the Chaggas fended off the Maasai with clubs and also took Maasai warriors as slaves. I suspect the Maasai tell the story a bit differently as they are were never enslaved by Arabs because of their fierceness. The caves are impressive. Happily now everyone gets along ok – the Maasai graze their cattle on the flats and the Chaggas use the foothills for agriculture.
Babu is a third-generation coffee plantation owner and he tours us around his plot. Like many people here on the slopes he raises his domestic goats and chickens in pens and cages. There isn’t enough land to graze them so fodder is found and brought to the animals – now that is a chore. The upside is that the manure is concentrated in one place and can be tilled into the coffee plot. Babu has some fresh picked beans and he takes us through the process – a hand peeler is used to remove the skins; he expertly tosses the dried beans in a basket while blowing on the chaff so it disperses. A timeless blackened clay pot is set on open flames (no
t coals) and the beans are roasted, turned constantly by Babu. He then sets them in the wooden pestle and we take turns pounding the beans to a powder. Some of the grind is combined with a couple spoonfuls of sugar and we eat that out of our hands – it is delicious. The rest of the grind is poured into boiling water for a cup of the freshest coffee ever. Maybe we don’t need a bota-bota ride up that hill after all.
The day is finished with a locals lunch at William and Nelson’s favorite pub. HipHop music blares and bota-bota boys try to attract our attention. We are targets, being white and obviously rich. We can ignore these silly boys. But even many months into our trip, we still get fleeced here – we are overcharged for camping fees and since we did not ask for a receipt, the Coffee Tree House manager demands we pay for camping again. He speaks almost no English so Jim sets up the translator for Kiswahili and we explain we already gave the money to William and Nelson. The manager either doesn’t get it or is pretending not to. It is not about the money – it is just that the next camper is going to be fleeced if we cave in (haha, that’s a good pun). We go to bed with the issue unresolved and next morning we ask the manager to call his buddies – everyone has a cell phone – but Nelson hangs up when he hears Jim’s voice. We ready the truck and honk the horn to be let out and unlikely as it seemed, the guy unlocks the gate and off we go. Being locked into a campground/yard is a problem we often face, so we happily leave Marangu and cloudy Kilimanjaro behind and head for Tarengire National Park where we are sure to be given a receipt for camping. Lesson learned.
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