January 21, 2012 in africa, travel,
Let’s lead off with my first suggestion here: definitely 100% you should go on a safari, and I highly, highly recommend Tanzania for that safari. It’s a place where there are amazing animals that you can get so close to; where there are friendly and happy people who will help you have an incredible time; and where you’ll likely find yourself imbued with magic powers, like my wife who always knew what time it was to within two minutes, despite not having a watch, and who always knew how to get where we wanted to go, even though, at home, her sense of direction isn’t good enough to successfully walk out the door she just walked in. We had an astounding time — truly the trip of a lifetime — and I’m confident you will too.
Why Tanzania?
We picked Tanzania for three reasons:
1. It has the vast majority of the animals you’ll wan’t to see
2. It’s quite safe and stable
3. I’m a bit of an admirer of the “father of the nation,” Julius Nyerere
Number one was important to us because we like to settle down and really take some time to explore in each place we stop. This is a lot easier if you can spend at least two nights — which means a full day — in any destination, and that, in turn, is a lot easier if you minimize your overall travel time. We never took a flight much more than 2 hours once we were inside Tanzania, and that meant that, even on a travel day, we were able to fit in a safari first thing in the morning, before our departure, and in the evening, after we arrived at our next stop. That basically means we tripled the number of trips into the bush we could take, versus longer travel-time destinations.
Number two kind of speaks for itself. Tanzania is vastly safer than South Africa — which, near as I can tell, may actually be less safe than Baltimore or Palms — and somewhat safer than Kenya. You have noticeable crime in some of the bigger urban areas, but we didn’t have the slightest problem anywhere we stayed. That counts for a bit, especially with other plausible safari destinations including Burundi, South Africa, and Malawi.
Number three was a bonus just for me, although my wife’s embroidered initials, CCM, on her bag caused a bunch of second looks. I’d learned to admire Julius Nyerere in a college class on sub-Saharan African politics, and I was certainly glad to hear Tanzanian after Tanzanian tell me what a good job he’d done, especially in making them all feel like Tanzanians, rather than members of their tribe, first. I can’t lie, I enjoy going places whose politics I understand a bit!
What’s Tanzania Like?
Probably the hardest thing to get used to about Tanzania was that they’d say “hakuna matata” to you and mean it. Then there’s the parents taking their little tykes on safari: you see them point at a lion and say “look! There’s Simba!” and you just want to tell them, listen here, this isn’t some Disney movie, this is real nature, appreciate it for what it is, with the tragedy and violence, and stop lying to your kid there, ok? Except then you realize that the Kiswahili word for “lion” is “simba,” and the parents are just teaching their child a new language and helping them become a better citizen of our global society, and you’re the asshole in this one.
Oh, and Tanzania’s hot and sunny. So, so hot and sunny: even little doesn’t-tan’-doesn’t-burn me was wearing not my usual SPF 15 but SPF 50 to make it through the day. But the truth is that you hardly notice the heat when you’re 20 feet from a pride of lions. Excuse me, from a pride of simba.
Where Should I Go in Tanzania?
Short answer: anywhere. Long answer: we really enjoyed our stops — the Mahale Mountains, Ruaha, and Selous — that were a little bit away from things. In general, we found staying in camps and getting up early and going out tracking and exploring on safari with the guides there was an amazing experience. The solitude of being with just a few people in a small camp in the middle of nowhere really made me feel like I was closer to nature. Were we to go back again, I don’t know that we’d plan the Serengeti, which is much busier.
For mainland Tanganyika, we’d go to Kwihala in Ruaha, Selous Impala, or Nkungwe in Mahale again. In Zanzibar, we loved 236 Hurumzi, but it was very much a place you love or hate, so I recommend you do your research. Given the sand and water we saw, I can’t imagine any beach spot in Zanzibar being a bad choice (we chose ours based only on availability).
When Should I Go to Tanzania?
We went during the Little Rainy Season, which is a good time to go. From October through the end of December, you’re most likely to be rained out for a half day at most, or even just drizzled on, which is just fine. Also, not many people come during the little rainy season; we were the only two at in the entire Mahale Mountains National Park, and the only two at our camp in Ruaha during our first day there.
Many people come to Tanzania in the main dry season, late January through March, which can be a great time to see the big predators, but a tough time for the chimps — whereas we saw 20-30 at a time at an hour or 90 minutes from camp, the chimps go up into the mountains to seek out scarce forage during the dry season, so you’ll see at most a handful and that after four to six or even more hours of trekking. Our guides recommended August-October as a time that was good for seeing game and predators and also not too busy.
What Camera Equipment Should I Pack?
I was rather surprised at my photo experience at the end of the whole thing — the gear I’d expected to be the most-used never got touched, and the gear I left behind because I didn’t think it would be appropriate would’ve turned out to be tremendously useful.
Every single source I read said “bring a beanbag for your camera!” Perhaps because my longest lens was 300mm — the maximum length for hand-held shots in fairly bright daylight — I was able to do without. (My bad shots were bad, but they didn’t have motion blur in them.) Most of the angles I had to shoot at didn’t have a metal bar to hook my beanbag to anyway. So, I might’ve skipped that entire half kilo out of my 15-kilo weight limit.
