Day one Arusha Natl Safari.

The team is hurting, we are both sick with one down with fever (malaria?). Alas we press on. After two underwhelming days in Dar es Salam, where we ate some suspect local food (see sickness above) and had some hotel fiascos and a 10 hour bus ride to Arusha with Sweden's #4 folk-punk band (you can't make this stuff up). We are now in arusha the launch point for Kili, Mt Maru and the northern safari circuit. The intensity of street and safari hecklers has been taken up to a new level. Like top athletes training for the Olympics, these guys have have taken things to a level unseen as of yet. By US standards we are now being stalked by several separate teams of safari operators most notable Godfry and his cook Elliot. They met us one night at a hotel and Elliot managed to "run into us" on three separate occasions in Arusha the next day to pitch his wares. A for effort, F for skeezzyness. By "run into" I mean stalk in a minivan.

Just to get a taste we went with the Peter and Masawri team for a one day trial run to Arusha National. $120/ea later and after a slight dispute on who was supposed to bring the box lunches we were in the park. 500m inside we see 5 giraffes, so frigging cool. Another 1km and the road opens up with this view of an edensque plain of Giraffe, Zebra, Warthog, Bush-buck, and Cape Buffalo. Just like in the lion king they were all drinking and feeding in Harmony. The only known predator in the park is the Leopard. 1km later we see a troupe of 30 Baboons heading out of the trees down into the plain to feed. All this game is getween 100m to 500m of the car, aware but unconcerned by our presence.

We have been trying to find a Walking safari where you just launch out into the bush either escorted or not on foot and go point to point. They are a little tough to find this time of year, it is rainy the game is spread out and the grass is higher than normal not good in lion country. As a temporary proxy we found a ranger to give us a 3 hour walk through the bush at Arusha. Armed with a 30.06 and with 6 years or rangering under his belt, Peter took us on a three hour excursion on foot through a pretty populated area. We passed a herd of Cape Buffalo about 100m away where Peter relayed the finer points of how to escape alive if charged by a Buff. They are very aggressive. "If I don't shoot dem, climb a tree, or lie down dey can't gore you wit dem horns on da ground" reassuring. We then surprised, Dik Dik, Bushbuck, Water Buck, and approached a Girrafee within about 50m.

I don't know anywhere else in the world where you can find such biodiversity. In about 30 min we came upon about 5 different types of big mammals in close proximity. Amazing.

More posts when we get into cat country.

100m away from the buffs and with only big pete as protection