Day 352 - 8 Jun ‘24 - Karatu to Arusha. Recently, we have seen some late nights, some early mornings, and some is-it-still-night-or-is-it-now-morning travel times. Today started at 5:15am when my alarm went off.
Stupid alarm.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted to get up. I’m pretty sure our tour guide/driver Albert didn’t want to get up either. But it was our last day of our safari, and we were all determined to make the most of our trip to Ngorongoro Crater, so after a quick breakfast, we were on the road at 6:30am.
The climb to the top of the crater rim was cool and quiet, as we were in the clouds, but they quickly disappeared as we slowly descended the 610m to the crater floor.
Ngorongoro Crater is actually a caldera, which formed 2.6-3 million years ago. It is the sixth largest caldera in the world, and is the world’s largest inactive, completely intact, and unfilled caldera. The base of the crater covers 264 square kilometres, and is home to many of the same species of animals we found at Serengeti National Park.
In no particular order we saw lions, elephants, greater and lesser flamingoes, sacred and gloss ibis, pelicans, zebras, grey crested cranes, wildebeests, Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles, Kori bustards, warthogs, ostriches, and hippos.
We also saw a couple of hyenas running to their dens, and even spotted the elusive and incredibly shy black rhino. He was lying about one kilometre away, well away from any road, and it was only through our binoculars that we could see a blurry grey lump with horns - apparently that’s as close as he ever gets to the road. There are roughly 35 black rhinos in the crater, and Albert told us the rangers wouldn’t give out exact figures; there are approximately only 280 in all of Tanzania.
We had our picnic lunch then said goodbye and thank you to Ngorongoro crater, and began our journey back to Arusha.
Our week-long safari had been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and truly unforgettable. We had been incredibly blessed by Mother Nature to see so many wonderful sights, especially the cheetah cubs and the elephant families. Both Dan and I agreed that we could have stayed at the bush campsite for longer, to enjoy the animals and their noises, right on the doorstep.
We could highly recommend Albert, but the company he worked for were miserly bastards, and that’s putting it politely. He was paid a meagre 50,000TSH per day (and only while working, not a salary), which worked out at just $20USD per day, out of which he had to pay for his own accommodation and car washing! Keep in mind we had paid the company around $6300USD, which obviously included accommodation and park fees. Also, as a point of reference, one kilo of sugar costs 6000TSH.
Albert would be awake before us and went to bed after us, and would drive around 10 hours a day on god-awful roads, while being wildlife spotter, as well as a lecturer on local geography, history, and cultures, and only earned $140USD for the week (don’t forget to deduct his accommodation and car washing!). It really rubbed us up the wrong way when the company then ‘suggested’ a $20-35USD tip per day. What made it even worse was this company operates in three African countries and the drivers in the other two countries get paid more than double what their Tanzanian counterparts do, as well as get a monthly salary, and they don’t have to pay for their accommodation!
Long story short, if you’re looking to book a safari, DO NOT use Monkey Adventures. Albert has a goal of starting his own safari company, but the cars cost $100,000USD; hopefully his dream will come true one day, and if there’s anyone wanting to invest in him, we can’t recommend him highly enough.
We arrived back in Arusha at 5pm and checked into our accommodation for the next two nights. It was a massive house all to ourselves, bigger than our own home, and even had a housekeeper called Cecilia who would cook us meals! For a fee, of course…
Cecilia left us about 5:15pm, and didn’t get back until 8pm! At 9pm we were still waiting to eat, had gone way past hungry, and were eager for our bed. We had secured her services for dinner tonight, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for tomorrow, and breakfast the next day. At this rate, eating dinner at 9:30pm, we wouldn’t want breakfast as we’d still be asleep and digesting dinner!!
And she’d gone to so much effort, too. We’d told her we weren’t big eaters, but we had fried chicken and chips, salad, a vege dish we didn’t even touch, and a massive platter of pre-peeled and chopped fruit, of which we ate one piece of papaya and three pieces of watermelon. It was all delicious and beautifully prepared and presented, but like I said, we werent big eaters and were also no longer hungry by then. Such a shame.
Day 353 - 9 Jun ‘24 - Arusha. No need to get up for the first time in a week - yay! We’d asked Cecilia for breakfast at 10am, and when Dan and I got out of bed at 9:30am, she was already in the kitchen preparing omelettes, sausages, toast, and more fruit.