On the other hand, I didn’t bring my very cheap but very long 500mm mirror lens. I figured it was slow; too long to hand-hold; and hard to focus; all adding up to something I couldn’t ever get a shot with. Well, I was wrong: those animals, they didn’t move as much as I thought they would. I’d had troubles shooting the dogs in the backyard with that lens, but lions? They’re lazy. Definitely take your long, cheap, slow lens to Africa.
And my nifty fifty? I brought that in case the jungle at Mahale was too dark and I needed that f/1.8 speed. Nah, my everyday 18-50 f/2.8 let in plenty of light for that at ISO 800.
So, I’d say: cover 24-as high as you can go and you’re fine. (The panoramas are so wide that you don’t need your wide angle to get that shot.) Don’t worry about having the fastest lens; cover your range. Oh, and don’t forget your circular polarizing filters, to catch the green vegetation and the azure water right.
What Should I Pack for My Safari?
I actually plan to write an entry on “how to pack” soon, based on experiences over the past ten years or so, but my advice for safari is:
* Long sleeves to protect yourself from the very hard sun
* About three times as much sunscreen as you think
* A broad-brimmed hat, again for that sun
* A safari vest. I bought the cheapest plausible one I could find, and guess what: I fell in love. Who cares about camera bags (I bought a neat new one for this trip)? Carrying your lenses in a vest? Filters, too? OK, that was my idea of heaven.
* Oh, and little tiny toilet paper rolls. Not those, the biodegradable kind. For when you need to potty on safari.
What About Malaria Pills?
I had never taken malaria pills before, and had traveled all around the most malaria-ridden parts of Latin America without any worries, using this great stuff to keep me safe; but everyone told me “take your Malarone!” in Africa. Well, despite the repellent, I got bit up by old anopheles time and time again. Good thing for those magic red pills!
Where Should I Book My Safari?
We booked with Africa Travel Resource, and never regretted it for a moment. In fact, several of our guides looked at our itinerary and commented how great it was. And it didn’t even sound like they were blowing sunshine up our you-know-whats. They were helpful and got us the right vacation at the right price.
So that’s about it. The only other advice I can give you is: plan your safari now, you’ll never forget it!
January 15, 2012 in travel, africa, photos,
After our trip through the Selous, the driving about the Ruaha that came before it, and dusty Arusha, and the mud and jungle of Mahale, it was time to recover from our vacation. From 5am wake-up calls to afternoons out in the bright sun and hundred-degree heat and hours spent peering into the foliage for a moment’s sight of a brightly-colored bird or a rare, stalking predator, we were tired out. Yeah, I know, us poor folks on a once-in-a-lifetime safari half the world away.
But there were no two ways about it: we were tired out, and we’d seen enough animals. So it was time to leave the mainland and jet — or, rather, the usual 12-seat turboprop — our way over to the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. Once the center of a vast and wealthy Sultanate that controlled East African trade, Zanzibar is a verdant pool in the midst of bright blue water; so of course we went to the beach to relax with drinks with umbrellas in them. And it was everything we’d hoped for: azure water, friendly staff, delicious drinks, and a lagoon as warm as a bath with cabanas floating in it for the delicious drinks the staff had served you on the beach.
We even were able to celebrate the new year on that beautiful beach, dancing with the happy staff of the resort, around a bonfire in the stiff sea breeze.
It was all a relaxing delight, even the massages. Oh, of course the massages would be good — it was what they made you wear during the massages that was odd. For modesty’s sake, it seems, they prefer you to wear disposable undergarments, which I suppose I could see being modest if they weren’t completely transparent black mesh, the kind of thickly-waled, wide-gapped black mesh that I’m pretty sure is quite à la mode in Berlin’s finest S&M techno clubs. But, hey, I managed not to laugh and the masseuse hopefully managed not to be mortified by my nudity, so I suppose it was a win for everyone.
After wearing our — well, I don’t know what you’d call them, gayderhosen? — we felt ready to rejoin society. And that was our next stop: the old Zanzibari capital of Stonetown.
Stonetown is a beautiful city, a warren of streets built before automobiles and far too thin to fit anything larger than a motorbike. It has a beautiful market with fresh fish and meats and some of the best spices anywhere, and this translates into absolutely delicious restaurants. And history is everywhere, from the ornate touches of India and the Middle East in architecture to the 16th century Portuguese cannon that the Sultanate captured and then, ten generations later, tried in vain to use against British battleships in the shortest war in history (it took the Sultan only 45 minutes to have all of his stuff blown up and surrender).
Once a fabulously wealthy city, the slow decline of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, revolution, and poverty hit Stonetown hard, however, and a shocking exhibit in the local museum — a building called the House of Wonders, the Sultan’s former palace and the only part of his landholdings not blown up by those British battleships — stated that 60% of the buildings in Stonetown were in danger of collapse. Looking at them, I wasn’t surprised; in fact, there were gaps here and there where a building had fallen down already.
Decay or not, Stonetown was an adventure. Perhaps a bit alien — the bustle of the market, with vendors all pitching their wares, the smells of butchery, and the yelling of cabbies overwhelmed the two of us just a bit — but the people were lovely and the artisans made beautiful work everywhere. Two days, and probably ten showers in the dusty, hundred-degree weather, we were finally able to start our 39-hour trip back to the US. You know, the part of the trip where we ended up in a cab driven by a guy who didn’t speak English and didn’t know where we were going, so he had to pull into a dark dirt alley in the middle of the night and ask a hooker for directions.
