Gelli goes South-ish

On reflection, i have come to the conclusion that whilst i hated the Masai Mara, it wasn't the Mara as such, but, rather, the human behavior there. The radio contact was a major irritant for me, but I have also realised that what really made it so bad was the fact that there were no limits. Although there were some Roads and tracks, in general terms the guides pretty much drove wherever they wanted. If something was spotted off the road by a few hundred metres, they would instantly drive cross-country to get closer, and thus like students to free-beer, would act as a magnet for yet more vehicles to arrive from all angles.

In the Serengeti (which translates as Endless plains), however, everybody stayed strictly on the marked roads and paths, and radio contact was much more minimal – indeed there were several different networks depending on which larger group they were associated with, and so far fewer people to actually spot things and announce what and where. Plus the distances involved and spread of vehicles mean't that it generally wasn't even practical to head to a sighting, even if it sounded really good.

And so the 24hours we had in the Serengeti were significantly more enjoyable for me. After arriving around 3pm, we drove around for about 3hours before heading to camp, and got almost unbelievably lucky. First, we saw a large rock (that's how lucky we were – an elusive rock!) which apparently has some relevance to somebody standing on it and singing in the film the Lion King which is set in the Serengeti, although having not seen the film it didn't make such an impression on me.

But then, and almost without making much in the way of effort or diversion, we came across...

This pride of Lions was happily sunning itself on a big rock. Two more lions were about 50metres away on another rock

And then this couple...

Lion sex is an interesting thing. It is relatively quick, but apparently it is repeated every 15-25minutes for 3whole days to ensure that pregnancy is assured. What state either of them is in after 3days of constant humping is anybodies guess. The female here also has a collar with a GPS which enables her to be tracked by the rangers as part of a project to collect data on lion movements within the Serengeti

Followed by this lovely family...

These guys were barely a few metres off the road and we almost passed them without noticing. I won't say much else except to say, damned, aren't those babies so cute!

and finally this elusive fellow...

In comparison to the one in the Masai, this leopard was given much more room and respect and was not crowded at all. It actually felt like an achievement when we spotted him, and it somehow also felt much more natural

And all that is without mentioning the hoardes of wildebeest, buffalo and zebra, the antelopes, hippos and occasional elephant and giraffe. By the time we set up camp (though on a campsite, we were in no way fenced off from the animals and were at the mercy of any curious or hungry creature) we were all very happy with the days events. At the campsite, there was no electricity or water, we were in canvas tents and the sky was brilliantly star filled. I loved it!

The following day we headed out for an early morning drive, and came across another leopard, were charged by a huuuuuge elephant, watched what we thought was going to be a lion attack – a male lion was stalking 2lionesses and some cubs with intent – but ended up in a happy family reunion, a cheetah, some families of elephant and lots of what I am now classing as 'standard' animals. It's amazing how you start glossing over certain animals, such as zebra and buffalo, which to begin with are amazing sights yet quickly start to seem mundane. After a massive brunch back at camp, we slowly headed out the park, and were treated to one final great sight – that of a mass of zebra (and occasional wildebeest) drinking at a waterhole.

I may not have managed to see the famed wildebeest migration in all it's glory, but otherwise I can't really complain, and in comparison to my Masai trip I much preferred it.

One of the small things I love about Africa in general, is just how colourful many of the the birds, insects and lizards are

We came across this family early on the second day, which included several baby elephants and the poor guy on the left, who is disabled (look at his trunk)

Top: Wildebeest on the plain, followed by hippos in the pool and serval monkeys playing, and (bottom) watching lions sleeping on the rock, who are just visible to the left of the rock by the tree

I am a nerd. Whilst not always wanting to admit it, if I am honest, i regularly display nerd-like tendencies. And thus it was that everybody was forced out of bed an hour early, solely to satisfy my requirement of visiting Olduvai Gorge, somewhere which the other tourists had never even heard of. The road to the gate of Ngorongoro National Park was wonderfully new and pristine and had the sort of hills that make me crave a bicycle (Italian incidents notwithstanding). The road from the gate on to the rim of the Crater and down the other side is rough, winding, with sheer drops and was, when we passed over it, so misty that visibility was pretty much restricted to inside the vehicle. Which is not always ideal when you are trying to drive over it. By the time we got to Olduvai a few hours later, there were a couple of relieved faces in the vehicle.

