(Skip this if you just want to get to the good part…)

So much went into the planning and pre-trip preparation, I have to make a few comments about that part of the experience.

Carol’s cousin, Linda DeJong, and her husband Les, had been to Africa 4 times in the past, most recently in 1991. They had told us roughly two years ago that they wanted to go back sometime, and wondered if we might like to go with them. We agreed enthusiastically, not really knowing if anything would come of it or not. In early 2000 Linda told us they were considering going in late 2000 or early 2001, and asked if we were still interested. Of course, we said yes! So she began working with Journeys International, a travel company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to put together a package including many of the places they had been before and enjoyed and wanted to see again. Thus we got the benefit of their previous experiences, good and bad.

We had trouble finding some dates for the trip that didn’t interfere with either Les and Linda’s travel plans or our annual ski trip, so nothing much seemed to happen for most of 2000. Suddenly, late in the Fall, we agreed to try a March-April, 2001 time frame and plans started forming. There was a good bit of correspondence back and forth between Linda and Michelle Gervais, an agent at Journeys, about details of the trip. Whenever Linda would ask our opinion about anything, we would agree that our desires were to see and do as much as possible (primarily seeing the animals in the wild, the geography of the countries, and some exposure to the people and culture) but that we trusted her to set up travel details. None of us wanted days spent "relaxing by the pool" at some motel, or lying on the beach! We can do that in the U.S.!

Much of the trip had been put together by Michelle when she mentioned the possibility of getting permits to see the mountain gorillas in Uganda! We (all 4) said "YES!" to that idea, so Michelle had to rearrange the entire trip to include that excursion. That resulted in our "final" itinerary being put together in January.

Les and Linda had planned to spend much of the winter in Florida travelling in their motor home. Thus we corresponded by e-mail almost daily, passing back and forth questions, answers, advice, tips, and previous experiences concerning what to take.

Carol commenced making "Safari Clothes," finding khaki material that would look OK if washed in a sink and not ironed, and converting it into shirts, shorts and convertible shorts/long pants with zip-off legs. After she designed and made some of these we began to find them for sale in catalogs and stores, but it was an original idea for Carol. She also made some long sleeves to attach to a short-sleeved shirt, installing snaps to connect them. She even made "legs" for one pair of my shorts, sewing in zippers for easy conversion. We packed what we thought would be a minimal supply of clothes, but as usual there were some items we never wore!

Our most expensive purchase was gore-tex "rain suits," water proof jacket and pants combinations designed for golf use. The idea was to keep us dry in the rain forest (Uganda gorillas!) and for warmth if needed. They are light weight and not too bulky, and served the purpose well. As it turned out, the only time we wore them for "rain" protection was at the very end of the trip to protect us from the spray at Victoria Falls!

The only required immunization was yellow fever, but it was recommended that we also immunize against typhoid, polio, hepatitis A and B, and meningitis. We did all that, plus arranged to have pills to prevent malaria. These pills must be taken once a week, starting two weeks before departure and continuing for four weeks after return from affected areas.

Once our itinerary was in place we knew we had to obtain visas for travel in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Journeys recommended that we contact a company called G-3 and pay them to obtain our visas for us. They were expensive(!), and Linda told us she was going to do hers and Les’s on her own, by mailing their passports and immunization records and fees to each of the embassies in Washington, D.C. She informed us exactly how she planned to do it. It was a complicated process and time was fairly short, so we gritted our teeth, paid the extra fees to G-3, and sent them our materials to get our visas for us. This included several sets of passport photos, which made no sense to me. If we had simply showed up at the border and requested a visa to enter a country, no photos were needed, but if you apply in advance you are required to send them.

