On the bus to Arusha, our taxi driver friend Ally called us. His friend Abdul was going to pick us up from the bus station. Considering what we had heard about the bus station touts, we were glad for the help. Two minutes later, Ally texted us Abdul’s number.
Later, Abdul texted us to see when we would be getting in. ‘One more hour,’ I replied. But the hour came and went. Ally called us to see if we had arrived yet. No, not yet, I said. Abdul then texted shortly thereafter, wondering where we were. I texted Abdul to say we were running late. And he texted back that it was not a problem.
By the time it was all said and done, Lauren was considering throwing the phone out of the window. She hadn’t left he U.S. to be stuck tied to a cell phone again.
Otherwise, the bus ride was amazing. We went from the coast, Dar es Salaam, to the middle of the north of the country, passing mountains and fields filled with rows of new trees and coffee plants. Towns sprung up in the middle of nowhere and ended just as quickly as they appeared. Millions of white butterflies flew through the fields and crossed the road just in front of the bus (Lauren: there were so many of them, it looked just like a light blizzard blowing snowflakes around the fields). The roads were well paved – a rarity in Africa.
Abdul met us in Arusha at the bus station in his Land Rover, and he drove us to the hostel that our Australian friends (Kerri and Dave) had recommended called Arusha Backpackers. It was a shared shower, but it was clean and had a bar and restaurant on the roof. For $5/each, it was a deal – our first cheap room in Tanzania.
We settled into the room and Abdul took us to barbeque – apparently Ally insisted he had to take us there. The place, named Khan’s, was a mechanic shop by day, and an amazing BBQ joint by night. (Hey, Mom and Dad, there’s an idea…)
Mr. Khan himself said he’d make up a mixed grill for us and pointed us towards a six-foot long table filled with various Indian-style salad dishes (Lauren: my favorite being a heavenly potato-eggplant medley). We piled our plates and waited for the rest to arrive – Zanzibar pizza (like a calzone with spicy chicken and potato), BBQ chicken, tandoori chicken skewers and fries. We stuffed ourselves silly and decided we’d definitely have to return before we left.
Abdul was a safari guide, an independent contractor. He offered to take us on our safari, but he had to be back by Friday – meaning we’d have to leave the next morning and we’d be short on time our last day. We liked him, but in the end, we decided we didn’t want to rush through the safari. We thanked him for the rides and for taking us to the Khan’s, bought him dinner and said goodnight.
That night, we ran into a man named Richard at our hotel. He owned his own Safari company — Nature African Safari – and he was trying to get three more people to join a safari he had planned. We were too tired to work out the details with him that night, and we wanted time to check out the “blacklisted operators” list that the Lonely Planet said we could pick up at a tourist information board, so we got Richard’s card and went to bed.
The next morning, we hit the pavement running. We started the day chatting with some other travelers sitting in the lobby of our hostel. They had gone on safari with the company that owns the hostel and they clearly were not happy with their experience. The company had put them in a 4WD minibus and it had gotten stuck in Ngorongoro crater for hours. (It’s rainy season, we were warned, so the roads are all mud.) The driver didn’t even have a shovel to dig them out, so they lost an entire day. The company was supposed to reimburse them for the day, but for the last two days the company kept saying “tomorrow.” Today, they were supposed to leave Arusha and the manager of the company was nowhere to be found.
“The most important thing,” the girl told us, “is to make sure they have a LandRover. If they show up in anything else, refuse to go. I was impressed with what our driver could do in a minibus but there is no way – no way – you should do the crater in anything but a Land Rover.”
We took her advice to heart and headed to Richard’s place and discussed what our itinerary would be – Lake Manyara, known for its elephants and giraffes, the Serengeti plains and lastly, Ngorongoro crater, known for its cats. We confirmed that we’d have a Land Rover. We also negotiated the price down. He said he could add a fifth person to lower the cost. We told him that he should look for the fifth person, and in the meantime, we still had some footwork to do before we could commit.
Richard explained to us that, like any business, there are many different sized safari companies. They all are expected to pay fees to a government agency that oversees them, and, regardless of size, they all have to pay the same amount. So small businesses, like his, have to pay the same fees that international and foreign-based companies do. We wanted to support a small business and have our money go back to the local communities, so we took that into consideration too when deciding who to go with.
After checking out the blacklist (which was poorly maintained and almost a joke – even the employees there admitted it hadn’t been updated since 2005) and visiting one other well-known safari company, we decided that Richard’s deal couldn’t be beat. We went back to his office, signed the contract and headed back to our hotel for a celebratory beer. We’d booked our safari, and it was in our budget.
That night, we went back to Khan’s for more BBQ and then headed to bed early.
The next morning, we met Richard and our driver, Pablo (or Paul, he sometimes called himself), and Noel, our cook, outside our hotel. They strapped our bags on top of the LandRover.
“We just need to pick up some supplies,” Richard told us, “and then you’ll be off.”
We drove to a market and Pablo, Richard and Noel headed in to buy food. Half an hour later, we were off.
“Where are the other two guys?” I asked Pablo.
“They decided to go with someone else,” he explained. “I think it’s better this way, anyway. Fewer people so you can do what you want. No negotiating, ‘stay here longer,’ ‘no, let’s go somewhere else.’”
It sounded good to us, but Lauren and I exchanged knowing glances. Richard lowered the costs thinking that there would be five people. Now that there were only three, what corners would they have to cut to make our discount work?
On the way to the parks, Noel asked us, “Which animals are your favorite? What do you want to see the most?”
“Elephants,” Marjona said.
“Giraffes,” said Lauren.
“Lions,” I added.
“You will see them all,” he promised.
