TRAVEL THROUGH TANZANIA

Dropped the family off at the airport this morning, which concludes the vacation part of the trip.  Now on to the real work!  A few notes on our travel through Tanzania and Kenya:

-          The Lonely Planet guidebook section on Ngorongoro Crater REALLY needs to be updated.  The books says that when you show up at the park you just go to the office, pay an entry fee for your car and for each person entering.  IN REALITY…you show up at the park and they act like they’ve never seen a tourist before and wonder why you’d want to go to the park.  Then they tell you to go back into the nearby town to their other office.  Then their office tells you to go to the Exim Bank on the edge of town to pay and bring back a receipt.  The Exim bank isn’t really sure how much you pay, so you can help them with that.  It’s actually $200 more than the guide book says.  Then back to the office to show the receipt and pick up a 24 hour pass, which you can then take BACK to the park entrance.  Of course by this time it’s already too late in the day to see the park so you have to wait until the next morning.  Then the next morning you get back to the park entrance and they look at you like you’re the first person to ever show up with an entrance pass.  All pretty funny and very African. 

-          Aside from that, there were about 5 or 6 other steps you had to get through to make it in and out of the park.  In typical African fashion they have stocked the park with loads of patronage jobs.  I counted 3 check-in areas and 2 check-out areas, each staffed with at least 3 people not doing very much. 

-          All that said, once I had convinced everyone that we really were allowed to go into the park, they let me drive my own SUV rental straight through the crater for our own personal safari.  Pretty awesome!!  I’m pretty sure I’m one of the first mzungus (white people) to drive into the crater because you’re supposed to go through a guide service. 

-          The roads in and out of Tanzania and on the way to the park are actually really nice.  But every 3-5 miles they have a series of speed bumps that require you to slow down to under 10 mph.  The worst part is that each speed bump is it’s own creation and, like snowflakes, no two are the same.  So some you can cruise through at 10 mph, while others you’ll be lucky if going 2 mph doesn’t launch your luggage out the window.  Definitely keeps you alert and makes the whole ride more of an adventure!

-          Peeing on the side of the road is still a thing in Africa, and it…is…AWESOME!  But it’s kind of funny when Africans do it because they only turn away from the rest of their party in the car, even if that means turning TOWARDS oncoming traffic.

-          If you make a plan to go see Mt. Kilimanjaro, make sure there are no clouds.  Otherwise you might drive 3 hours out of your way to sit down at an amusement park waiting for the clouds to clear, which might never happen.

-          Nairobi traffic sucks

So like I said, finished with the exploration part of the trip and off to the Kenyan highlands for a summer running camp.  The kids all arrive tonight and we’ll catch a flight to Kitale for the short ride to Iten, which is the small town we’ll be staying in for the summer.  Before leaving Kitale, however, we’ve been invited to have tea at the home of Wesley Korir, the 2012 Boston Marathon Champion.   Nbd.  Excited to get out there and see what makes those Kenyan runners tick!  This first group will be here for three weeks and then the second group shows up.  The last three days of the trip include a trip out to Maasai Mara, the most popular safari park in Kenya.  Should be pretty fun!

A few pics from the trip...