This morning I got stuck into our laundry. We’d been wearing the same clothes for a week, and Abi’s and Alex’s white linen shirts were now brown. I was highly doubtful they’d get clean, and was tempted just to throw them out, but we needed them for Nepal.
Cecilia wanted to do our laundry, but I declined, then she insisted on helping me hang them out. It’s really strange having a housekeeper, and having one permanently would be something that would take quite a bit of getting used to.
She took the kids to the local market to get more veges for lunch, and we had a delicious cabbage dish, beef and rice pilau, salad, and more fruit. We ate hardly any of it, not because we didn’t like it (it was delicious), but because we weren’t hungry.
Our afternoon was spent doing work (diaries, blogs, route planning etc), then watching movies. When Cecilia came back at 5pm, she was surprised to see how little we’d eaten.
“You haven’t eaten much!”
“No,” we replied, “we’re not big eaters, it was yummy though, and we’ll eat the rest for our lunch tomorrow.”
We HAD told her…
Dinner was a fish casserole, another vege dish, a Swahili maize and coconut milk dumpling (that none of us really liked), and again fruit. We all loved the fish casserole and vege dish, and I’ll need to get the recipes for them.
For the first time in ages, we got the kids to bed at the semi normal time of 8:40pm, so they could finally get a decent sleep.
Day 354 - 10 Jun ‘24 - Arusha to Dubai. Another sleep-in today, to prepare us for our day of travelling.
Our original flight from Kathmandu to Dar es Salaam had been delayed by two hours, which meant our comfortable four-hour layover was now less than two. We were changing from domestic to international flights at Dar es Salaam, and were concerned our bags wouldn’t be checked through, and also that we wouldn’t have enough time to go through immigration.
After a lengthy late-night online chat session, and an email to the first airline, Dan got emails from the airline and the ticket company, who assured us the reduced time would still be long enough, and our bags would be checked through.
We remained dubious, especially as the flight could get delayed further…
Cecilia arrived shortly around 8:30am to prepare our breakfast. This time it was omelettes, sausages, toast, fruit, and pancakes! TOO MUCH FOOD!
At 11:30am we were back at the table to eat our leftovers for lunch. It was a struggle for us to eat anything…
Albert had told us that Africans (Tanzanians at least) eat big meals because they don’t know when their next meal will be. The poverty around us was definitely visible and quite confronting. When we’d done the walk to the waterfall, I’d given two full water bottles to a couple of local kids. They looked like they’d had five Christmases at once - being overjoyed at a simple plastic water bottle really did make our own problems, and that of everyone we know, not only pale by comparison but become utterly insignificant. What right did we have to complain about our hot water running out while in a shower, for example, when we saw people collecting their drinking water from a puddle?
We said goodbye to Cecilia (who wanted Abi to stay!) and left Arusha at 1:30pm. The counter staff at Kilimanjaro assured us our bags would not be checked through, but we would still have enough time to make the transfer.
“Really?” we argued. “You think one hour and forty minutes will be enough time to collect our bags, go through security, get to the other terminal, go through security, then check in, then go through immigration?!”
“Yes. You only need one hour and twenty minutes, so you have plenty of time.”
“Well, we shall see.”
Our plane left 15 minutes than scheduled. Our buffer window of 20 minutes was now just five. The plane made up 10 minutes on the flight. Fifteen minutes was going to be tight.
While waiting at the luggage carousel, we were approached by a staff member saying she would escort us through security and to the other terminal. It meant we got to push our way to the front of the X-ray bag machines.
Shoes off, shoes on. RUN!
“We need to hurry,” the lady said as she started running the 300m to the terminal.
The bags started falling off the trolley, so she and I grabbed Alex’s, and Alex ran with Abi’s. We shoved our way in front of the people at the X-ray machine (why??!! we hadn’t stopped anywhere and had been escorted the whole time!!).
Shoes off, shoes on. RUN!
We got to the check in desk, all of us gasping and sweating, with about 10 minutes to closing. Thank god!
We got our breath back walking to immigration, which had no queue - amazing! Yet another X-ray machine (shoes off, shoes on, need to buy slip-ons), and walked straight on to the almost empty plane.
We had a short flight to Zanzibar, where it filled up with people; we didn’t even get out of the plane. We were then horrified to discover that the free entertainment we’d enjoyed was no longer free! It was $8NZD for TV shows, and $18NZD if you wanted movies too! Dan and I paid, and we got the TV package for Abi, but Alex declined in favour of his Nintendo.
