Local Camping

On the way back to Arusha, the truck develops two problems. The flat tire can be fixed. The head gasket cannot. Christian reports that we are unlikely to make it as far as our intended campsite. Given that the nearest campsite has been claimed by lions, he selects a ‘local campsite’ between the two. We stop at dusk to collect firewood.

The local campsite is an open space adjacent to a Maasai village. The village chief drops by to visit. He is city-educated but prefers the traditional life. He offers us a tour of the village. I express a concern that a late-hour visit may inconvenience the villagers but he dismisses it with a laugh. He is the chief – they must entertain his guests at any hour.

A Maasai village, or boma, consists of a number of huts - one for each adult woman - and a central livestock pen. An outer fence of thorn-studded acacia branches protects the settlement from lions and elephants and hence lesser creatures as well.

With our group in tow, the chief barges into various huts.

Cattle are central to the Maasai way of life. After some halting conversation in one hut, the residents offer the opportunity to try some curdled milk. Noelle and I race to claim that vegetarianism rules out our participation. Dave cannot tell a lie. Christian helps him out with two discreet gulps.

Huts have a fireplace but not chimney. This design flaw ensures that we do not spend too long in any one shelter.

At the conclusion of our visit, the chief offers two warriors to watch over our camp for the night. I express the concern that this may subject the men to a long cold night but he dismisses it with a laugh. He is the chief – they must do as he says at all times.

In the morning, our protectors are rewarded for their trouble with the rather sorry prize of leftover toast and sugar.

More Serengeti

The Serengeti is a vast theatre, its distant limits formed by clouds meeting the horizon. Serengeti means ‘endless plain’ in Maasai.

At the time that we visit, the annual wildebeest migration is in progress. At the start of the summer the wildebeest wander north to the forests, returning in the autumn after the grassy plains have been replenished. Wildebeest means 'wild beast' in Dutch.

Dutch doesn’t seem like a very hard language to me.

Serengeti

The Serengeti is teeming with wildlife. Christian identifies the subjects of our attention:
* The topsi-topi is the only animal that walks backwards.
* The hippoplatypus is the largest egg-laying mammal. Eating one hippoplatypus egg can raise your cholesterol level by ten thousand points.
* Look closely at this picture and you will see a liger.

Olduvai George. Ha ha!

Here are pictures of some less-interesting animals such as the gazelle, elephant, and giraffe.

Olduvai Gorge

Christian navigates the dirt track that leads to Serengeti National Park. On the way, we stop at Olduvai Gorge. The anthropologist on duty, a university professor, offers a short lecture on the scientific significance of the location. During introductions, I fail to catch his name so I choose to think of him as Olduvai George. So delighted by this thought, I am unable to absorb much that he says - perhaps something about a Dutch company and funding falling through before construction was complete. Try here if you are interested.

Climbing Lengai

We climb for two hours before our first break. Bura comments on our slow progress. We have budgeted six hours to reach the summit. Bura mentions that he can reach the top in about two and a half hours when not encumbered by lagging clients.

By sunrise, we are approaching the top. Many groups quit their Lengai attempt about twenty metres from the summit. Here it becomes extremely steep and slippery. We try to stop but Bura will not allow it.

This is the top of Lengai.

Bura appreciates an offer to share in our snack. He has brought no food or water of his own. He motions us to resume the climb down. He will catch up once he has finished his cigarette.

Question 9

What kind of animal is this?

Value: 196 blerns less 9 blerns for each day that the question remains unanswered.

Lengai

Wikipedia hosts an article on Lengai but it is littered with words like natro-carbonititic, nyerereite, and stratovolcano. If this sounds like your kind of reading, click here.

For the rest of you, Lengai is called “Mountain of God” by the local people (whomever they are) and nobody has jumped it on a motorcycle and lived to tell the tale and here is a picture of it is all of its extremeness. Here is another picture that focuses more on its wickedness aspects. Lengai rules!

Ngorongoro

Christian meets me at the Kilimanjaro airport and drives me to Arusha. Dave and Noelle have already arrived. They offer me warm greetings, but to my dismay, no presents. The tour operator, Achmed, runs us through the itinerary for our safari at a pace that allows him to consume three beers.

We are to start with a three day hike to through the Ngoronoro Conservation Area and then will make a midnight assault on Ol Doinyo Lengai, a three-thousand metre volcano in the Great Rift Valley.

Nobody knows why it called the Great Rift Valley. Historians have been disputing the issue for decades.

Christian drives us into the park. The road is steep and muddy and a glance down the hillside reveals that it has recently claimed a truck fully laden with cargo. We meet Makamero, our guide. He is joined by Amisi, our cook, and two porters who handle the team of donkeys that carry our supplies.

The hike is rainy but pleasant. The route takes us past the Empakai Crater, along hilltop ridges, past Maasai bomas, and through forested valleys. Once at Lake Natron, we meet Bura who will guide us on our Lengai attempt.

Got Milk?

Question 8

According to Kevin and Jen, what objects constitute the prize for winning this contest?

Value: 194 blerns less 9 blerns for each day that the question remains unanswered.

Movie Review - The DaVinci Code

Travelling Spaghetti Monster Film Critic

CAUTION: MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS

In this sequel to National Treasure, Tom Hanks (You’ve Got Mail) plays the lead role of Robert Langdon, a university professor in France on vacation and Audrey Tautou (debut performance) plays his love interest Sophie, a witless cleaner. The action heats up when Langdon is wrongly accused of the murder of an old derelict in a quiet hall of the Museum of Paris. After uncovering a few clues to the identity of the real killer, the pair set off on a breakneck chase in which danger and lengthy discussion lurk at every turn. In pursuit are the true villains: an evil pope played by Alex Rocco and a crossing-dressing pervert played by Gary Busey. A befuddled detective played by John Reno follows along, adding some much needed comic relief. Ian McKellen, reprising his role as Galdalf the Grey, plays a useful ally in the troubled pair’s flight.