As previously mentioned, Olduvai Gorge is where Louis Leakey, Hans Beck and the team discovered signs of human habitation dating back 3.5million years, the oldest yet found anywhere on Earth. The area of Olduvai – which is actually Oldupai, but is called Olduvai because the first European to reach this point (Beck) misheard the tribesmen's pronunciation. Even now, some of the locals dislike Germans solely because Beck was responsible for getting the name wrong. - and Laetoli (where the famous footprints were found) covers a huge area, and is still largely unsearched: teams from all over the world visit every year to help with the ongoing excavations and searches and discoveries, at least on a small scale, are still common. And there is much which remains entirely unknown and/or open to various interpretations. It is just a small glimpse – but a tantalising one – into the origins of humankind.

For us, it was just a 90minute stop to peer into the Gorge, wander the museum, and hear a lecture about what we were seeing and it's discovery given by a very friendly and enthusiastic local, although one who did spend about half of his talk drilling into us the fact that it really should be Oldupai. But it was still good. I would have loved to have had more time to explore the Gorge and the surrounding areas, and to have been able to spend a week or more helping out with the digging, but sadly it is not to be. At least not now, at any rate. Now it was time to continue on our merry way, and see what we might see.

In what will rapidly become an extremely boring tradition, todays snippet of African news comes from another newspaper though i have forgotten which, but mentions that a big but struggling South African TV station has paid a huge sum of money to the grandson of Nelson Mandela for exclusive rights to the funeral of the great man, reasoning that coverage of the funeral will magically solve all the stations problems. Now whilst i know that he is not the youngest of people, I didn't think he was dead just yet, and buying funeral coverage for somebody still alive (and not even from the person in question) just seems very wrong to me.

Anyway.

I miss Fred

And there is nothing I can do about it as he is now enjoying constant attention, booze and saunas in Finland.

With thoughts of doom in my head, and increasingly not wanting to actually be involved in what I had just spent 540usd to do, we left Moshi just after a lucky break in the clouds had allowed me to see the summit Kilimanjaro towering over the town.

Though it was never clear enough to see in all it's glory, i did at least get to see the peak of Kilimanjaro sneaking through the clouds

My spirits were hardly raised when we collected the other 4 people on our tour: an American couple plus their daughter and her friend, and I discovered that (a) they were from Iowa – not necessarily a bad thing, but in my case there are 2 separate stories in the midsts of time there – and (b) the father, Jeff, had never before left the USA. I admit that a feeling of dread started to descend over me. The fact that they spent the next several hours pretty much discussing every college student and shopping mall in Iowa in great detail, and lots of religious discussion did not exactly help. Happily, I need not have worried. They all turned out to be really nice people, and the tour guide Simbo was also superb.

I actually enjoyed the tour. After driving to the small town of Manyara we set up camp and headed out to Lake Manyara National Park. The Lake takes up a fairly large proportion of the park, meaning the area to drive through is fairly compact. But it also has a good variety of wildlife, of which we saw lots: elephants, giraffes, buffalo, flamingo, antelope of various breeds, zebra and several species of monkey amongst much else. But what Lake Manyara NP is famous for is Tree Climbing Lions, which are very rare in the wild. Apparently, the lions climb trees up to 4 or 5metres in order to avoid being attacked by certain insects which proliferate around the alkaline lake.

And we saw some. They were great, though I am not sure I have ever seen animals looking quite so content and uncomfortable at the same time. Though obviously at ease with the tree, they were also resting with paws literally holding on for grim death: they reminded me of a small child who has happily climbed a tree without fear before suddenly looking down, realising what he has done and then refusing to move/climb down again, out of a massive sudden fear of falling.

Now, if only we can find that elusive giraffe climbing a tree, we'll be all sorted!

No, they are not tree climbing giraffes (sadly), but I liked them just the way they are. And with Fred awol, they are my only reminder of him

This family of baboons was over 100 strong, and walked in an extremely ordered fashion

This guy was happily standing by the side of the road until we approached, whereupon he embarked upon a great branch waving ceremony, seemingly solely for our entertainment

A view across Lake Manyara

I'm not entirely sure why I will start with a note from the national news, but as nobody complained last time I did it, i figured i may as well do it again. Todays snippet comes from a Tanzanian paper that might have been 'the Guardian', but then again, might not have. It was a small item announcing that Norway were opening a new Consulate on Zanzibar today. In itself, that is not particularly amazing, I grant you, but two small things jumped out at me about it: The first was that whilst the Norwegians said that really, the amount of trade and interaction between Zanzibar and Norway was too small to normally warrant such a move – perhaps understandably: After all when you think of the worlds largest or most important trade partners, they aren't two that instantly spring to mind -, 'an increasing number of Norwegians are finding they require assistance on Zanzibar, but generally only of the consular nature'. Translation: lots of Norwegians are 'losing' their passports (and almost certainly most are not accidental loses, either) and need new ones in a hurry*. The second thing that amused me was that the consular officer who has been appointed is actually Danish, after a thorough search for a qualified Norwegian familiar with the island was, apparently, 'sadly unsuccessful'.

