And so I found myself yet again on a long-haul plane, braving ungodly layovers and cheap economy seats, to reunite with some of my most intrepid friends whom I have now known for nearly a decade. This time, I found myself flying from Seattle to Tanzania (via Frankfurt), to embark on an adventure of laughs, lions, and lots of Kilimanjaro Beer.

Reunited

The group involved Lenny, Felix, Mikey, Chris, Varun, Robbie, and Fabi. They graciously arranged a “valet” to pick me up at the cutesy Kilimanjaro Airport. (Side note: Upon landing, I found Africa much colder than expected! To the point that I’d often be wearing a fleece even during daytime.) This was when I quickly learnt that although the cars supposedly drove on the left side of the road, my transport spent about as much time on the right. And, of course, don’t even bother with the speed limit.
 
Our first expedition was a five-day safari through the dusty red roads that branched out of Arusha. The first destination was Tarangire National Park. To be honest, I expected we would be driving around in our Land Cruisers at least for an hour, trying to spot animals far into the distance and debating whether what we saw was really an elephant or just a boulder. But no more than ten minutes into the game drive, we scooted past a watering hole ringed by stocky baobab trees where a herd of zebras were clumped together on one side, while on the other was a herd of elephants chilling casually by. (Upon writing the last sentence and doing some research, I discovered that it is actually called a dazzle of zebras! But to save me unnecessary googling, I’m just going to invent my own collective nouns from this point forward.)

Elephant in mourning

 

It was stunning to see them coexisting so placidly, with not a thought for our jeeps coughing on the edge of the water. The baby elephants were a joy to observe, flouncing with such playful curiosity that their elders seemed to dismiss. The majesty of it all was cut short when we drove past an elephant in the distance, which seemed to be throwing clumps of dust towards its face. With our binoculars, we saw that it was standing immediately next to a dead elephant, its desiccated skin draped across its carcass. Our guide explain that it was common for elephants to visit their dead, and to mourn in such a fashion. Despite the tragedy, being able to observe that was my highlight of the day. Lowlights were the wildebeests, which our guide said was such a dumb (and in my opinion, unaesthetic) creature that the locals supposedly called it “zero-brain” in Swahili.

Spot the leopard

After acquainting myself with the consequences of jetlag, I woke up the next day injected with the enthusiasm of seeing old friends. What added to the mood was the dispositions of many of the Tanzanians I met. Their hospitality, openness, and cheekiness coloured a lot of our trip, and reminded me of the contradictions that some of the least developed places on earth can host some of the happiest as well. What was less enjoyable was the inevitable haggling, which I greatly dislike. The souvenir markets reminded me of how much I sucked at it (or rather, how ruthless and persistent my German friends could be).

The second day of safari had us entering the Ngorongoro Conservation area, which I’d never heard of but easily became my favourite destination during the safari. We would revisit it towards the end of the trip, but for now, we were just driving through to enter the Serengeti. The expanse of dry grass and the undulating horizon reminded me somewhat of interior Alaska in the summer, or pictures from a Mongolian steppe. It was also my first time to see Maasai villages, comprised of a ring of huts and an outer palisade. The bumpy roads into the Serengeti were not made for people with travel sickness, and it didn’t take long for us and our luggage to be coated with a fine layer of brown dust, even with all the windows shut.

The Maasai village

Soon, the rolling brown hills gave way to a dryer yellow tint, and the fog and trees gave way to a flat landscape that recalled the baking plains of the Australian Outback, pulsating with endless heat and dust. Again, it wasn’t long until we entered lion and hippo central, idling in the same watering holes. We popped the canopy of our jeep open and started snapping photos. At one point, we drove into a cloud of bees, and as we were shooing them out the open roof, I was stung for the first time in my life—it hurt! But the best balm for the sting was feeling the fresh air whip across our faces in that jeep, and being amidst that galore of megafauna. The experience was heightened by wild camping in the middle of the park, where at night we could see the glinting specks of eyes in the surrounding bushes. I spent the night being awoken by various animal sounds (it was either that, or some people had learnt how to make really novel snoring noises), reminding me of my environs.

Is that a carcass in the back?

 
I wasn’t in good shape on the third morning, and I suspect it had something to do with showering or brushing my teeth from a rainwater tank. We embarked at sunrise after a hearty omelette breakfast, and about an hour in, I started to feel the ominous rumblings from my belly. I thought I could stave it off, or perhaps postpone any emergencies to at least lunchtime. As we drove past teams of lions stalking their morning meal however, I wasn’t able to hold it in anymore. I found a tree off to the side of the dirt road, and with our guide standing sentry as other safari groups sped by (and with my friends taunting me), I purged whatever ungodly bacteria lived in my bowels.

After trying (and succeeding) to spot cheetahs (pun intended) for the rest of the day, we said goodbye to the Serengeti and made our way back east. On the way, we made a request to visit a Maasai village, hoping for authentic cross-cultural experiences. This eluded us. Despite the best intentions of our guides, we were shepherded in with other tourists into once of the circular encampments, where the Maasai filed out and performed for us, with the expectation that we would buy their trinkets. I would have happily obliged, until they led us to their “schoolroom”, where each of us were treated to the same recitations of the alphabet, as if we’d pressed rewind on a cassette player.