Actually, that sounds a lot like riding in a cab in LA. So, welcome home it was indeed, and welcome back to civilization for sure!
January 15, 2012 in travel, africa, photos,
We arrived at the Selous right ahead of a storm, just as we had at Ruaha. We could feel it too: as our unpressurized Caravan made its landing turn, hot, humid, close air burst through the ventilation system, filling the cabin with languor and the promise of rain. Again, just as at Ruaha, the sun was shining and the sky clear as we landed, but there was a vast, dark cloud in the corner of the sky, and the wide horizons of Africa made it easy to see that rain was streaming out of it. At Ruaha, we started back to camp as if on a game drive, but then dark clouds emerged from two other corners of the sky, and then we sped back to camp to try to get there before the storms converged from three sides.
At Selous, we had less of a worry if we would beat the weather, because our afternoon safari was planned to take place in a covered boat. We’d head down the broad, muddy Rufiji river, keeping our eyes peeled for birds, hippos, and, yes, crocodiles, returning at sundown to clean up in our tent.
And it was some return. The Selous Impala camp, where we stayed, offered the only fan we had in any of our safari stops. Courtney, who loves keeping cool and had been quite the trouper to put up, uncomplaining, with day after day of 100-degree-plus weather. She quite literally almost hugged the fan as soon as we walked into our tent.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Impala was a very, very different place than Kwihala — or any other place we’d been. Impala is owned by Italians, who, it’s fair to say, have their own set of priorities. For instance, in the middle of nowhere, with no source of power or anything other than diesel they truck in, they have this:
Dinner was served in a grand style, too, in a lovely setting as well:
There was even the house hippo, Andrea, who loved to hang around the place:
Andrea was quite the challenge: while having him around was exciting and scenic, the reality is that hippos are cranky, cranky animals and, if you were to unexpectedly stumble upon Andrea, the reality was that he would almost certainly trample you to death. Us urban types have few skills related to not stumbling upon hippos, so, rather than deal with a ton of dead tourists they have to hide, Impala employs a bunch of Maasai warriors who escort you from place to place. You just stand outside and yell “Jambo Masai!” and they come and get you, pointing out little animals (and, of course, Andrea if he’s around) along the way.
We had just one driving safari in Selous, but it was a humdinger: a tracker had found a lion pride, and our driver was on top of it:
Most of our time we spent on river safaris, going up and down the Rufiji. The river teemed with birds of all sorts, like this bee-eater:
And this kingfisher (hot tip: I love photographing kingfishers, no matter what part of the world we’re in):
And even this egret — the local egrets seem to like standing on the local water buffalo:
But of course what we came to see were the hippos, like this one who took a serious look at us:
And this one who wanted to tell us: these are my teeth!
And, of course, the sinister crocodiles:
The sunsets? They were a bonus!
December 31, 2011 in travel, tanzania, photo,
I’m writing this blog entry on my third flight out of Arusha — we keep leaving, but we can’t seem to stay away. Even after yesterday, after we drove out of there.
We overnighted in Arusha after leaving the Mahale Mountains, the easiest convenient flight being, of course, to the city we can’t leave. The next day, we drove out in a big Toyota Land Cruiser under the watchful eye of Christopher, our Maasai guide for the next two days. (Note to Rover executives: when Toyota replaces the Range Rover as the safari vehicle of choice in an image-conscious former British colony, you’ve made a lot of bad moves.) He drove us out through Arusha’s busy, seedy downtown, into the Maasai steppe and even past his own hometown, into the little Manyara reserve, for our first vehicle safari.
In general, we’ve tried to avoid the Northern Circuit on this safari holiday — it’s migration season in the Serengeti, which is supposed to be astounding, but also apparently brings with it as many tourists in Land Cruisers as it does antelope and lions. Rather than fight the lines to see a lounging lion, we’re headed to the Southern circuit, where we’ll be much more alone. (If the fact that we’re the only two people on this flight means anything, much much more alone!)
Manyara was a great introduction to the vehicle safari: easily accessable and with many animals that were generous enough to come close to the road. The park started us off right with an elephant who tentatively stuck his head out and then walked across the road right in front of us.
We then were introduced to antelope and giraffe, both as graceful as on tv. The giraffe somehow a slow-motion version of a horse, gliding over the landscape almost like a special effect. But I think my favorite hooved animal in Manyara was the zebra:
The hooved animals had a lot of competition from the monkey side of things, and the monkeys were really representing at Manyara. The small, cute side of things was held up by the blue and the black-faced vervet monkeys:
Meanwhile, at the large, mischevious end of things, the baboons were moving around in large packs. (Make sure to lock your doors and close your windows! Apparently they’ll reach in to steal your stuff!) With their long, silky-looking fur and inquisitive nature, they pretty much stole the show:
And they had backup in the cute department too, what with their young’uns:
At the end of our first game drive, we drove up the outer escarpment of the Ngorongoro crater to stay at a working farm. And, when I say “working farm” I mean “place that grows the vegetables it serves at gourmet meals, while having luxurious huts for dozens of guests.”
First thing in the morning, it was onto a flight to the vast Ruaha game preserve in the south. Or so we thought: it turned out to be another flight into Arusha, where our local carrier, Coastal Air, would drop us and then figure out how to get us to the Ruaha. And I can’t complain, because, as I said, I’m writing this on my third flight out of Arusha, and we’re the only two people on this sleek, silver Pilatus streaking south high above the clouds, rakish French pilot speeding us towards our next stop: a tented camp in the middle of the bush.