And now I've happily wasted a paragraph.

As you might deduce from the fact i was reading a Tanzanian newspaper, i was back in Tanzania and bouncing merrily down the not yet built Arusha-Nairobi main road (although the later part, you might not have deduced. If you did, serious kudos). I was back in Tanzania for a couple of reasons, most relevantly of which was that my previous days violation had gone reasonably well and I now had almost a week free before I needed to be back in Nairobi. My love of that glorious city has already been documented in these annals, and thus (especially as I have a still valid Tanzanian visa) I had resolved to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

Bouncing down the 'hopefully-will-be-a-real-road-in-a-few-years' south of the border, the only tourist on the bus and on a gloriously sunny morning, I suddenly felt perfectly content: I was no longer in Nairobi, my rear end was coping with the bouncing with surprising ease, I was listening to some good music and gazing happily out of the window whilst my mind merrily wandered. Then, from above the layer of cloud, I saw Kilimanjaro – or at least the patchy snowy sides of the top kilometer or so of Kilimanjaro, and its summit – in the distance, and for the first time in a while i actually felt properly happy with the world and was enjoying my travels again. Great stuff.

Sure, there was a small (OK: really large) pang of regret that I wouldn't be able to climb it anytime soon (for reasons of both current issue and Italian exploits from last year....), but that just gives me an excuse to return to East Africa, and hopefully soon. More than that was the joy at realising that it actually exists: Maaret and I had traveled this way twice when we went to Arusha, without being able to see it and I had begun to wonder whether my relationship with the mountain would turn out to be similar to that of Mt. Fuji-San (for those lucky enough not to remember that tedium – or the non Kiki parts anyway – there is more detail here.

Oh great. The electricity has just died completely. So I am now sitting in the bowels of a pitch black hostel, with just the strange glow from my laptop for company. But lets move on, and see if i can finish this warble before the battery dies.

But as I mentioned above, there were a couple of reasons for coming, and here we explore the main one. Back when I was still pretty much chained to a loo in Nairobbery, I had spent some time googling and looking at ideas. After realising that independent travel to most of the East African parks is either not possible or hideously expensive, I had begun to investigate tours. Though I generally detest guided tours, i am also realistic – and poor – enough to accept that sometimes, they are the only way I will be able to visit certain places.I have long wanted to visit the Ngorongoro Crater and the nerd inside me (or, perhaps more correctly, the nerd that is me) really wants to visit Olduvai Gorge and see the area where the Louis Leakeyand family had done so much brilliant archaeological work, and found the remains of Homo Hablis (aka the Handy man) a major link in the evolution of humans. I had found a decent sounding and affordable tour from a company who had been recommended to me, and provisionally booked it on the hope that I would be well again. So far, so good, i hear you say.

However, all Ngorongoro trips come tagged onto trips to a much larger and generally better known attraction: The Serengeti National Park, and here lies the issue. Although Ngorongoro is a famous and compact game reserve in its own right, I want to visit for the geology of the Caldera as much as anything else. And when provisionally booking this trip, it looked like it would be perfect timing to catch the wildebeest migration, and a safari in the Serengeti sounded brilliant. But, of course, I had not been to the Masai Mara.

Now, I suddenly find myself heading to arguably the most famous and well known game reserve in the world (you could probably argue Kruger, but that would be it), an area of vast grassy savanna of the sort that, I'm sure will now realise, I have been to a week ago - the much smaller Masai Mara is actually part of the Serengeti ecosystem, and separated only by the irrelevant political boundary – and ended up hating immensely.

And, apparently, the wildebeest have moving on from the area that we will be in. Yup, I have been here for the whole of the most famous animal movement in the world, an event of apparently unrivaled grandeur, and despite visiting the middle and the end, will probably miss them in both locations by a matter of days.

My timing is impeccable as ever.

I am going to try and go into it without any preconceptions and take it on its own merits and experiences. And obviously, things might work very differently in the Serengeti to the radio-linked hunting madness of the Mara, especially given it's much greater size, although I sadly doubt it. But i must admit that pretty much the last thing that I want to do at the moment is go on a Safari (I am kind of animaled out and don't currently have the “wow” factor that you should have for such trips. I have, after all, recently seen the big 5...) in grassy savanna, much less one where there will be lots of other vehicles around all driving off-road – and thus affecting the habitat – whilst hunting down sightings mercilessly.

