January 26, 2015

January 26, 2015 There were so many other things swirling around in my head that I'd forgotten to include in the blog last night....so here are a couple of them before we head out for a day in Zanzibar. We dropped into the Ngoro Ngoro Crater as we left the Serengeti. The crater is is almost 1/2 mile deep and is the largest unbroken caldren in the world....8 miles I believe it is. It houses 7 different mini climates on it's floor and more on the rim and sides. It also is home to the only year round lake (salt water) and there are numerous underground streams that come into the crater which is why it is so perfect for all the animals. There are 3 roads into the crater. One is one way down, one is one way up and the third is two way. I'm sure glad we took the one way down and one way up as I wouldn't want to meet any traffic on either of those roads! They are windy and STEEP! The crater is where we saw our rhinos! I can't believe I forgot to include that! We also experienced a herd of buffalo stampeding toward us. Super majestic! Also the Massai are allowed to roam freely in the crater with their cattle so it is common to see zebra and cows or goats together. They have to leave at nighttime though and so it is a long walk up and down for them each way but then they don't seem to mind walking at all. LOL! After the Serengeti, the NCA (Ngoro Conservation Area) seems a little like a game reserve. There are so many jeeps full of people here that it hardly seems like the wilderness. At the hippo pool where everyone stops for lunch, there must have been two dozen at least along with a couple of busloads of school kids. You can count on a chance to see all of the big five in the crater which is why it is referred to as the 8th wonder of the world and why so many people choose to visit it as their safari stop. Victor managed to create a little private viewing for us though when he took us down a less used trail to a different hippo pool where there were no people and in fact the viewing was much better! We could see them rolling in the mud and flopping around to keep the sun off them. Speaking about mud.....I cannot tell you how dirty we all are! Darlene can't stop laughing and says her mom and dad will be laughing about this fact too as she has never liked being dirty since she was a little girl. Gail's family will be giggling about it too as we refer to her as "Princess Gail" cuz she likes everything to be nice too. To give you an idea of just how much dust/dirt there is...Darlene was sitting in the front seat of the back section of our vehicle. Victor (driving) was right in front of her and his window was open (as were most of the windows most of the time). I was sitting one seat back and across from Darlene when I noticed the cloud of dust that was hovering/swirling about her! LOL!!! Oh my goodness....it was as though Pigpen from Charlie Brown had come to life! Darlene's cloud of dust didn't go anywhere...it just swirled around her constantly. That's when Gail brushed off her bare arm and another cloud of dust floated off of her too! Then Darlene picked up some of the fabric of her pants and when she let is spring back down an even bigger cloud puffed up from her. In fact, Darlene was so covered in dust that her fair eyebrows were thick and reddish brown colour at the end of each day. (The earth here is a reddish brown) When you couple the amount of dust there is with the amount of sweat pouring off of us you end up with a lot of mud so.....I'll leave it to your imaginations to think about just how dirty we all looked at the end of each day. Interestingly, Gail has decided (and I quote) "she likes being dirty". I think that's about the most of it so till later..... Darlorlynga January 26th continued... Thought I would be able to post those "leftovers" from last night this morning but alas...wifi is very unpredictable and still can't get it to come up tonight either so will spend a few minutes capturing the day, give wifi one last try and then hit the hay after another long hot day. Breakfast is included at Kholle House and we were finished in time for our 9:00 a.m. pick up. As luck would have it, Kassim was our guide and Kassim was our driver so it was really easy to remember their names! City tour of Stonetown was first on the agenda so we walked from hotel to market through the alleys of the old city. We learned that doors, clocks, and _______ are the three ancient measurements of affluence in old Stonetown. Of the three things...doors were the most important and so a lot of attention was paid to the door of a building to the degree that the foundation was first and then the door was the next thing built even before any walls. There are even picture books for sale that feature the most spectacular or interesting doors of the city. Another point of interest in the old city is that many of the buildings had bridges or walkways linking them. This was often to accommodate the sultan to be able to access different sections of his home(s). Buildings here are built of ground coral, soil, and limestone so those without a new layer of plaster are crumbling. Everything gets a coat of whitewash/paint regularly to hide/manage the mold and mildew that comes with being in this tropical climate. After winding our way through the narrow alleyways al the same time as motorcycles and about a million other people we arrived at the market. There we saw everything from veggies and fruits to meat and fish hanging and piled for display by the vendors. An interesting fact is that the veggies are piled into groups of 3 or 5 and when you're quoted a price