Because of the exorbitant fees charged by G-3 to get visas for us, we opted to use them only for Uganda and Tanzania (supposedly the more complicated countries to get into without advance visas), figuring we would just get our own for Zambia and Zimbabwe at the borders. After our materials were already in the mail to G-3, Journeys notified us that without warning Kenya was now also requiring advance visas after several years of not requiring them! That necessitated a few calls to G-3 asking them to hold our passports until we could send them the applications and fees for Kenya as well. They did. Linda was in a tizzy because her materials were somewhere between other embassies, and she had to ask one of those embassies to please forward her materials to the Kenyan embassy. She tried repeatedly to call the Kenyan embassy to explain what she needed. There was little response. We learned that several years before, when the Kenyan government decided they would NOT require a visa from an American traveler, they had recalled all the embassy staff that used to work providing visas. That staff was still in Kenya, and the embassy had no staff to fill the sudden urgent requests for visas! We began to wonder if our trip would proceed at all, or if this bureaucratic nightmare would ruin things! In the end, everything came through with just over a week to spare.

Although Les and Linda offered to take both video and still pictures and share the tapes and prints, we decided we wanted to take a camera also. We haven’t had a camera in years and years, so did a considerable amount of internet research on prices, features and consumer reviews before selecting an APS (24mm, not 35 mm) camera, the Nikon Pronea S. The deciding features were: mid-roll film change (to put in higher speed film in dark conditions), a small lightweight camera with automatic everything (point-and-shoot) or the option to select parameters manually if desired, the negatives are stored (after processing) in the film cassette with an "index print" to identify every shot. We bought the standard 30-60mm zoom lens, and the optional 60-180mm zoom lens for close-ups. We looked at other higher power lenses, but the cost became prohibitive for the amount of use we planned for the camera.

We bought 5 six-packs (30 rolls!) of 200 ASA 25-exposure film at Sam’s Club. Then we bought 8 rolls of 400 ASA. The literature about the mountain gorillas recommended some 800 ASA film for dark conditions in the rain forest, so we looked for some. I learned on the internet that Fujifilm had announced in November, 2000, that it was offering the first APS film in 800 ASA. I began my search by trying major retailers and on-line camera specialty stores with no success. The people at Ritz Camera, where we bought the Nikon camera, told me they had been trying to get some from Fuji but couldn’t.

I finally found a telephone number for Fujifilm USA customer service in New York City and was told that the film was available everywhere, no back orders. When I asked to be referred to a retailer who carried it I was told that, so sorry, it was against their policy to refer customers to specific retailers. Grumbling, I went back to the internet and the telephones. No luck. I called Fuji again and spoke with a supervisor, informing her of my problems. I got her attention by telling her that the central purchasing staff at Ritz Camera (in Maryland) were unable to get this film from Fuji. She paused and then admitted that Ritz Camera was one of their biggest accounts in North America. She would inform their sales group and her boss and definitely look into it! Bottom line: using an internet interest group message board (MSN.com, photography interest group) someone pointed me toward a camera store in; guess where… New York City(!) that had some. I bought three whole rolls from them! We DID use them on the trip. In fact, we have decided that we will try to get some before we take the camera on another trip. It worked well in low light and for shots when it was impossible to hold the camera steady and a high shutter speed was needed.

Rather than drive our car to Houston and leave it in the airport parking lot we decided to rent a car in Victoria and drive to Houston, then reserve a rental car in Houston for our return to drive to Victoria. Arrangements were made through Avis. The lady making the reservations, upon hearing my name, asked if I was the John Earle who worked at Seadrift Coke. It turns out she is the wife of a former employee! Victoria IS a small town, after all!

I thought I had made it clear that we wanted to pick up the car for the drive to Houston as early as possible on March 17, and I was told that it would be ready at the airport at 7:30 AM. Carol and I drove to the airport, arriving at 7:25. There was nobody at the Avis counter. We waited. Finally, at 8:00 AM I called Avis’ 800 number to ask when the Victoria airport counter would open. They had no idea. They had my rental confirmation number on file, but could not tell me how to reach a Victoria area employee of Avis! When I asked for a supervisor and told her that SOMEBODY at SOME Avis office MUST know how to reach the head of the Victoria office, she assured me that yes, somebody did, but this was a Saturday morning and those people were not at work. I asked her HOW I was supposed to get my car? She didn’t know.