I will of course let you know how it went when I actually know, but if I don't, and you hear reports of, say, a crazed gunman killing lots tourists in different buses near some rare animals in the Serengeti, I wouldn't try to hard to put 2 and 2 together...

• Technical note: Despite the fact that Zanzibar is part of Tanzania (it is, in fact, the central 'zan' part of it), it maintains many independent rules and regulations, including running its own immigration checks. As a result, you have to fill out immigration forms and get your passport stamped on arrival/departure from Zanzibar, even if you have come from/are going directly to the mainland. Which means that it is not quite as simple for Norwegians – or anybody else – who have lost their passports to just get a boat to Dar and replace it at the embassies there, as one might suppose

I probably dream about all sorts of exciting and exotic things and am periodically a superhero. Actually, scrub that. I probably dream of sheep, London bus routes and comparisons between the drying abilities of glossy and matt paint. But either way, I just don't know. I have often marveled at how people can remember often bizarre dreams in great detail, and then regale them to friends or colleagues hours or even days later. I can't do that, so as far as I know, everybody else could be making all the bunkum about their dreams up. For myself, I can generally tell you within about 10seconds of waking vaguely what i was dreaming about, and within 30seconds if I had been dreaming or not. Within 90seconds of waking, it is extremely unusual that i can even remember if i had been dreaming, let alone what it may have been about if I was. The only dream in my entire life i can remember is the toilet dream (which is vaguely similar to a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip where Calvin dreams he has got out of bed and got to school, or, alternatively, Groundhog Day). Details are unimportant, except to say that it is an occasional recurring dream which gets longer each time i have it, and has potential to end very, very badly if I really don't wake up.

I have never been a consistent sleeper. As a young child i have a vague idea that I used to fall asleep quickly, sleep deeply and for long periods, though how much of that was actual sleep and how much was just me really not wanting to get up for school is now lost to time. Since then I have regularly struggled. I have had a couple of periods of really bad insomnia (at one point, I slept about an hour a week, which was drug induced), and even now can easily go periods of a couple of days or more without sleep if i need to. The last few months have generally seen me awaken between about 3.15 and 3.35am, for no obvious reason.

I am also generally an extremely light sleeper. I have such an inbuilt paranoia complex that anything moving in the room/area where I am sleeping will pretty much wake me, even if it is something insignificant like a s0dding mosquito. The average person, apparently takes 8minutes to fall asleep. Some – like Hanna, her of the Namibian adventures – are pretty much out from the second they hit the bed, whereas I am at the other extreme: Anything under an hour or so is good for me, and it is not unknown for me to still be sleepless 2 or 3 hours later.

And unless I am traveling (on a bus, train, boat or occasionally as a car passenger), I find it pretty much impossible to take a daytime nap, regardless of how tired i feel or how much i yawn. Even the act of lying down on my bed during the day can wake me up. It is very odd, and also kind of frustrating. And even when I am traveling, I tend to sleep much less than other passengers: I sometimes find it spooky to look around and see everybody else on my bus or train carriage asleep, and occasionally wonder if I have some inbuilt immunity to this drugged air that they must have pumped in for nefarious reasons in order to send all the passengers asleep.

But the worse for me is when I know I have to be up early for a specific reason. Take today, for example**. I had to be leaving early, and so had arranged a taxi for 5:45am and set the alarm for 5:25. The previous night, i had started to feel tired around 21:30 but for reasons unknown had ignored it and not gone to bed until after midnight. I was awake by 4am. So last night, I was determined to try and get some sleep and not make the same mistake. Thus I was in bed by 22:15 and even fell asleep quite quickly. And so it was that I woke up several hours later, happily refreshed and ready for the day, and a few minutes before my alarm was due to go off so as not to wake the others in the dorm. Perfect, I thought.

Until i looked at the time. 00:11, it said.

• I have shamelessly stolen the title from The Eels, and in fact got the idea for this utterly irrelevant post after re-hearing the song. So blame them. But not too badly. I love that song (and can even envisage where it should go in a film soundtrack: In fact I have long had pretty much an entire film soundtrack in my head, where i can see what should be playing at certain scenes. All I need to do now is write a damned film script that draws them altogether – which will be tricky as they are diverse – and i'm pretty much onto a winner).

• * Yes, I know that by the time I actually get around to posting this thing, it won't be today, or probably even this week. But, honestly, who cares.