December 22, 2011 in travel, tanzania, photos,
Lake Tanganyika is the second-longest freshwater lake in the world, and contains 17% of the world’s fresh water — or so it said in the brochure in our resort, the Nkungwe Lodge in the Mahale Mountains. Easy-to-believe statistics, given that the lake stretched almost as far as the eye could see in all directions, a deep, clear blue to rival any Caribbean or South Pacific ocean. I say almost because, while we couldn’t see Zambia to the south or Rwanda and Burundi to the north, we could see the misty hint of the Congo’s eastern forests on the far horizon, and the rain over there would hide it all behind a curtain of dark blue in the eggshell sky.
We’d gotten to the Mahale Mountains area on what was practically a private plane, a scheduled charter that only had the two of us and one other passenger on it. The 12-seater Cessna Grand Caravan shot right into the sky from Arusha’s runway and took us on a scenic, smooth trip over deep-green jungle. (In an old blog entry from my trip to Southeast Asia, I said that Thailand had a yellowish-green jungle and Vietnam a bluish-green one; Tanzania has a black-green one, like the platonic ideal of a tree color but with the shadows clipped straight to black, so that brightness drops into murky darkness straight away.)
From there we were picked up by a guide in a little, fast boat that sped us down Lake Tanganyika to our resort, where they welcomed us warmly. There aren’t many resorts in the Mahale mountains — actually, only three, all offering mountain jungle safaris to see a group of chimpanzees native to the area. One of these is apparently incredibly famous but would’ve had us blowing practically our entire budget in just a few days; we picked the camp, Nkungwe, that many called the second-choice. As the boat pulled up to Nkungwe’s glowing golden sand beach, expansive thatched-roof lounge, and little tents tucked up in the edges of the forest, it was hard to see how this could be a second choice.
Straight off the boat we were offered the chance to trek into the forest to see chimps — wholly unexpected, since we’d heard they were often hours away from camp and we’d arrived just after 1pm. Today, the tracker who follows the group for all the area lodges told us they were only about 45 minutes away, so, after a delicious lunch, we were off!
It took us what seemed like no time to hear their first hoots and screams echoing from only a few hundred yards away. The sound made my heart race — the chimps were close! Maybe we’d catch a glimpse! Oh, how low I set my sights at the beginning of that first trek!
Within twenty minutes we’d come on a group of about a dozen chimps — a mother with a baby just under two in the crook of a trunk about four feet off the ground, the rest up to about thirty feet up in the surrounding trees. We were silent and hesitant as our safari guide, Given, encouraged us to get closer. Finally, I mustered the courage to work to my left and get the chimps so they weren’t backlit and I could start taking photos. The youngster, joined by two friends, was swinging and leaping wildly, testing herself while her mother looked on.
Then there was an enormous hooting and hollering, and a crashing of chimps up to the top of the trees: the alpha male had caught a good-sized monkey and was prepared to share it with the group. We saw four other males tear the monkey — who was already limp and, I presume, dead — into roughly equal parts and chow down. There are no choice pieces, Given explained; they just eat it all.
Soon I was at ease, walking down to where a game warden stood with a machete (more for hacking paths than for defending us from chimps I think), and shot more photos. But, as I climbed uphill to my earlier spot, we were startled by more screaming and general activity as a female in heat came through the group. I could feel the testosterone and aggression around me and suddenly felt very alone, by myself halfway up a forty-foot slope, between the warden and Given. I stood still, as I’d been told, and soon they’d calmed down.
The next day we were out again in the morning, taking a somewhat different path to the chimps. This time they were further up in the hills that rose steeply away from Lake Tanganyika, but fortunately not all the way to the mist-shrouded tops, a good nine-hour hike. About an hour later, we’d crossed a stream and clambered up and down the muddy faces of a rise, tree roots carving the path into natural steps. We ran into the chimps at an intersection, and watched, again, a baby gambol as he and his mother waited for the rest of the group.
Then the alpha male came by — right behind us. We were between the two adult chimps, with no way out except along the path they were sitting directly next to. Given told us to calmly walk right past, and I past close enough to the group’s Alpha that I could’ve brushed him by accident. Later, we saw about another dozen group members together, and even caught two mating, before, with a sudden roar, a downpour enveloped the jungle and drove us home (just as it drove the chimps, who hate to get wet, up higher in the trees).
When we returned to Nkungwe, the staff offered to dry our clothes for us. “Oh no,” we answered, “we’re sure you must have other people to take care of!” (Although, we hadn’t seen any!) “No,” answered the manager, “you’re the only people at any of the three camps in the Mahale.” “Also,” Given expanded, “during the dry season, people usually trek up into the hills, taking 8 hours and having to wait their turn with many other groups to see just one or two chimps. With more than 40 tents at the three camps, and a maximum of 6 people looking at a chimp group at once, and a limit of an hour a day per group, dry season safaris are lucky to see a baby playing, much less something special like a hunting or mating.”
Thus we discovered that the ideal ratio of tourists to national parks is 2:1, just as the ideal ratio of tourists to resort staff is apparently about 2:16. And that even a place that you can’t get to from Europe in less than eleven hours is still packed full at high season.