Finally I remembered that I knew the name of the husband of the lady who had made my reservations! He is in the telephone book! I looked up his number, called him, and got him and his wife out of bed (it was now almost 8:30). She came to the airport and got me the car I had reserved. I felt better when I noticed written on the contract< "Needed at 7:30 AM!" Apparently there was another employee who was supposed to be at the airport early to get the car for me, but she had forgotten and wouldn’t have shown up until after 10:30 AM. We STILL would have made it to Houston on time for our flight, but it would have been a lot closer and we would have been panicked! There are some advantages to small town life!

We actually left the house at 9:15 AM, all packed and ready to drive to Houston Intercontinental Airport. We stopped at Denny’s for "lunch" at 9:30, and bought some "to go" food to eat at Carol’s parents’ apartment on the way out of town. We realized that we had forgotten some minor items (including a house key to let ourselves back into the house when we returned!), so returned to the house at 9:45 one last time. After visiting with the Wynns and eating our take-out, we left Victoria at 10:30. The drive to the airport and return of the rental car was uneventful.

At the KLM counter we found ourselves waiting in line for one of the three available agents to check us in and check our bags to Nairobi. We felt some apprehension as we listened to the people ahead of us in line talk to the airline personnel. Most of the discussions involved problems with assigned seating and other issues, but the demeanor of the KLM folks was generally sour and confrontational. I had phoned KLM a few weeks before to ask about seat assignments, and had been assured that we would be assigned "exit row" seats (with LOTS of leg room). Typically the airlines can't assign those seats without first looking at the passenger to ensure they are capable of getting the exit door open in an emergency, but I was told we could have them sight unseen.

When our turn came at the counter we approached an agent who had been quite abrupt with the passenger ahead of us, but we smiled bravely and handed her our tickets. As she looked up at us, we could see her entire expression and attitude soften and become pleasant! The only explanation is that the Lord truly gave us favor in her eyes. She was cheerful and began telling us some of her life's story (emigrated from Cuba 30 years ago, hates guns, really dislikes handling guns for passengers who are going to Africa to HUNT animals… We assured her we just had a camera! She chatted on about President Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs, the 2’nd amendment, how beautiful Carol’s outfit was, and more.) After a few clicks on her keyboard she brightly assured us, "Oh! You have exit row seats!" No problems, no hassles! The dramatic turnaround in her attitude was clear proof that the Lord was going with us on this trip and would watch over us in little things as well as big areas.

Our tickets for the flight had indicated that "Breakfast" would be served. Since we were boarding the aircraft at 3:45 PM we had wondered, "What about dinner?" We needn’t have worried. Once airborne we were served drinks, then a hot dinner, more drinks, then 5 hours into the flight our choice if ice cream, chips, or an apple, more drinks, juice, then breakfast (delicious!) We landed in Amsterdam shortly after dawn, very well fed.

Looking out the airport windows in Amsterdam we were surprised to see that it was snowing (mixed with rain)! I had forgotten it was still winter in Northern Europe.

The KLM flight to Nairobi departed on time. The flight was to be 8 ½ hours, and unfortunately we didn’t have exit row seats on this leg. We caught glimpses of some dramatic alpine scenery through persistent clouds. The flight went right down the boot of Italy, across the Mediterranean Sea, and over the Sahara. The desert was a uniform, hazy brown with few distinct features, and it seemed to go on and on for hours under the speeding jet. We noticed some very large irrigation circles in the bleakness; some green, but some fading back to brown.

We could pick out some irregular terrain, and amazingly we could see vehicle tracks in the sand from over 30,000 feet up! Those appeared to be the only "roads," and they went on for miles and miles. We were still flying over desert terrain when dusk settled in. After dark, there were no lights to be seen on the ground.