“Are we getting meals?” I asked Dan.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “I think so?”
I made the kids eat the chocolate bars they’d bought at the airport, so they could have their malaria tablets. Then five minutes later, the food cart arrived, and it turned out Dan had paid for meals.
“Muuuuuum! You made us eat our chocolate!”
By the time we’d finished dinner, it was approaching 11pm. Time to put the seats back and go to ‘sleep’.
“Mummy,” whispered Abi, “I can’t put my seat back.”
“Why can’t you put your seat back? Just push it.”
“I can’t! The person is lying on the food tray!”
Sure enough, the lady on the seat behind her had laid her head and arms on the table and seat back. I leaned around to tap her on the shoulder, and that’s when World War Three started with the lady sitting beside her.
“No!” she said. “You can’t wake her!”
“I’m sorry?”
“You can’t wake her, she’s asleep.”
“Well, my daughter would like to put her seat back.”
“She can’t. Can’t you see she’s asleep?”
“My daughter would also like to go to sleep, and she would like to put her seat back!”
“No! She can just sit up! We can all just sit up. See? Look around. They’re sitting up, they’re sitting up. She’s asleep, so just leave her.”
“Excuse me? Why should my daughter be disadvantaged just because this lady is asleep on the food tray?”
“No! Just leave her! Why are you being so inconsiderate? She’s a child, she can just sit up. Leave her to sleep. She can only sleep like that.”
Right then, an air steward happened to walk past.
“Excuse me, my daughter would like to put her seat back but the lady is lying on the food tray, and the other lady won’t let me wake her.”
“Okay, I’ll handle it,” he said to me.
“Excuse me,” he said to the lady, “but everyone has the right to recline their seats, so the lady will need to wake up.”
“No! Why should she have to? She’s asleep. Why can’t the girl just sit up? She’s a child!”
“Everyone has the right to recline their seat, even if they are a child. It will just be two seconds then the lady can go back to sleep.”
The lady frequently talked to another passenger in German, obviously complaining. I tried to intervene and apologise, but the steward told me to not worry and he would deal with it, thank you. So I just sat back and listened to the ‘discussion’, until eventually she conceded defeat and woke her partner. I pushed Abi’s seat back, which the lady then pushed forward, so I promptly pushed it back again. And Alex pushed his seat back as well!
Another lady in front of Abi, turned around and spoke in German to the lady behind us, and they were also talking about ‘children’ and ‘sleeping’. Never had I wished my German was better than it was! I do think she was on our side though, as she smiled at us.
The rest of the night passed in embarrassment, as Abigail, by then soooo over tired and just being an argumentative little madam, tossed and turned and moved incessantly, which would bounce her seat repeatedly, and she wasn’t exactly being quiet. The ladies behind us then played a vigorous game of cards on the tray table, and made sure to talk loudly in the gap between the two seats.
The lights were finally dimmed, and the kids got about an hour or two of sleep, before the lights were turned back on and it was time to land. I hadn’t even been able to watch a second movie because both children kept trying to watch my screen, forcing me to switch it off, so that was a waste of money!
We landed at 3:30am and were quickly in a taxi…to the wrong address! Dan had accidentally put in the wrong one, and it meant the 15 minute ride was a 30 minute one, and twice the price.
By the time we got into our hotel room and climbed into bed, it was 5:30am and the sun was coming up. Thank god for blackout curtains!
Day 355 - 11 Jun ‘24 - Dubai. I woke up around 10:30am, but everyone else was still asleep, so I drifted back off. When I next woke up at midday, everyone else was waking up too - time to start the day!
We had an amazing view from our 37th floor apartment of the skyscrapers of downtown Dubai, including the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower. It was 40°C and the wind was hot when we left to go to the Dubai Mall, the world’s second largest shopping plaza.
We got the metro, and the walkway from the metro station into the mall was enclosed and air conditioned - wonderful! It was also 820m long, and fitted with seven travelators!
The mall was HUGE! Three storeys, pristinely clean, bright and shiny, and full of expensive shops. There were hardly any seats, and those we did find were either singular or a pair - no loitering allowed. It even had a designer fashion wing, which we didn’t go in. Hardly any of the stores had prices on the items.