it is for a pile not by pound. There were baskets of chickens coming in for slaughter and sides of beef and other stuff hanging from hooks as butchers hacked their way through carcass after carcass. We avoided the fish section as Princess Gail has an aversion to both the taste and the smell and the looks so we honoured her "NO" by avoiding that section. The spice section was just a teaser for what would come later in the day. Bottom line is that there were soooo many people, sights, smells, and sounds that photos will never do it justice. After the market driver Kassim met us with the van and drove us to the site of the old slave trading centre. Today the site houses a church, a school, and a hospital in respect of the atrocities that location has seen. Builders left an underground section where slaves were held at auction site, a tree stands where the whipping post did, and a group of statues wearing the original slave chains honour those who passed through this horrible site and its processes during the many years that slavery was nothing more than big business. From the first sign at the entrance gate I couldn't stop the tears. It was an emotional stop for all of us and impossible not to feel guilty just for being human and not from Africa. Sadly even after the first treaty to stop slavery was signed it would take 100 years before the end would actually arrive. Slaves from east Africa (an estimated 1.3 million through Zanzibar) went to the middle east and europe for the most part. It was African's from West Africa who ended up in America. In the Anglican church at the site (the underground slave cells are actually under the church) we also had the opportunity to see a cross that is carved from the wood of the tree where Livingstone's heart was buried in Africa. When he died he was mummified with his insides buried in Africa (where his heart really lie) and his body returned to England. While Livingstone played a huge part in bringing an end to slavery...there were others who started the process before him. What he was able to bring though was a network of connections that were powerful and affiliated with high profile institutions which helped to bring much needed attention to the atrocities. During the 100 years it took to truly abolish it, there were times that it was merely underground or other times when it was illegal to do international trade in human cargo but absolutely fine as a domestic industry! Once slavery was well and truly finished the focus of Zanzibar business shifted from slavery to spices and that is where it remains today. As our City tour ended it was time for a break and so off to lunch we went. Lunch at Monsoon was so good that we decided to go back there for dinner too! After lunch we were all 1/2 cooked (hot and humid by midday!) but set off on our spice tour anyway. Initially we drove by fields of different trees. Once we'd seen them from afar it was time to take a closer look so we visited a local families farm where they have random plantings of absolutely everything! We crushed and smelled leaves, slurped fresh coconut juice, chew on cinnamon bark peeled right off a tree, sucked every bit of goodness from mangoes that had been freshly picked and still warm from the sun, had pineapple juice running off our elbows, learned about natural remedies and uses for herbs, spices, and leaves. Kassim was an amazingly knowledgeable guide and so we learned and learned and learned as we wandered through the orchards. Did you know that there is something called a sweet lime and that it is delicious? Did you know that mace is the outside layer of nutmeg and that it is uber pretty? Did you know that lemon grass just looks like a bunch of grass? Did you know there are 51 varieties of tapioca? Did you know that cardamom grows from the base of it's tree and lays on the ground? Did you know that vanilla beans are green? Did you know that black pepper is really green? Did you know that the flower on the bottom of a mangosteen has the same number of petals on it as there are sections of the fruit inside? Did you know that they chop down the whole cinnamon tree when they're going to process it for it's bark? (and that tree may have taken 30 years to grow!) Did you know that allspice is it's own plant? (it's not a mixture of others) Did you know that cloves look like a bunch of little flowers when they're picked? Yep...we learned a lot! In addition to Kassim we had another young man who was going just ahead of us, climbing trees, and locating the best fruits for us to try. By the end of our tour we were completely done in! Temps were only low 30's but humidity was horrid and we'd been walking since 9 a.m. so back to hotel for a dip in the pool which made us all feel human again. Tonight after dinner we were so tired that we even hired a taxi to bring us the few blocks back to Kholle House. It was well worth the 3000 shillings (about $2.40) We knew that once back in our hotel we would have to make the long climb to our rooms on the third floor. There are just 38 stairs to get to the third floor but 38 stairs is a long way when they're steep and very high and you're already done in!! Everyone else is already sleeping so I guess I'd better do the same soon. Am sitting out on our little balcony looking at the woven leaf baskets our young assistant from the orchard made for each of us as we left there this afternoon. The baskets are filled with samples of freshly picked spices, the leaves from different trees (crushed and aromatic), and a leaf bracelet a leaf ring and a leaf frog that he also made for each of us. till next time... Darlorlynga