In all fairness, we did have three other people on our flight back to Arusha, so it wasn’t all a private affair. Also — probably in some kind of penance for our ridiculous luck — I came down with a bit of stomach trouble on our third day and missed the last chimp safari. Anybody who knows my wife knows her luck, and would be unsurprised to learn that, while she and Given were out without me, they saw nearly thirty chimps and even were menaced by a less human-friendly member of the group.
But the lodge fixed me up right that evening, with the traditional cure of soda water and white rice. The rice, as you might guess, was outstanding, as was all of the food served at Nkungwe. Of course, it’s all unfair because they started with fruit of a freshness that’s unimaginable even from a farmer’s market; I don’t believe any fruit was picked as long ago as yesterday, or eggs laid either. And the chef had a deft touch with flavors, mixing spices from southern and western Asia, as well as unexpected techniques like shaved bell pepper (awesome!) into everything.
So, the summary of Mahale Mountains: the only problem is, can any other part live up to this? We’re headed back to Arusha to overnight, then it’s a vehicle safari through Nogorongoro Crater, one of the largest craters on land anywhere. And, to be honest, I fear I’ll find Moivaro’s adorable bar to be rather dull tonight.
December 22, 2011 in travel, tanzania, photo,
The veranadah we enjoyed our first Tanzanian beers on was at the Moivaro Lodge, a lovely getaway in the midst of a coffee plantation just outside Arusha. (It sounds more antebellum than it actually is). This quiet, beautifully landscaped place seems more a stopover for most of its guests than anything else, some heading to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, some heading to the Northern or Western safari circuits of Tanzania.
We were headed for the Western circuit first, but, stopover or not, nothing says romantic like a mosquito net draped over your wide, comfortable bed, like an awning of old. That, plus a great wood-carved bar — all the wood so far in Africa seems priceless, probably easily-harvested locally but no longer available elsewhere — and a roaring fire, with a friendly man serving locally-manufactured gin (lemony! light! complex!) with locally-manufactured tonic (sweet! also citrus-y!), with bowers of flowering African bushes outside, makes for a lovely stay, stopover or not.
There were really only two downsides to our stay at Moivaro:
- For some reason, we kept being seated far away from others at dinner, such that we felt like the young couple seated right next to the bathroom entrance at any LA restaurant; that is, shunned, and we already did the young couple in LA thing so we don’t need a refresher
- We decided to tour the local village, which turned out to be a pretty solid Kilimanjaro work-up (how do I know that? When we tried to quit, our guide told us so).
The food, especially the breakfasts, was delicious, so I can overlook the seating. But the walk through town? Advertised as a light two hours — just what our jet-lagged, thirty-hours-on-planes bodies needed, it turned out to be three-quarters quaint and detailed walk through the local village and one-quarter mental toughness exercise.
The walk through the local village was nice enough; everyone had their own farm plot, most clearly large enough to provide for a family. It was the typical scenic version of developing-world poverty: nobody looking hungry or naked, no missing roofs, but no paved roads or running water either.
The hill stood right behind town, overlooking it, with the nicest neighborhoods maybe even a couple of hundred feet up it. So we started up, and soon found out the hill’s dirty secret: while it wasn’t too high, the path was straight up to the top, and any hill is pretty darned steep that way.
We thought about turning around several times, but each time the guide prodded us on — you won’t make Kilimanjaro if you can’t make this! Neither of us is patient enough to spend six days climbing Kilimanjaro, so goodness knows neither of us cares, but neither of us is inclined to back down from a challenge like that either. So we kept at it, which would’ve been just fine if we’d done basic things like, oh, bring water. Which we didn’t. Because this was a leisurely jaunt through town, not a on-all-fours scrabble up a dry, dusty grade.
In retrospect, our biggest mistake was not imitating the village kids, who smashed large plastic bottles flat and rode them down the dirt path like any of us rode garbage can lids in our youth. As it was, I spent half the descent basically surfing my way along, crouched over one foot, sliding on the loose, steep dirt, the other foot out front to steer.
Somehow we made it back, and able to drag out a few Tanzanian Shilling to buy some water at a bar in the village on our way home. And then we got a massage, because we’d earned it: three and a half hours on a mountain, no water. Yep, we were ready to climb Kilimanjaro: pity we were headed for the Mahale Mountains first thing!
December 17, 2011 in travel, tanzania, photos,
Habati from Africa! At least, I think that’s the word. It’s kind of hard to tell details like “what’s the language” and “where am I?” and “what time is it?” after a flight halfway around the world.See, we left the house at 2:30pm and then finally arrived at our destination at 9:30am two days later. Taking into account time change fun, that totals up to about 30 hours in four airports, three planes, and a Toyota Land Cruiser.
It all started in LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal, which was a wonderful reminder of just how much of a shithole LAX actually is. I’d last flown out of that terminal probably six years ago, when much of the construction was still ongoing (for instance: the big TSA luggage x-ray machines were right at the front of the building, because that was the only place that there was room, which also meant a building-long line of people waiting for checked luggage clearance that you had to somehow make your way past before you could even get to the line for the check-in counter). I was excited to see the new Tom Bradley International Terminal, with its many restaurants and shops that the wife and I could pass hours in as we waited for our flight.
So we arrived, responsibly, a bit more than 3 hours early (driven by the only good cab driver I’ve had since 1993 in LA, by the way, or at least only the second one who knew where he was going; he got a big holiday tip). And security was fast and we got right in to the gates area. And then we discovered that the restaurants were actually *outside* the gates, and there was almost nothing to do inside. Well-played, LAX, well-played: you almost made me forget what a shithole you are with your nice, clean Tom Bradley International Terminal.
