360 Degrees Longitude (24 page)

We chose a four-day budget camping safari run by a company recommended by our guidebook. We eyed the VISA ACCEPTED sign in the window as a good omen.

“We charge a ten percent fee for credit cards,” the owner of the safari company said as I pulled out my Visa card. That seemed a bit steep, but due to small transaction limits on the ATM networks, it would take a few days to accumulate enough cash.

“Ten percent is okay,” I said.

“Actually, the person who handles our credit card transactions is out sick.”

“That's all right. We can wait until tomorrow.”

“Well, uh … she is going to be out for a long time. We don't know when she will be back.”

“I see.” We eventually learned it is a rare business in Tanzania that accepts credit cards, even if a sign advertises such. It takes capital to run a business the way Westerners like us would expect. However, essentially all African businesses run on near zero capital and they have learned to adapt. The safari company simply needed our cash up front to pay for items like food, gas, and park entrance fees.

We settled into Arusha for a few days until we could withdraw enough cash to pay for our safari, but we soon found that withdrawing cash from an African ATM involves much more than walking up to it, sticking in your card, and punching a few buttons. First, the things require power to operate, and you simply can't rely on the power company to supply the stuff. Second, the things need to be stuffed with cash before they can dispense any, but more importantly the maximum daily withdrawal from a Tanzanian ATM is really not very much.

It would take a few days to accumulate enough cash to pay for our safari if the ATMs worked as they should—longer if they didn't. Whatever. We weren't in a hurry.

 

John's Journal, October 21

This morning as I stepped out of the shower there was a sweet young thing standing there with her hand outstretched. I was a wee bit stunned. She wanted my dirty clothes so she could wash them for me. The maid in our hostel scrubs the floor twice a day. With a rag, on her hands and knees. There are a lot of very hardworking people here. Yet there is also mind-boggling idleness. Huge numbers of young men sit along the streets for hours doing nothing at all. People flock from the villages to the cities, but there are no jobs to support them
.

Walking anywhere in the town of Arusha was like traversing an army-training obstacle course. As I made my daily rounds to the ATMs, I would leap over three-foot-wide open storm drains, squeeze past market stalls blocking the sidewalk, and weave through heavy traffic that showed no signs of following simple traffic laws like, say, stopping at stop signs. As I went about trying to coerce cash from the ATMs, street vendors would try to get me to buy some souvenir or food item, and beggars would simply ask for cash. To them,
I
was the ATM.

The various street merchants seemed hardworking, trying to make money to feed their families. It was clear that they were very, very poor and many were desperate. Still, it puts the traveler in an uncomfortable position, especially for people like us who weren't able to accumulate a lot of souvenirs.

Making daily rounds to the various ATMs in the city, it didn't take long for me to realize that people on the street knew we were accumulating cash. During our third night at the hostel someone entered our room at 3:00 a.m. I leaped out of bed screaming like a wild man,
“GET OUT!”
as the intruder quickly fled.

“How did he get in? Did you see who it was?” September was firing questions at me.

“I think he used a key. The door was locked, but now it isn't.”

The hostel staff knew nothing, saw nothing. Suddenly we were in a hurry to acquire the rest of the money for our safari and go. The following morning the safari company arranged a cash advance on my Visa at a local bank, albeit with a massive transaction fee.

Our whole reason for being in Arusha came from years before, when our favorite family pastime was to gather in front of our giant world map with a stack of Post-it notes to discuss where our trip might take us. As plans firmed up, Katrina and Jordan were allotted one Post-it note each. Katrina decided that the Serengeti was the one place she wanted to see during the World-the-Round Trip. Jordan's choice, The Great Wall of China, was still a few months away.

The night prior to our safari departure was full of anticipation from both Katrina and Jordan. Tiger, a small stuffed animal, had accompanied them ever since we left California. As we lay in bed, Katrina and Jordan were whispering in hushed excitement as they made plans to “show” Tiger the Serengeti.

We met Bariki, our guide, and Tanfi, our cook, the following morning. The six of us would be constant companions over the next four days, covering great distances in a Land Rover, eating our meals together and camping under the stars. The first thing we did as we pulled out of town was to go grocery shopping. Tanfi bought all of the supplies, including two liters of bottled water per day for each of us.

The Land Rover pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and Bariki pointed it down the blacktop and toward the horizon. We had hours of blacktop before we arrived at our destination, and the Lean, Mean Talking Machine started to work her craft. September started with the basics, asking Bariki and Tanfi where they were from. When they found we were from California, they asked excitedly, “Do you know Arnold Schwarzenegger?” We were surprised. In Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Dubai, we were peppered with inquiries about Monica Lewinsky, despite the decade or so since her brush with infamy. Arnold was a refreshing change of subject.

“No, we've never met him,” September responded. “Do you like some of his movies?”

“I have never seen a movie before,” they replied simultaneously.

I was pretty astounded. Not just because a grown man had never seen a movie, but because they knew a famous movie star, even though they had never seen a movie. Nor had Bariki or Tanfi ever heard of a movie called
Star Wars
. We were a long way from Kansas.

• • •

Frankly, the idea of a safari didn't interest me. I arrived in Africa with a prejudice developed while September and I were cycling in Alaska, before Katrina and Jordan entered our lives. Although Denali National Park was famous for moose, bear, and other wildlife, after a week of cycling across the tundra we had seen very little evidence of them. I expected a similar experience in the Serengeti, but Katrina had romantic notions of seeing large prides of lions, herds of elephants, and a landscape teeming with big game.

