Getting Our Bearings

Linda Lou Burton posting from Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge, Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania– I’ll call him Ben. That’s not his name, but a way of protecting the guilty, you see. “Ben” was our new guide, and “Ben” seems a fitting name because he never seemed to be where he should have been; nor was he able to get US to where we should have been, when we should have been there. Like this afternoon. There we sat, among the calla lilies and elegant service of the Arusha Coffee Lodge Garden Terrace, wondering what would happen next. ”Your new guide will be here soon,” was message one. “Someone will come to take you on a tour of the coffee plantation,” was message two, fifteen minutes later. What? “Someone will come to take you on a tour of Shanga” was the third message. I was so annoyed by then I asked “What is Shanga? And when does our guide arrive?” We were done with dessert by now, just sitting, and yawning. “Shanga is a workshop,” was the answer; no reference to our guide at all, or mention of what work went on in the workshop. And then, “Please come to the meeting room, just follow me.” Comfortable sofas, a fireplace, a huge map on the wall. But no guide. “Your guide will be here soon.” Eventually, he actually showed. He talked so long we began nodding off, as he quoted facts and figures about the geology ahead, pointing to the map; describing the Great Migration and the Great Serengeti and the greatness of Tanzania. Finally (finally!) we were escorted outside; our luggage now stashed in two new Globus 4x4s; our new drivers ready. Now into a GREEN 4×4; now with driver Willy. That’s his real name by the way; Willy was a gem.

Willy drove the last leg of our journey today; 75 miles from Arusha to our Lake Manyara Lodge. We traveled west on A104, through the Aidai Plains, in the basin of the Great Rift Valley. We turned northwest at Makuyuni, where we slowed to view a colorful, bustling market. Then through the village of Mto Wa Mbu, and the lush banana plantation, before climbing a thousand feet out of the valley to the edge of the escarpment, and our lodge.

Attention getters this afternoon – good paved highways, properly striped and maintained; hillsides covered with heavy duty power lines and communications towers; large black water tanks; brightly painted Jesus vans; and trucks, trucks, trucks. Oh yes, a baboon hiking down the highway to grab a banana, according to Willy. Tanzania has a very different vibe.

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