{"id":23001,"date":"2022-09-19T18:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=23001"},"modified":"2022-12-08T18:26:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T23:26:18","slug":"getting-our-bearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=23001","title":{"rendered":"Getting Our Bearings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda Lou Burton posting from Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge, Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania<\/em>\u2013 I\u2019ll call him Ben. That\u2019s not his name, but a way of protecting the guilty, you see. \u201cBen\u201d was our new guide, and \u201cBen\u201d 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 \"\"<\/a>lilies and elegant service of the Arusha Coffee Lodge Garden Terrace, wondering what would happen next. \u201dYour new guide will be here soon,\u201d was message one. \u201cSomeone will come to take you on a tour of the coffee plantation,\u201d was message two, fifteen minutes later. What? \u201cSomeone will come to take you on a tour of Shanga\u201d was the third message. I was so annoyed by then I asked \u201cWhat is Shanga? And when does our guide arrive?\u201d We were done with dessert by now, just sitting, and yawning. \u201cShanga is a workshop,\u201d was the answer; no reference to our guide at all, or mention of what work went on \"\"<\/a>in the workshop. And then, \u201cPlease come to the meeting room, just follow me.\u201d Comfortable sofas, a fireplace, a huge map on the wall. But no guide. \u201cYour guide will be here soon.\u201d 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\u2019s his real name by the way; Willy was a gem.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Attention getters this afternoon \u2013 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.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Next Post: Infinity, and Beyond<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Lou Burton posting from Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge, Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania\u2013 I\u2019ll call him Ben. That\u2019s not his name, but a way of protecting the guilty, you see. \u201cBen\u201d was our new guide, and \u201cBen\u201d seems a fitting name because he never seemed to be where he should have been; nor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4318,4319],"tags":[4514,4513,4515,4516,4344],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23001"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23083,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23001\/revisions\/23083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}