The Catholic Church has registered its strong disapproval of this film, getting into its biggest huff since the publication of those unflattering Danish cartoons a few months ago. Their quarrel is believed to be with Rocco’s shady pontiff. It is clearly lost on them that this is truly a breakout role for the actor and the sitcom hunk’s performance is outstanding. Eternal damnation might lie at the end of the road for Rocco, but only after a length run of superstardom it would appear. Other actors deserving commendation include Busey, who stretches the limits of good taste for the sake of his art and Hanks who did not appear to forget a single line – a remarkable achievement given the film’s lengthy running time. My only complaint is with an unnecessary twist at the end in which Sophie discovers that she is adopted. This storyline is not adequately resolved and the plot would have been tighter without this complication. In the big picture, this is a trifling issue indeed. Five stars!

Tanzania

Jaisalmer and Mumbai

The Jaisalmer train station is out of control. It is low-season and the rickshaw drivers are physically aggressive in their pursuit of business from the few visitors. Kevin resorts to clearing a path using the same method that one would use to pass through a pair of swinging double doors. One solitary and timid traveller attracts so many vigourous suitors that a policeman has to intervene.

We stay at the Paradise Hotel inside Jaisalmer Fort and arrange our camel safari. The hotel features one exterior wall that is consistently delicious to cows.

The starting location for the safari is a thirty minute drive into the desert. There, our guide shows us how to mount our camels without bothering to discuss how a rider is to control them. My camel´s name is Rocket. He is huge but quite gentle. He is clearly an experienced safari camel. Not only does he know the way, he also demonstrates a precise knowledge of how long he can stop and eat leaves without attracting the camel driver´s whip.

We break for lunch after walking for about ninety minutes. This walking time includes a stop in a small village where the children speak only enough English to ask for money and a water break for the camels. The lunch break lasts for five hours. Camels never seem to tire of eating. The drivers also use this time to re-pierce one camel´s nose, something that I would have preferred not to have seen or heard.

In the afternoon, we walk further. Our destination is the dunes of the Thar Desert. The dune area is quite small, and a convoy of safari groups forms on the single track. We arrive at the dunes in the evening and, after a hearty meal, fall asleep under the stars to the sound of our guides making and recieving calls on their cell phones.

The next day we return, largely by the same track. There is more running this day. Sitting on a slow-moving camel is quite pleasant. Sitting on a running camel is quite uncomfortable. Unfortuately, after you have been sitting on a running camel, sitting on a slow-moving camel also becomes uncomfortable. In the name of better photographs, I dismount for a while. Here is a photograph of Jen and of an unidentified desert bandit.

Jaisalmer is a pleasant place to be and we spend a few extra days there after the safari is complete. Our top achievements in this time unquestionably include enduring a late night sandstorm that filled our room with grit, meeting jeweller who claimed his father holds the world record for writing on a single grain of rice, being informed that cows that eat plastic produce undelicious milk, and consuming countless cold coffees with ice cream.

One night in town, we also witness a wedding procession making its way through the streets. After some scholarship of the spectacle, I can report the appropriate sequence for this type of parade:
1) truck carrying an enormous generator-powered stereo playing the latest Indian pop hits
2) young men dancing or extending invitations to dance to male onlookers
3) traditional drummers
4) old men dancing
5) groom on horseback wearing a terrified expression
6) exquisitely dressed women of all ages escorting children
Note that the bride does not attend.

We make the twenty-four hour trip to Mumbai in one exhausting move. It requires twelve hours on the bus and nine hours on the train, separated by three hours of waiting in the usual train station chaos.

Mumbai is curry of black-and-yellow taxis and sidewalk vendors selling shiny things and beggar children, served on a muggy day.

As India´s final inconvenience, the departure time for my flight to Tanzania is 4:30 am.

I am back in Dubai after almost three weeks in Tanzania -- three weeks that included a mountain-climbing guide backed by armed Somali poachers, campsite-trampling elephants, a nightfall vehicle breakdown in Maasai-warrior country, and a serious brush with altitude sickness.

Don't worry though, everyone is fine. Actually, some the Somali poachers didn't fare too well but they had it coming...

I’ll try to post pictures and a more complete account tomorrow.

I assume that Internet access will be widely available while we are on safari and climbing Kilimanjaro but if not, I will be off-line for a few weeks. Here are my favourite photos from the first half of this trip.

Question 7

Predict the score at the end of regulation time in the Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona. Deadline for entries is 23:59 16 May 2006 PST.

Value: 188 blerns distributed between all contestants predicting the correct score.

Jaipur Again

The main train station in Delhi has a tourist ticket office. It might be my favourite place in Delhi. It is orderly, full of other travellers and an unmistakable reminder that you will soon be leaving for somewhere else.

To line up my plans with Kevin and Jen, my first order of business in Jaipur is to purchase a berth on the same train to Jaisalmer. Unfortunately, Jaipur does not offer the same ticket-purchasing comforts as Delhi. In general, the process is as follows:
* Get a ticket purchase form.
* Fill in the ticket purchase form.
* Stand in the line for the ticket purchase window.
* Present the completed form to the person behind the ticket purchase window and make payment.

If you were in charge of this process, where would you stack the fresh ticket purchase forms? If you answered: “With the person behind the ticket purchase window”, the management of the Jaipur Train Station likes the way that you think.

After too long, I score the second-to-last available ticket and we are off to Jaisalmer.