We were met in Nairobi by Joseph and Joyce, two representatives of Luke Travel, the Kenyan travel operator. We changed $60 into Kenyan Shillings (KS 4,220) and, since no photos were allowed in the airport, we took a picture of J. and J. after we got to the Stanley Hotel. On the way into town I spotted a billboard that made me laugh, and we took a picture of it later in the trip. It was an ad for Raid bug killer, whose slogan is "Kills Bugs Dead!" The slogan on the billboard read, "Kills Dudus Dead!" (Dudu is the Swahili word for "bug.") A hot shower at the hotel felt wonderful, and sleep came pretty easily! Les and Linda were to arrive about 2 hours behind us, so we planned to meet them in the morning for breakfast.

We were to ride in a mini-bus from Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania on Monday morning. We got up fairly early and had a huge breakfast in the Stanley dining room: fresh fruit, rolls, omelets, bacon and sausage, toast, tea and coffee. Les and Linda came in about 5 minutes behind us and we compared notes on our flights. KLM came out far ahead of their airline in terms of food service and the attitudes of the flight attendants.

After breakfast we tried to buy some bottled water at a super market across the street from the Stanley, but it didn’t open until 8:30 and we were supposed to leave at 8:00. The bus showed up (almost on time. We decided later in the trip that "on time" in Africa didn’t mean the same thing as in the States. We began referring to "Africa time."), and we loaded our bags on the roof and climbed in. There were 7-8 other people on the bus with us making the trip to Arusha but we didn’t engage them in much conversation. Linda asked the driver if we could stop and buy some water, and he was happy to do so. I was able to spend some of the Kenyan Shillings I had bought, but U.S. currency was readily accepted almost everywhere we went.

We really realized we were in Africa when, driving through countryside that looked for all the world like Texas ranch and brush country, we saw 3 giraffes fairly close to the road! Termite mounds were everywhere, from ant-hill size to 12 feet tall and as big around at the base as a hut! If it had been clear we would have been able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, but although we could make out the base, the peak was shrouded in clouds.

When we crossed the border between Kenya and Tanzania we had to go through a passport desk in each country. All luggage had to be brought down off the roof of the bus and brought into the "customs" building. An official in Tanzania wanted me to open my suitcase, but seemed quickly disinterested once it was open. I closed it up again, and all the bags were tossed back up on top of the bus and covered with a tarp.

We were accosted by native women trying to sell (to us obvious tourists) necklaces and bracelets and other articles. We refused all offers, even though some might have been a good deal, because we had just arrived and had no idea what we might have opportunity to buy later in the trip or in other countries. Plus we didn’t want to have to lug around souvenirs for the entire 3 ½ weeks, preferring to buy late in the trip. That seemed like the smart thing to do, but now I know that it pays to look at what is being sold in each place because there may be something unique that won’t be seen again. The items we bought later were all small and easily carried around.

We learned that the entire road from Nairobi to Arusha was paved! We hadn’t expected to see that much paved road. Driving into Arusha we were struck by seeing our first Masai people, burros with packs hauling goods, camels, a lot of corn being grown, and beautiful flowering trees. One of the signs we saw marked the location of "YWAM in Arusha." The weather was partly cloudy, temperature in the low 80’s – not unpleasant.

We were met in Arusha by two people from "Shades of Africa," the Tanzanian tour operator: Susan and our driver/guide Mrosso. They took us to the Impala Hotel where we had lunch (a buffet), briefed us on what to expect for the next 4 days, and put us into Mrosso’s capable hands to drive us to our first night’s lodge near Lake Manyara.

Following lunch, Linda asked if we could see and price some tanzanite jewelry. These are purplish-blue stones mined only in Tanzania, and have been declared a precious gem by gemologists. Unfortunately the stones are "ghali sana" (Swahili for "very expensive"), and Linda quickly realized they were out of her price range (which meant they were WAY out of our price range!)