The most memorable safari location for me, as previously mentioned, was the Ngorongoro crater, whose altitude was tangibly felt. Our mornings and our drives down to the crater were always choked with fog, as if to instil a foreboding tension, teasing what we may find on the valley below. As the sun rose, we were treated to a paradise lifted straight from an Attenborough documentary. The crater was flush with the most plentiful and diverse types of animal I had seen yet, and the scenes were all framed by burly clouds cascading over the sides of the crater rim. The chilly air lifted just as the animals roused from their sleep, and like a mini animal migration, we wheeled along as we followed their trails to the lakes and streams.

Elephant walked into our campsite

It's a stretch, but it's a rhino

Still bitter about our “cultural” experience from the previous day, this time we asked our guides if they could take us to a ”real” market. That is, somewhere that Tanzanians would actually go to buy goods. And this time, despite their apprehension of letting us loose in a crowd (“it wasn’t safe”, “I would be liable if something were to go wrong”), it felt more genuine. The colours of fabrics and foods were exploding on the chalky floor, with the vendors smiling bemusedly as we walked around. It was a complete change to the Maasai village; we felt far more relaxed. At one point, a man approached Lenny and I tipsily and told us in broken English that we should follow him since he wanted to show us something. Wary as always, we declined profusely but he parried with “I promise, no need to pay”. We followed him into a hut made of tree limbs and a dirt floor, along the sides of which were benches occupied by a dozen or so people. At the front of the room, he picked out a bottle from a burlap sack, popped the lid open, and offered it to us, “Try it!”

Our "friend" on the right

Loving his banana beer

 
It was the first time I’d tasted banana beer, and although the flavour was not my thing, the novelty of it was enough for Lenny to buy bottles to bring back for the rest of the boys. It turned out that the hut was their “bar”, and that this gentleman was clearly its most avid spokesperson. He then took us (or more honestly, we followed him) around the edge of the market to yet another small hut, this time with a lower ceiling and tighter spacing. Around the sides of the walls (also made of branches) were sacks that came up to our knees. Against one wall lay a smooth, flat rock on the dirt floor, almost like a rounded paving stone that was the length of a forearm. An older lady had been crouched over the top of it, and next to her was a white plastic bucket. Our newly acquired friend spoke to her for a bit, and then instructed us, “Go!” The lady picked up some beans from her white bucket, sprinkled them across the top of the flat stone, and gave us another stone that we had to use to grind down the beans. And that was the story of how we were recruited for free labour for a local Tanzanian market!

Our friend explained to us that whatever we were milling was a key ingredient of the banana beer we were drinking (perhaps wheat?), which also didn’t make sense because the bottles we were given said that they were packaged in a different city. Nevertheless, the third and last hut we were to visit on our magical mystery tour was the lowest and the darkest hut of all, where the smell of smoke wafted out. The air inside was choking, and in the dim light I couldn’t make out if the shadows along the walls were people. Finally, our friend explained to us that we were in his relative’s house, and he proceeded to take down a vase from a shelf that seemed wrapped in rope. He popped the top open and showed us a white liquid. “Goat’s milk,” he said eagerly, “You have to try it!” Lenny and I took that as a sign that it was time to reunite with our friends. 

Got to stay somewhere nicer on our final night

On our final night as a group of eight (Fabi and Robin would fly back to Germany earlier), we downed the banana beers along a ridge that overlooked the twinkling lights of the village below. It would turn out to be one of our last happy nights as an octet, as the following morning, Robin would wake up with a painful infection that prohibited him from opening his eyes. It looked like someone had snuck into his hut at night and replaced his eyeball with that of Sauron’s. Not that he would miss anything on our final game drive through Lake Manyara, as there was very little in terms of wildlife to be seen. 

Robin, not having a good time, while the others are

The most interesting creatures we did encounter were next to an overturned Land Cruiser along the road. We hopped out to investigate, and it appeared that the driver was distractedly trying to swat away a fly when his vehicle hit the raised berm on the side of the road at an angle, causing the entire thing to topple. Fortunately, no one was hurt, especially given that the tour group was comprised of retirees from Missouri. 

The Missouri group

The safari finished with this bang (and Robin not being able to witness any of it), and a sizzle of a buffet lunch cooked by a local family who owned a banana plantation. This had all been arranged by our tour director, and went above and beyond our expectations. Special mention goes to the stewed vegetables and the pilau. Even when we returned to Arusha, the feasting carried on. We spent a good hour roaming the dusty streets near our B&B (really the equivalent of a mansion), trying not to fall into the deep and wide culverts that were dug on either side of the road. Before long, we found the only place open that looked like it had made enough food for eight starving lads. “The Boss”, as it was called, was a hybrid of a sports bar/nightclub/restaurant and the liveliest place in town, yet it still only had omelettes and potato wedges for those of us who were vegetarian.  

We capped off the night watching part of a football match on television, before we found a small room tucked away on the side of the road that turned out to be a bar. Honestly I don’t think it even had enough space to fit a king bed, but from the ceiling hung a sole blue neon light, with a TV on the corner playing African music videos. The proprietors soon joined us in the evening revelry, until someone remembered that I had lost a bet on safari and as a result, I had to get a mohawk. It just so happened that the shop next door was a barber (still operating at 11pm at night!) Fortunately, despite the insistence of my friends, the young barber wouldn’t accede to their prompts, and instead gave cleanly trimmed sides. Not a bad way to round off our safari adventure!