But it was actually OK, because we’d had a pretty outstanding experience checking in for our flight. And how many times have you ever said that? We flew Turkish Airlines — you may not know, since we didn’t, that they won Best Airline in Europe last year — mostly because they met the big two priorities we had:
- Reasonable Price
- Layover less than 8 hours
In addition, they had an add-on bonus that didn’t contribute to our selection of them but certainly made us more excited: a brand-new premium economy section that they were selling at almost-economy prices, and that we could fly on our first leg, the preposterously-long LAX-Istanbul non-stop route. When we arrived for check-in, we discovered an entire queue set up just for premium economy, so we sped to the counter. Once there, we had to talk to a nice lady in ticketing; as she started to help us, she repeated our names back to us, which resulted in the nice lady next to her saying “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong! I know you. Your ticket is right here!”
That’s right, apparently we’re so important that the desk agents at Turkish Airlines recognize us straight away. I assume that this is because my wife works in TV; all fame in LA comes from TV. At least, I assume it’s not because the agent has a thing for content management systems.
Thus, despite the continuing incompetence of LA World Airports, we were able to enjoy our sojourn at the gate with a reserve of good attitude. And then, speaking of good attitude, we got on the plane.
When we bought premium economy, we pretty much expected what we saw on other domestic airlines: a couple of inches more seat pitch, some premium in-flight entertainment, and business-class food. Maybe free booze too, if we were lucky. What we didn’t expect — and what we saw as soon as we walked in — was pretty much what they called “Business Class” 10 years ago. With a probably inappropriate level of oohing and aahing, we sat down — me next to the window, Court along the aisle, in a 2+4+2 widebody configuration — and then suddenly realized that I could get up and walk past my wife to get to, say, the bathroom without her actually having to leave her seat. And there was a footrest. And those little reading lights on the flexible stalks. And a ton of recent movies on the inflight entertainment.
And, just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, the cabin crew brought us our dinner menu. So that we could make our selections. It looked delicious — when was the last time you said that about an airline menu? — and we were excited. Then it came, and it was delicious, with a salad with good-quality feta and fresh olive oil, and great chicken and fish, and delicious rice and sauce and veggies, and free whisky for the both of us.
The upshot is: the next time you only have 24-30 hours for vacation, you might just want to book a round-trip on Turkish Air and enjoy the free movies, the delicious food, the friendly cabin crew, and the outrageous seats. Apart from the risk of thrombosis, I think I could’ve spent three weeks on that flight!
Flying from Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania, wasn’t quite as luxurious, but we still got to travel on a brand-new 737-900. And the meals were good again, even the breakfast that came in your standard airline box. Which just begs the question: why does anyone ever take a US carrier? Or, more than that, why are US carriers so awful?
We landed at 3am at the very relaxed, very tropical Dar airport, waited in line for a while to get a very nifty-looking visa stamped into our passports — it even has our photos on it! — and then hung out on a bench waiting for check-in to open for our final leg of our flight, about 3 hours later. So we waited and read — and I accidentally walked around security and off practically onto a boarding walkway, but they were very nice about it — and finally got in a nice, quick line to check in with local low-cost carrier Precision Air.
Again, the flight was lovely, with smiling cabin attendants who somehow pulled off their yellow-and-lime-green uniforms and comfortable-enough seats even on the little ATR turboprop. Luckily enough, we were even seated on the right side of the plane to get a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro as we went in to land.
The Kilimanjaro airport made Dar, with its actual multiple floors and gates and queues seem bustling. In minutes our bags were up and we found a nice man with a sign that said “Armstrong Wade” (my name order is surprisingly unclear when coming at it from another culture, actually) and a big, tan Toyota Land Cruiser. He took us down well-maintained highways, past a town with a market days and past a bunch of guys on good-looking motorcycles with chrome polished to a rare shine — to our first destination: the lodge at the Moivaro Coffee Plantation, just a bit outside of Tazania’s resort center of Arusha and about 3000 feet up the side of Kilimanjaro.
Which is where I’m writing you from, enjoying a caramel-y Serengeti Lager while Court savors her crisp-yet-nutty Kilimanjaro lager, on a verandah while the sun goes down around us, the birds whistle in the nearby jungle, and the locusts chirp a soothing story. Tonight, it’s luxury under a mosquito net in our little hut. Because, after thirty hours, it’s been well time.
September 6, 2010 in travel,
Somehow, years ago, we were lucky enough to get on a list of people who should have timeshares pitched to them. That got us a trip to Hawaii. So we were thrilled when we got a call telling us we had a chance to enjoy another two vacations in return for new timeshare presentations. First up was Palm Springs. And we had to work for it.
First, there was the heat. You may have read about it. It was 107° the day we got there, and it only got hotter (about 10 degrees hotter, actually). Yeah, maybe we should’ve gone later in the year, but our schedules are about to get busy and we wanted to get the trip in while we could!
But the heat wasn’t the real work; it just made us spend time by the pool (more on that later). The real work was the timeshare presentation. And that we didn’t expect.
Usually, timeshare presentations are easy. Sure, sometimes the salesperson’s crazy and yells at you — actually, come to think of it, between the ex-military guy who told us we were going to die if we left and the shrill Brazilian closer who caterwauled at my wife for saying no, usually the salesperson’s crazy and yells at us — but the good thing is that they do all the talking and you just sit there and, after 90 minutes, say no.