On our way out of Arusha we stopped at an "Tanzanian Cultural Center" to shop for curios. It was a large, fairly fancy "tourist trap" simply bulging with animal carvings from many kinds of wood and stone, crafts, bead work, baskets, masks, and on and on. Many of the items were actually fairly nice (as opposed to crude), so we bought two small carvings there to give as gifts. The "staff" made it abundantly clear that the marked price was not the final price. This was our first experience in bargaining. We picked up a carving, asked the person hovering nearby how much, and regardless of what he said we then asked him to go to the man at the cash register and find out the "best" price they could sell it for. We learned that even that number was also negotiable! And, once they found out what we were willing to pay, many other items were held up and offered at that same price! It really made you wonder what the actual cost of those items was. Probably so low we wouldn't have believed it!

It was mid-afternoon before we left town, pausing again to take pictures of a coffee plantation and the yellow-flowering "Cassia" trees along the road. We headed West toward Lake Manyara National Park, about a 2 hour drive. The road was paved for a few miles – the last pavement we saw until we returned to Nairobi for the flight to Uganda – then it became dirt and gravel. We passed through a small town named "Mbulu Mto." Mrosso told us the name translated to "Mosquito River." Sounds like a fun place to live!

Mrosso drove us past the entrance to the National Park to our lodging for the night, Kirurumu Lodge. This was our first experience at a tent lodge. The sleeping quarters were indeed tents, but they were "permanent" structures, pitched on a platform or slab, and covered with a second canvas roof and sometimes a thatched roof over that! Inside were electric lights, a private bath with hot and cold running water and a flush toilet, and a full size bed under mosquito netting, or sometimes twin beds. No, none of them had air conditioning. But we never missed it! Although we were right on the equator, the elevation was usually at least 5-6,000 feet, so the nights were cool and the humidity was only oppressive in Uganda. Anyway, really "rough" living!

As with most of the "luxury" tent camps and lodges, we were met by an employee with a tray loaded with glasses of cold fruit juice. Our bags were snatched up by Masai people employed as porters and bellmen (one bag per porter – more tip money that way!) and carried to our tents. The standard tip was one U.S dollar per porter. Actually, according to the guidelines, a dollar was considered a quite generous tip. And it seemed to be much appreciated!

The dining area was open-air under a thatched roof. Tables with cloth tablecloths and napkins, candlelight, real glassware and china, and fabulous 3,4 or 5-course dinners, always starting with soup, sometimes an appetizer of fruit, then a main course with fish or meat and vegetables, then dessert. That first night I had Tilapia, a local fresh-water fish found in East African rift lakes, while Carol opted for the braised sirloin. Deee-licious!

A quick note about beers. We decided to try at least one of the local beers in each country. I had read before the trip about Tusker, a Kenyan beer, so Les and I had one of those during lunch in Arusha at the Impala Hotel. Not bad. Carol tasted it also and pronounced it "good." Mrosso recommended Kili Beer in Tanzania, named for Mt. Kilimanjaro. Very smooth, pleasant tasting beer. We had some with dinner at the Kirurumu lodge.

Tuesday, March 20. (Day 4)

Up at dawn! Today will be our first game drive! We packed up everything before breakfast, then ate in the open air dining area. Fruit, juices, cereals, eggs to order including omelets, meats, breads, etc. The porters brought our bags to the front, we loaded up the land cruiser and took off, driving past the huts of local residents with garden plots of corn and vegetables.

We stopped at the entrance to the Lake Manyara National Park to "stretch our legs" (euphemism for a potty stop) while Mrosso made arrangements for us to go in. There was a commotion in the trees overhead, and we were surprised to see blue monkeys all around. Suddenly several of them, including a mother with a baby clinging to her underside, ran across the parking lot! I tried to snap some pictures, but most were out of focus or indistinct. Then, in another group of trees, were a number of baboons! No, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!

We drove into the park and immediately were surrounded by baboons on the ground and in the road.

A little further into the park we were surprised by elephants coming towards the road. We stopped to let them pass, as they definitely have the right of way. The riddle goes, "Where does an elephant go in the day time?" The answer: "ANYwhere it wants!"