“What a difference,” Dan said at one point. “From Morocco, to parts of Turkey, then Egypt, and then the extreme poverty in Tanzania, to this! It makes you forget it so easily.”
There are a whole lot of records for the mall: world’s largest OLED screen, largest number of visitors per year, largest piece of acrylic window (for the aquarium). It’s even set to get bigger, with a 240 store expansion planned.
Inside the mall was an awesome waterfall sculpture, with divers positioned across the water.
We grabbed some lunch at the food court (ouch, expensive!), and wandered the mall for an hour or so, before going back to our apartment. It was still hot, but at least the hairdryer wind had dropped.
We were all still feeling a bit wiped, and Dan had started coughing one of those annoying dry tickly types, so in the afternoon we introduced the kids to Jaws! Dan and I remember watching this movie as kids, and naturally being terrified of it. Watching it again now was hilarious, as the animatronic shark looks so clearly like a robot, although we agreed that if they were to remake Jaws now with today’s technology, it would be even more terrifying!
Day 356 - 12 Jun ‘24 - Dubai. Another great sleep and a late start. We went back to the Dubai Mall and bought (“dear lord, they cost how much?”) tickets to go up the Burj Khalifa.
The lift moved at 10 metres a second, and was so incredibly smooth that the only giveaway we had ascended was the popping of our ears.
What an incredible view! We’d bought the cheapest tickets ($470NZD!!!), which got us to levels 124 and 125 (the really expensive tickets went to 148, and the astronomical ones went to 154). There was a small outdoor platform on 124 but it was almost fully enclosed, so we didn’t get quite the same feel as we did at the Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building.
The planning of this city was amazing, and there was still a lot of undeveloped land. It’s pretty awesome what can be achieved with some good city planners and a whoooooole lot of money. The downtown area, of which the tower and mall were part, was a $20 billion USD project.
Level 125 was entirely inside, and after looking at the views again, we caught the super fast lift back to the bottom. The tower has 23 soninometers to listen to the wind, and 8 clinometers, which are basically protractors; these pieces of equipment are constantly measuring the building and the stresses it is under. We also learned it takes three months for a team of window cleaners to go down the facade of one side, then they go back up to the top and start again on the next one!
After grabbing some lunch, we went to the aquarium and underwater zoo inside the mall. This was part of the combination ticket we’d bought. The world’s largest acrylic panel was the front of the gigantic aquarium and tunnel, which we got to walk through.
The rest of the aquarium was up another storey in the building, and was filled with loads of wonderful displays, including sloths (logical inclusions in an aquarium, don’t you think?), penguins, some awesome spitting archer fish, and two scarily-large crocodiles from Australia - the male was 21’ long!
Later that afternoon, when we got back to the apartment, we went to the hotel pool for about an hour. Actually, technically speaking, we all went to the pool, but only Abi and I got in. Dan had changed his bag that morning, so wanted to keep it dry, and Alex had been a disobedient, answering-back, toerag, so he got to bring his Chromebook to the pool and do schoolwork.
After the pool, I did a quick load of washing, and promtly flooded the kitchen. The drain in the middle of the kitchen floor was blocked, and water was pouring up from it! I called maintenance and housekeeping, who came and unblocked it then mopped up, but the water had soaked under all the cabinets and was seeping out the other side into the dining and hall areas. Judging by the damage to the bottom of the cabinets and kickboards, this was not the first time the washing machine had flooded.
Once it was all sorted, and I’d hung out the washing on the balcony (it would be dry in about 30 seconds in the 39° tumbledryer wind), we went back to the Dubai Mall to watch the fountains. The fountains were created by the same company that did the ones at The Bellagio in Las Vegas, except they’d done them bigger here.
The display lasted three minutes and was wonderful to watch. The technology to get the jets going so high, so quickly, and rotating so smoothly, was incredible. The maintenance on all the moving parts must be never-ending!
Both children were being argumentative, fighting over space at the railing, so rather than stay to watch it again in 27 minutes, we got the metro back to the hotel, and put them to bed.
Day 357 - 13 Jun ‘24 - Dubai. Ooh, I love comfy beds! I love getting a good sleep in a cool room with dark curtains. I love washing that dries super quickly. I love housekeeping people that come into your room when you’re gone and make your bed and give you fresh towels (despite hanging them up, as requested on the signs everywhere).