That 90 minutes is the key part: every vacation deal so far has told us that we had to agree to see a 90-minute presentation in return for the free trip. Both the wife and I are convinced that, if we said “no” 89 minutes in, the trip would totally not be free, so we take attending the whole presentation very seriously. And, hey, with a reasonably well-put-together pitch, lots of photos, and some time browsing the properties around the world that we could stay at, 90 minutes has gone by pretty quickly.
Not this time! This time, our experience had a baaaad meeting with a rookie salesguy who didn’t know his stuff.
The timeshare presentation always leads with the salesperson asking us to tell them about our recent vacations. Somehow, between having answered this question several times in the past and both of us being professional writer-types who are used to the need to be concise (Ed. Note: Not here!), we managed to answer that question in just a couple of minutes, so fast that the salesman took a breath and said, “wow, that was fast!”
That was when I first got a sinking feeling in my stomach: remember that I firmly believe we have to go every last one of the ninety minutes, and I probably just blew about 7 of those by answering quick. But, I wasn’t worried, I figured the salesman would pull it out. I mean, just like we can’t leave a minute early, if they wrap up early, well, they can’t make us sit there in silence for the rest of the time, can they?
Actually, that would probably be a pretty good sales tactic. “So, you gonna say ‘yes’ yet?” “Nope.” “‘Sokay, I got another 20 minutes.” Lots of staring and looking at watches.
Okay, back to the story. So the first thing is the question about what you do for vacations; almost the second thing to come out of the salesperson’s mouth is some admission that they’re brand-new and that any complicated questions will have to be referred to the boss. I’ve heard this tactic so many times, in so many contexts, that I just ignore it — it’s just the salesman trying to make him- or herself an ordinary guy to you. But this guy, I think he was actually new.
First it was that he let onto a lot of things that you wouldn’t expect for somebody selling a $17,000 timeshare. When he asked us what we’d done the night before, we answered that we’d gone out for a steak dinner at the casino downtown, which had a weeknight special of two appetizers, two steaks, and four sides for $49. Now, we’re not rolling in money but $49 for dinner for two is nice anywhere, and at a good steakhouse that’s about the price of one chop most nights. The salesman’s response? “$50? Doesn’t seem cheap to me.” Man’s trying to sell a $17,000 timeshare. $17,000! That’s like 850 of those steak dinners, they’d better not be expensive.
Second, and more important, it was that we just ran out of content in the presentation about 50 minutes in. Just plum out. He’d gone through everything, done every set-up and trial close, and we were through. We sent him for some water and looked at each other all wide-eyed, wondering how we were going to manage not to pay for our condo for two nights. Then my wife, who works in, as they say around here, The Industry, made that TV stretch-it-out hand signal, and we made a telepathic decision to get to work making this thing last 90 minutes.
And we did, we actually made it to 93 or 94 minutes. Let me tell you, it’s a good thing that both of us have spent big chunks of our working life having to interview people, because we asked every question that could be asked of this guy and both of his two bosses.
And then I said no. But, seriously, we had to work for it.
The fruits of our labor? They were not bad! We stayed at The Oasis condos, on a long strip of condo developments about 10 minutes away from downtown.
It was a nice enough place, great amenities and good attention to detail, but with the look of a property that was built to look great but maybe not built from the most-durable materials. You know the feel — not like older buildings that just get character and beauty with age, but on the verge of becoming dingy and tattered about the corners. Still, it was nice for a free place to stay, and more than comfortable.
There was even a Murphy Bed in the living room, a grill on the back porch, and bikes we could take around.
We took advantage of those amenities after our exhausting timeshare presentation, retiring to the pool for 5 hours. There was nobody else out braving the 117° heat and desert sun, so we had the place — and plenty of shade — to ourselves. As you could imagine, in that hot sun the water was plenty warm, and we played in it for probably a whole hour out of that time, as well as fitting in some snacks, reading, sleeping, and cocktails.
So it was a pretty great getaway. And, since we took it right before the big weekend, we got to laugh at the traffic heading out of town as we headed back home into town. Yessir, next time you see one of those win-a-car things in the mall, I recommend you enter, so that you can take a timeshare-paid vacation like us.
August 14, 2010 in los angeles, travel,
LA is a car city. Nobody walks in LA; everybody drives. You would think this would lead to having cabbies who know their way around town. But you would think wrong; the cabbies here are disastrous. None of them knows how to get anywhere, much less a hidden shortcut. Or even whether to take the 405 at rush hour (hint: not). LA’s best are worse even than Baltimore cabbies were that one year after all the African-Americans were replaced by Russians from the newly-former Soviet Union. But when we got back from France, we were driven home from LAX by the worst cabbie in LA.
