Nairobi, Kenya to Arusha, Tanzania

             That first night we landed in Nairobi, Kenya, (a.k.a. Nai-robbery). The airport was a dinghy third-world airport as to be expected. Diverse languages being spoken like birdsong from various outposts throughout the ramshackle. Various shades of brown and black colored the workers and other travelers in this terminal. That night we stayed in a hotel, near downtown. We were warned not to stroll alone outside after dark because of the high crime and murder rate.

              The next morning we were corralled, led and loaded onto a bus to head 8 hours across the remaining country of Kenya and to Arusha, Tanzania. We sat on the bus surrounded by locals who greeted us with huge smiling faces and some even had inquisitive questions about where we were from and where we were headed. Their broken English was accented by tones of their native African language, which here was Swahili.

Superb Starling

                Across the countryside the bus rolled, passing by pied-crows, superb starlings, storks, two ostriches, three giraffes,  giant termite mounds rising out of the ground like erect utters.  Masai shepherded burros, goats and cattle. Masai is the local tribe that is one of the last remaining a pastoralist cultures.


               We arrived in Arusha, where we met our touring guides. The company was called Aardvark Expeditions. They set up the itinerary of our five-day wildlife safari in five National Parks and our routes and guided us up Kilimanjaro (the continent's highest mountain). They cooked breakfasts and dinners for us and made us sack lunches. The crew was made up of Levi (Tom's brother who lived in Bozeman, Montana), Philemon (naturalist and tour guide), Alfred, Pendo, Abu, and Solomon. This crew was just the safari guides and cooks.

             The landscape was made up savanna grasslands sparsely mixed with high elevation acacia trees and century plants.  Mourning doves cooed above from tree tops along with cicadas. Rosewood, ebony, mahogany and eucalyptus trees tended the gardens of towns and parks. Spring was full-blown south of the equator with flowers everywhere. It felt good to be alive!

                  The beer selection in Africa included: Safari, Kilimanjaro, Serengeti and Tuskers but not limited to these choices. For dinner that second day we had cucumber soup, bread and butter, coconut soup and a burger ground up with pasta. For lunch, we had a box lunch consisting of a meat pastie, egg roll, something similar to crispy cream donuts, chicken tomato sandwiches, chips and passion-pineapple juice.


            The food in this part of Africa was mostly made up of freshly picked fruit from the trees. The locals sold it to our guides who then made fresh-squeezed juices, soups or gave us the fruit. Most of the fruit were organic with no pesticides, no preservatives, no additives. Real food has no label.