Today we (read: I) decided to check out the other end of the city and visit the Palm at Jumeirah. This was one of the completely mad-made island complexes. There are two ‘palms’ as well as a collection of islands called The World, designed and built to look like a map of…the world.
It was 40°C with a relative humidity of 40%, which made it feel more like 46°C. The sweat was running down our fronts and backs, and forming in places I didn’t even know could sweat, like the top of my knees.
We caught the metro to the tram station, the tram to the monorail station, and the monorail from the base of the palm to the top of the fronds. From there we walked about 100 sweltering metres to see the Atlantis hotel, then walked back to the monorail station!
We happened to go past Aquaventure, the world’s largest waterpark, with the world’s largest number of water slides. In my defence, I didn’t know it existed. But when I looked at the ticket prices afterwards, and discovered they were $150NZD EACH, we wouldn’t have been going anyway.
Actually, we’ve found that everything here is expensive. It’s clearly a ‘cost of living’ thing; the whole city is rich, the buildings gigantic, the cars designer, the opulence obvious. If people are this wealthy, then the prices of things can be high. Even a simple vegan burger meal from a food court was $25NZD.
We headed home and did the reverse route of public transport but stopped for a while at the Mall of Emirates to get some lunch (a much more affordable mall). We also popped into the supermarket there to find some gluten free breakfast cereal for Abigail.
By this stage, Dan was done. His cough was annoying him, and the heat was exacerbating his headache. To be fair, tempers were short all around, so we went back to the hotel, and the kids and I went to the pool for a while.
We were scheduled to fly out at 3am again, but Dan looked online and saw there was a 2pm flight.
“I think we should change flights,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yep. We’re all tired. If we get the 3am flight, we get into Kathmandu around 7am, and the place lets us check in early. If we get the 2pm flight, we get in around 8pm.”
“How much does it cost to change?”
“It will cost us $321NZD.”
“Is it worth it?”
“To get a full sleep in our bed, and not have to try to get the kids to sleep on the plane? Yep.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same. Let’s do it. One more sleep in a comfy bed.”
So that’s exactly what we did. Sometimes spending money is more important that saving it.
Day 358 - 14 Jun ‘24 - Dubai to Nepal. We didn’t have such a good sleep, with Dan waking up coughing a lot. Hopefully it improves when we change climate.
We left our hotel about 11:30am, ready for our 2pm flight, and when we arrived at the airport, we discovered it had been delayed to 4:15pm. Nothing like a four hour wait at an airport…
It was an incredibly busy terminal, with almost every single seat occupied. When it came time to eat, it was a gamble to leave our seats in favour of ones at the food court.
Holy shit, the prices…a tuna sandwich was $17NZD.
A TUNA SANDWICH!
We eventually got on the plane, which departed a further 45 minutes late, and arrived in Kathmandu at 10:30pm.
Now the fun with the visas began. A month ago, I’d emailed the consulate to find out how to apply online, and was told I could fill in the form online but still had to pay at the airport, so most people just do it all at the airport.
Dan filled in the forms, but when we went to the pay counter we were told that he couldn’t find the visas, so we must have put in the wrong airport, and we had to fill in the forms.
We hadn’t, but joined the queue to use the kiosks at the other end of the room. Fifteen minutes later, I’d filled in all four forms again, so went back to the pay counter. The man then said Abi was eligible for the 90 day free visa since she was under 10, and we’d filled in the paid visa form. We tried to tell him it was because they only gave 15 or 30 days for free and the machine was saying the 90 days was $125USD, but he assured us it was free and we had to fill in the form again.
I went back to the visa counter to fill in the form again, selected the 90 days with the $125USD fee, and met Dan at the passport control; he’d paid the other three 15 day visas of $30USD each.
“This has $125USD outstanding, you need to pay,” the man behind the passport desk said.
“But it’s supposed to be free! The machine had the charge, but the man at the payment desk said it was free, so to fill in the form again!”
He got a couple of other people over to look, and then we changed counter. Two other people crowded into his booth, and then it all got sorted when a new guy explained that the 90 days free wasn’t possible because she turned 10 during the 90 days.
“Aah! Okay! Well, we’ll just have the 15 days free then, thank you.”
And so, at midnight, we finally left the airport after collecting our bags and buying a couple of SIM cards. Our hotel shuttle had been patiently waiting for us, and after a short drive through town, we were all in bed about 12:30am.
Our 15 days in Nepal had begun!
But first…sleep…
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