Driving into the Serengeti, we were met by axle-breaking roads. So when we came upon a large truck with its rear wheels almost ninety degrees out of their preferred orientation, it was no surprise. The truck's driver was on the verge of tears. Bariki simply kept driving.

When we reached our camp on the Serengeti Plain, prominently displayed on a sign near the entrance was “Do not go beyond the camp as the wild animals may attact (sic) humans.”

I stared at the sign, allowing the full gravity of its message to seep into my brain, all the while trying to reconcile the message with my expectations. Nevertheless, we pitched our tents in the center of the campsite, hoping to keep the other campers' tents as a buffer between us and the carnivores.

After dinner Bariki announced, “It is not advisable to leave your tent between midnight and 5:00 a.m.”

I asked him what we should do if we needed a nighttime winkle. “Couldn't we just go outside of the tent, if we don't walk across camp to the latrine?”

“It is not recommended,” Bariki replied solemnly. Shortly after we went to bed, I heard growling outside of our campground. I thought about the leopard story in the newspaper and wondered if camping was such a good idea.

Sure enough, at about 3:00 a.m. Jordan, who
never
needs to use the facilities in the middle of the night, informed me that he needed to use the toilet, and badly. What is a parent to do? Risk a bedwetting or risk allowing your child to become an early-morning breakfast?

I listened to the night for a good long time, poked my flashlight out of the tent, sniffed the breeze, and contemplated my next move. It is my strong desire that my finest moment in life, the moment I faced my biggest fear, will not end up being when I took Jordan out for a pee next to a tent. So I'll have to come up with something heroic in the coming years, because that is precisely what I did, and I was terrified.

Daylight broke over our camp and I felt a wave of relief at having survived the experience. I did, however, have regrets over my choice of using the laundry bag as a pillow for the night. I woke to find Jordan's dirty underwear pasted to the side of my face.

At breakfast Bariki told us that lions had in fact been poking around the campground during the night. So after breakfast, in the safety of our Land Rover, we went to look for them. Bariki soon located four fully grown females and four or five adolescents of both sexes.

He maneuvered the Land Rover about two car lengths away from them. Standing with my head and shoulders poking out of the viewing port in the roof, I locked eyes with one of the fully grown females, and for several seconds we considered each other, she with large, unblinking and inquisitive eyes.

How does one describe the cold stare of an animal that has only known being the top of the food chain? I couldn't help but wonder if she was thinking, “Mmmmm, plump and juicy!” I wanted to shout, “I'm on top of the food chain, too, you know!” Of course that's not saying much because with no natural predators, skunks are, too.

Awed by the scene, all I could manage to say was, “Well. This is nothing like Alaska.”

“You're goofy, Dad,” Katrina said with a giggle.

The safari was full of spectacular encounters with wildlife. Bariki kept us entertained with background information and anecdotes about the area and the animals. Some of his anecdotes seemed like the African version of an urban legend, like the German who wanted to photograph hippopotamuses up close, sneaking out of camp and wading up to his waist in a watering hole only to become dinner for same. But I wasn't about to wade into any watering holes to refute the authenticity, either.

 

Katrina's Journal, October 25

We got up early this morning. Tanfi already had our breakfast packed for us and we were off. We soon saw some giraffes. They were very close up, and we watched a mother eating lazily while its baby nursed. Farther down the road, we saw our next animal
—
a full grown male lion. I really like seeing lions, and am hoping to see all of “The Big Five,” which are lions, elephants, leopards, rhinoceros, and cape buffalo. But I like the cats the best so I want to see cheetahs, too
.

After seeing the male lion, we went somewhere nearby and saw a male and a female lion together. Counting these, I think we have seen seventeen lions
.

Then we drove some more, seeing nothing besides gazelles and stuff, a few warthogs, and hyenas. But we did, after a while, see a crocodile. It wasn't very long, but I thought that it was pretty neat to see one. And after that, guess what? We saw a LEOPARD. It was kind of far away, but through the binoculars we could see that it was sitting in a tree, eating its kill. There were about ten cars surrounding the leopard, but wow. It isn't very common to see one
.

After seeing the leopard, we headed back to camp and had lunch. After that, we got back in the car and began the long drive to a new camp at Ngorongoro, where we are now. On the way we saw two lionesses, one with her kill. And we also saw a cheetah. All three big cats in one day. The cheetah was very far away and even through the binoculars I couldn't see its spots, but I could tell by its shape that it was a cheetah
.

Bariki's ability to spot wildlife was astounding. He had an uncanny ability to sight, say, a leopard that had dragged its kill up into a tree a kilometer away. Bariki would locate a
National Geographic
moment for us to gawk at, and then position our Land Rover as close to the action as he could. Then he would make himself busy while we took pictures and acted like tourists.

It took me a while to figure out what was occupying Bariki's attention while we were taking pictures; he had his cell phone out and was texting his girlfriend. I pulled my own cell phone from my pocket and noted I had five bars of coverage. Somehow, the coolness factor of being on safari in the Serengeti was diminished when I realized that my mother could call and check up on me to see if I had been eaten.

At the end of the dry season the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater are as dry as dust and just as brown. There is no replicating the sensation of slathering your skin with sunscreen and 'skeeter repellant only to have it act as a dust magnet. By the end of the day, we were nearly as brown as our guide. “I'd kill for a shower,” I said.

“Not with rations of two liters of water per day, you won't,” September replied.