Arusha - and yet another safari

Some days ago, I finally went from Nairobi in Kenya to Arusha in the north-west of Tanzania. 🙄 The border crossing was very smooth. I just had to queue in multiple lines after another to get stamped out of Kenya 🇰🇪 and stamped in in Tanzania 🇹🇿 So, my passport has now two more documented country entries/exits.
It took a while ⏳ until all passengers of our bus went through the process so that I (and many other travelers) waited approximately half an hour at the bus stop for the continuation of our journey to Arusha. This was the perfect opportunity for the Masai women to offer their souvenirs to us. 😅„Maria“ was particularly persistent and agreed with me after a long discussion that I will buy something when I cross the border the next time - she will be waiting for me. 😉 She gave me a bracelet for free and I gave her 100 KES (0.60 EUR) in return since I couldn’t do anything with that cash in Tanzania anyways. 🤷 Then the journey continued through the surprisingly green countryside of north-west Tanzania until I arrived at 3 pm in Arusha. Kaili (from the Netherlands) - who stayed in the same Hostel as I - was also on the same bus 🚌 as me for the entire trip from Nairobi. She was researching the impact of tourism on the Masai people in Tanzania for her master’s degree and just returned from visiting some friends in Nairobi. Since she had been in the hostel (Villa Viva) before, she knew the telephone number of the driver of the hostel and arranged a free pickup for us. 👍
In the hostel, I quickly got to know Pedro (from Denmark). He was leaving the next day to Zanzibar but it might be that I meet him there again. However, the majority of guests in the Villa Viva were from Germany 🇩🇪 The owner (Tizia) is also German and arranges volunteering and work-away trips in Tanzania for Germans. So, naturally this attracts many tourists from our country, I guess. However, a German family from Hamburg - who were there for vacation - was also in the Villa: Matthias & Yvonne as well as their kids Onno, Hannah and Irma. Hannah and Irma were on a 4-day hiking trip of Mt. Meru ⛰️; that’s why I met them only later. But with Matthias, Yvonne and Onno I went to an Ethiopian Restaurant for dinner 🍽️ one night. The food was very delicious and talking to the family was really interesting. I was grateful that they welcomed me so warmly. ☺️
Initially, I wanted to see Lake Natron which is north of Arusha. After all, its stunning photos I had seen on Google Maps were the reason why I came to that region. But organising a tour to Lake Natron proved way more difficult than I thought. 😩 Tour operators offer trips to that destination but usually only in combination with Safaris in Serengeti or other close-by conservation areas as well as at least one overnight stay in a camp 🏕️ I just wanted to see the landscape as I had been already on enough safaris in Kenya and had seen plenty of animals. Also, safaris in Tanzania seemed to be almost twice as expensive 🫰as in Kenya. So, I would have had to get up at 5 am in the morning, organise my own 4-5 hour long transport to some village north of Arusha and then meet a local guide who takes me from there to Lake Natron - too exhausting and too complicated! 🥴
Instead, I pivoted to visiting the Ngorogoro Crater (actually also a safari) which many travellers coming from Tanzania had recommended to me and negotiated with a tour operator the price for a one day trip (more or less reasonable 220 EUR). And I believe I could not have made a better choice! 😌 It was still a long day with a start at 5 am and a finish at around 8 pm but at least pickup and drop off were at the Villa Viva. I was picked up at 5.40 pm though - apparently there had been a change of plans so that I had been the last one to be picked up instead of first but I didn’t knew that at the time. I wished I could have slept 30 min. longer … but stuff like that is simply normal in Tanzania because everyone is on “African time”. 🤣
After pickup we drove for approximately 2 hours to meet the others of our group for breakfast. In my group there were 7 other travellers (mostly from Europe but also a woman from Japan) and Omari - our driver. I befriended Jonas & Marlin (from Denmark) during the day since the three of us sat in the back of the 4x4 vehicle 🚐 and during the drive we had plenty of time for entertaining conversations.
After breakfast we made our way to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This natural reserve 🏞️ hosts - on an area of 8.300 square kilometres - one of the most wonderful combinations of landscapes and wildlife 🦁 that I have seen (so far) in Africa. It is part of the so-called Serengeti-Ngorongoro-Masai Mara ecosystem which’s eastern border is formed by the Great Rift Valley, while in the west it borders with the world-famous Serengeti National Park. Our first stop was a viewpoint at the edge of the crater which gave us a fantastic overview of the whole area. 📸 The crater exhibited a strikingly green and dramatic scenery which ranged from forested mountains to smaller and bigger lakes as well as rivers in vast open plains. Besides that we have seen many other animals as well as all members of the big five - except for the leopard 🐆 The Ngorongoro crater alone usually has 20.000 to 25.000 wild animals which cannot escape from it - no wonder it has been declared a World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve.
We spent the lunchtime in the middle of the crater at an idyllic picnic site 🥪 near a small lake and continued our game drive in the afternoon until we left the conservation area at about 4 pm. Then we started our long way back to Arusha. There was a bit of confusion about where everybody had to be dropped off. 🤯 Neither did our driver know where our respective accommodations were nor any efficient order of the locations to drive us to. So, we ended up crisscrossing through Arusha town until everyone was were they supposed to be. 😵‍💫 I was one of the last ones to be dropped off but I had no plans for the evening anyways - so “Pole Pole”, I guess? 😂(Pole Pole = Kiswahili for “slowly” or in this context rather “keep calm”)
On the next day, I deliberately took a day off: resting, swimming in the admirably cold pool of the Villa Viva (definitely the coldest in Africa 😅) and reading an exciting novel about 3 very different characters experiencing the civil war of the 1960s in Nigeria (the book 📕 is called “Half of a yellow sun” and I had exchanged it for another one in the Jabulani Hostel in Nairobi). I didn’t do much else since I was merely waiting for my flight ✈️ to Zanzibar on the next day. With only a couple of days left in my sabbatical, I am moving rapidly to the final destinations now. On Zanzibar I want to relax a bit more and enjoy the sun ☀️ before I have to go back to cold and rainy Germany. So, I will get back to you from Zanzibar again - until then: have a great time! 😌Read more