Day 14 - Karatu

This morning we packed our tents one last time, we prepared our lunch and then had our last game-drive in the truck on our way towards the Serengeti gate. Many times we could see all the way to the horizon again and this time we would see zebra walk across the horizon, from left to right as far as the eye could see. Nothing like the great herds of wildebeest you see migrating on TV, but a single line of zebra walking one behind the other.

Unfortunately, the roads here were also badly affected by the rains. This resulted not so much shaking, it was more a constant vibration and it really slowed us down. We made it to the gate 15 minutes late, which technically would have meant that we had to pay for another 24 hours, but luckily our guide knows how to get things done in Africa. Unfortunately things were not better on the other side of the gate. We saw many cars that had broken down (either minutes ago, not so long ago, long ago, or very long ago), but we were happy to at least still be driving, although after a few hours the vibrating got really old and after that it was just plain old annoying.

Within minutes of entering the Ngorongoro crater area, we saw some kids walking near the road, but to my surprise there was not a structure anywhere in sight where those kids could have been coming from. And it was quite flat there as well. After a few hours of vibrating we arrived at a maasai village. Nowadays there are a couple of permanent villages of these nomads conveniently located near the ‘road’ between the Serengeti gate and the Ngorongoro crater. After our guide got out and negotiated an acceptable price, we were welcomed. We were allowed to take pictures and the maasai would perform a traditional dance for us, wearing make-shift shoes made from tires. I have to say however that some of them did not seem to be taking it very seriously, so the idea of this being just a show for the tourists that they would give away during office hours crept up on us (and actually our guide already informed us about this). After the first dance, the traditional jumping that is so well-known from the maasai was performed. Men to the left, women to the right. One of the man who spoke English and was our guide told me to join. I politely declined, but then we noticed that the scarf I was wearing to protect my sun-burned skin from the sun, looked (a bit at least) like the traditional red maasai clothes. In the end I agreed to join if he would join as well. I started to jump with the women and the guy went to the side of the men and then gestured for me to join him, which I did, but then the women tried to make it quite clear to me, that that was not my side. For me, I only realized after the jumping was over that it was actually to freakin’ hot to be jumping. Next, our group was split into groups of 2 or 3, that were each taken to one of the traditional huts with an English speaking maasai, who would give us some information about the maasai (in addition to asking for some money for his sister who lived in the hut and had no husband). When we were discussing their diet, which mainly consists of raw meat, milk and blood, I was offered a taste of the traditional milk-blood cocktail. I have to admit, that I hesitated for a second, since I would like to at least give it a try, but the potential health risk that comes with drinking raw blood made me decide not to do it. Since my group took a bit much time negotiating a price for the presents we bought in the ‘gift shop’, we did not get to see the school, but the ones that did said that the kids also did not seem to be too passionate about this ‘play’ they were in.

After the maasai village we had to get back into the vibrating truck. We had gotten a bit tired of it, but there was no escaping it. And although we did not have to make camp anymore, generally you don’t want to be driving in Kenya or Tanzania after sunset, mainly due to the condition of the roads and the lack of streetlight. Therefore we had a quick picture stop on the rim of the crater, but other than that it was more shaking for hours. At some point there was a sign telling us to ‘slow down – speed bump’, but that one shaky bump was a very welcome change from the vibrating, that was not quite enough though.

Eventually we did make it to Karatu, where we stayed in a lodge right in the middle of the city. The rooms were very nice, with ‘princess-beds’ and a shower! After the Serengeti, my hair felt like dreadlocks and I had gained a nice African spray tan, so a shower was very much needed and appreciated. Unfortunately it was cold, but what do you do?