Tanzania

 23 March 2022 Addis to Killimanjaro

Eurgh. Early start, coffee and croissant for breakfast, and back to the airport.

There are a lot of unfinished large office block buildings around the city. JP said that he heard in Nigeria this is because they are used for money laundering. A construction company is set up and exorbitant prices paid to build the shell, and then the building is abandoned. 

Busy Addis Ababa

I'm reading "Secrets of the Savanna" by Mark and Delia Owens. Loving it so far.

My flight was uneventful and as a South African we are given a visa on arrival, no charge. 

3 planes lined up

Customs wanted to know what I paid for the toaster, not noticing the 2 litre bag of La Motte hidden with it. I didn't mention the toaster was for the lodge of course and he let me through without issue. Wine smuggling successful 🥂 Junior, the driver from Ndutu was waiting for me, and Jannie soon landed too. We took a slow drive to Arusha, stopping at Riverside lodge to look on the way.

I'm now relaxing at my Airbnb called Ingira House.

Jannie and Johan collected me at 6 and we had a lovely meal together.

24 March - Karatu

After I slept for about 9 hours, Linda, my host, showed me the coffee which I made nice and strong.  I had an egg on toast before Junior and Jannie fetched me at 7:45. We headed out of Arusha.

Stopped at a glass factory.

Arusha Coffee lodge is one of Janni's drinking spots. The greenery and trees, where one can eat at the tables and chairs are just magnificent.

We continued on our slow drive to Karatu, admiring the beautiful landscape. There had been quite a bit of flooding on the way.

Lake Manyara

And we arrived where Maretha stayed last night. The party is growing 🎉

Jannie and Maretha 

We met Reggie, the owner of Mare.  A lovely man who as a little boy went to Mama Margaret, the original owner of Gibbs coffee plantation and asked for a job. She said he could do dishes, not believing he would return. He told her he needed to settle his affairs and would be back, and next day he reported for work. From that start, she helped him train to become chef, to the amazing business man he is today, owning and developing his own lodges. So inspiring.

At 14h00, Reggie's son took us to see their newest lodge being constructed and then the beautiful one opened in 2020 which was previously their family home. He then took us to Nina and Hugo.

What a beautiful farmhouse right next to the crater. And what lovely people! Nina was home and helped us unpack and settle. Lobo and Luna are their two friendly dogs who were so sweet and well behaved. 

We were having gin and tonics on the patio when Hugo got home. 

I followed Nina while she checked on her geese, chickens, and fed her three rabbits. We found her tortoises as well, the bigger one coming when she calls with food.

Hugo, Jannie, myself and the dogs went for a short walk to the castle house built by an Irishman who had since sold. The trees and bush was truly beautiful. 

The crater is about 6km on the right of this picture.

Maretha prepared a delicious meal for us and Hugo and Jannie braai'd the fillet steak.

We fed the bush babies

I loved Nina's stories. One was about her two male bunnies who got pregnant 😂 She had him fixed and returned the babies to the shop, but before that she was visiting friends who asked for one of the babies. It was a sweet white bunny which she put in a box with some snacks for it,  happy to have found a home for it. She arrived at the friends and later that evening asked where bunny was. You don't want to know, they replied... Next morning she went to look and found her sweet bunny in a cage with a python! Bunny was, however, sitting on top on him, unharmed!! To this day, bunny still lives with python, friends, living in peace. When Nina next saw Daphne Sheldrick (oh yes, I'm totally name dropping that somebody I know was friends with Daphne 😂) she asked her about this and Daphne said she wasn't surprised as white things don't exist in the bush and so the python would not have known what this white thing was. Of course Nina's friends said it was typical of her to bring a rabbit which make friends with a snake as she has such a way with animals ❤️

The other story I loved was from when she was an air hostess. There was a dreadful dictator in one of the African countries who uses to charter his own aeroplanes and use the same airline staff. When one of the staff was off sick one day, Nina, being young and beautiful was used as a replacement. She was told to take the duty free trolley to him for shopping, where clearly liking her, he offered that she choose anything on the expensive duty free trolley for herself. Being a highly moral person and not wanting any of his blood money, she said no thank you. I insist, he pushed. I'm not allowed to accept gifts she explained, but he persisted. No thank you! Call your senior he bellowed. Nina was called aside and told to accept the gift. I'll buy you the whole trolley he insisted..... No!

Eventually the captain arrived, ushering her into the cockpit. On landing, the Captain insisted she not leave the cockpit and took off as soon as the dictator disembarked so that there wasn't time for a retaliation on her. The dictator who I won't name was not used to being told no!

25 March - Karatu

We woke up at our leisure and had a lovely breakfast of museli and kefir.

Spent the day relaxing and making cakes for Vera's birthday party.

On the drive to Vera's we went through Gibbs coffee plantation and saw quite a few of the cute dik dik and a jackal.

The party was great, so many interesting people. Denis from Paris owned lodges all over Tanzia. Michael and Tina had a coffee farm nearby. Nick and Sally had just got back from seeing the Gorillas in Uganda. Harold was building electric game drive vehicles and some other guys had German names that I can't remember who worked with Vera, who si a nuclear scientist. Super clever people.

We had a delicious meal from Vera, such a lovely woman who lost her husband two years back.

Maretha's puddings were delicious!

Drive home

26 March - Karatu back to Arusha

Because of the muddy roads, Hugo drove us to Gibbs farm where we met Junior who drove us back to Arusha.

We stopped at an art shop on the way with beautiful pieces. 

We stopped at a Tanzanite shop and watched a video. You can only mine them here.

My only pair of slops broke and they were fixed in 5 mins

We spent the night at Tom's lodge, Ilboro 

After Jannie and I had we swim we joined Maretha and friends at the bar where we chatted until dinner. One lady owned a safari company. Pieter, from Holland was military intelligence who had lived in Congo with Lizbet his partner, who has studied animal communication. The stories were all so entertaining.  

We had dinner with Tom (German) and his beautiful Tanzanian wife, who's name I can't remember.