Now, I’ll allow that there’s room to disagree as to what makes a bad cabbie. Some hate a big talker; the last good conversation I had in a cab was years ago in São Paulo, and I have no idea how I managed to have enough caipirinhas to carry on a 30-minute dialogue on weather, sports, and crime in Portuguese, a language I barely speak. But we got a good recommendation for a salsa club, so it was all worth it. Some hate a cabbie who speeds; this one time in Mexico City, the cabbie drove so fast that I just slouched low in the seat so I couldn’t see my onrushing doom. Not a bad cabbie; he got me right to my hotel. Some hate an unsafe driver; all the cabbies in Rio de Janeiro ran red lights at top speed after dark. But, then, nobody in Rio stopped after dark unless they wanted to trade their nice car in for an exciting carjacking. So one needs to be sensitive to differing cultural definitions of safe. Some hate a cabbie who inflates the fare; the rickshaw driver in Hanoi who, for my firs cab ride in Vietnam, charged me what i later learned was a couple of months’ salary for the average Vietnamese? Hey, gotta give the guy credit for knowing an easy mark.
In the same vein, you would think that the fat, sweaty Argentinian cabbie who hit on me nonstop as he drove me home from LAX back in 1995 would be the worst cabbie in LA. Not a bit. Terrifyingly, he knew the way back to the obscure spot where I was living then straight after I gave him the address. The fact that he claimed his trunk was broken, put my backpack in the back seat, and then offered me the seat next to him in the front, that I just give him credit for as enterprising. (Normally I would’ve been smart enough to not take the seat, but I’d just flown in like 4 hours from Mexico City. To get to that flight, I’d ridden on top of an open truck over a rutted rural dirt road for 6 hours, to get from a remote farm village in southern Mexico to a urban center filled with M16-toting toughs; then flown on a creaky 727, reclining on a seat with well-kept upholstery straight out of the ’70s, and enjoying a meal of meatball in unspecified sauce and jellied jungle fruits for another 4 hours; then waited for 7 hours in the Mexico City airport, in a terminal that was under construction; so I was perhaps in a state susceptible to suggestion.) Well, it’s only the larger, sweaty Latin men who hit on me, so I can’t claim to be surprised.
So, who was the worst cabbie in LA? He was actually a cab we fought for. We shuffled off our plane from France, got our bags, went outside into the night, and queued behind the taxi starter for a cab. Just when one stopped for us, some guy ran up to it, stuck his head in and talked to the cabbie for some minutes. We got our choler up; the starter yelled “hey, cabbie!” a few times, but otherwise didn’t do anything to move things along. Finally, the some guy walked away, explaining “I just wanted a quote on the rate.” We made a last-minute decision to give up another cab to the next person in line and, flush with victory, we piled ourselves and our enough-to-meet-Delta’s-limits of luggage into Our Cab. Pity for us.
First I told the cabbie where to go. In LA, you can’t expect a cabbie to know an address, so you always name a major intersection nearby and then guide the cabbie from there. This works out well for us, since we live near the corner of a big East-West thoroughfare and the street that’s the in-the-know secret back way to LAX for half the Westside. Usually I give that intersection and, sure, I get the stupid “freeway or surface streets?” question from the professional driver who should know best, but it gets us there. Well, this cabbie didn’t know either street. We named another and got a blank stare. He asked us how to spell our street, tried to type it into his GPS, and then gave up and physically handed the GPS to us for us to type it in ourselves. Which actually gave us a bit of confidence, since we have the same GPS in our car and knew it would get us home just fine.
Unfortunately, simply having a GPS that could provably speak clear, simple directions to our house didn’t actually help. For some context, the best route from LAX to our house — using that in-the-know back route I mentioned above — requires that you make a total of 4 turns during a drive of about 15 minutes. Not for this guy. First, the GPS couldn’t get a signal, since we were on the lower level of LAX and there was no sightline to a satellite. “It doesn’t know,” said the cabbie, ready to give up until we explained to him that it would work as soon as the poor GPS could see the sky. With some apprehension in our hearts, we told him which of the four exits to take out of LAX so that he could get going. Then we told him how to get to that exit, since he didn’t know.
Once on the road with satellite reception, we figured we had it made. No such luck; he missed a turn. Not only did he miss it, he actually stopped stock still right past it, on a dark road, usually travelled at freeway speeds, in the middle of the night. We frantically urged him to just keep going, knowing that the GPS would figure it out and that, if we waited, somebody would rear-end us in the dark and, at the very least, break the suitcase full of great French wine we had in the trunk.
The GPS worked it out, as predicted, and got us in spitting distance of our house, albeit from the back and via the long way around since we missed that turn. Then it told him to head up a side street. It was a little early to get off the main drag, I thought, but why fight the talking GPS? That would just confuse the cabbie. Unfortunately, he missed another turn, took a long detour through a sketchy few blocks of cheap apartments, and ended up back on that main drag about 20 feet from where we turned off. And then he gave up; he might have actually thrown up his hands. So we told him how to get to our house, and, with us guiding him foot-by-foot, we got there. Phew.
Now, he helped us with our heavy bags, which created quite the dilemma: how much should we tip? Not least because getting lost twice made the trip cost about $7 extra, on a usually-about-$18-depending-on-traffic fare, I made the decision to not tip at all. I mean, there’s sorry for you and there’s just totally unequipped to do your job at all, and this guy obviously fell into the latter. But I quickly regretted my parsimony, since the cab sat outside our house for almost 10 minutes after dropping us off. Finally, I decided to walk over, equally prepared to explain why I didn’t think he deserved a tip or how to get back to LAX, but he pulled away when I was still a dozen feet off.
So we got home in the end, safe and sound. Or, safe and sound at least for the moment, since I didn’t tip and he knows where we live. Hopefully, even with the address and the memory of our little adventure, he’ll never be able to find his way back here. Because this guy was the worst cabbie in LA.
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