So, on Monday we headed to Tanzania. It was a normal early start, heading south on what was reputed to be one of the worst roads in East Africa. As it turned out, the drive was pretty straight forward and nowhere near as bad as some of the roads we’d seen before. The most exciting part was stopping for lunch and being joined by the local Masaai who seemed very keen to watch us eat.
We made good time and were in Arusha for shopping and then Meserani Snake Park (our camp ground for the night) by 5pm. It was the first proper night together for the new crowd, so there was a bit of getting to know each other.
An occasion for the night was that it was Babs’ last night with us, so we saw her off in suitable style with a round of springboks (shooters which are accompanied by a silly dance and which you drink with no hands, using your teeth to lift the glass, so they’re messy!).
Next day we had a walk through the maasai museum and visited the local maasai village on camel back (not all of us were on camel back, with only a few camels available Caro and I left it to those who hadn‘t done it before).
The museum and walk were extremely interesting, we were able to gain some real insight into maasai life, including their diets (amongst other things, they drink blood), their polygamy, and the ritual they have of circumcision for both men and women. They circumcise every 7 years to ensure they have large enough groups to do they rituals together (which for men include several months surviving out in the bush). If the maasai men show any pain when the procedure happens, even blinking, they become outcasts. The maasai who guided us was very frank, about all sorts of things, so we learned a lot.
At the village we played with the children and were shown around a home. We were taken to a school which is supported by Nottingham University and met some lovely kids who sang us a song and were thrilled to show us their schoolwork. We saw the computer rooms which enable local people to learn IT skills and we visited the snake bite clinic which treats people from all over the region and is supported by the Snake Park. There are a lot of snake bites and even as we were there we saw several people waiting to be treated, including a young child.
After the walk, we headed to Mto Wa Mbu AKA Mosquito River. In actual fact, we were scheduled to camp there the night before, but being a further 2 hours down the road, it would make the first day drive pretty lengthy. There are something like 130 tribes who exist peacefully side by side at Mto Wa Mbu. We went for a village walk which spends time looking at a few selected tribes and took us through a banana plantation. Again, another interesting and informative experience. At the end of the walk we tried the local brew, banana beer. Now, I’m not one to shirk a beer, but this is one which needs acquiring a certain taste. The tradition is a large mug, probably around a pint, is poured out and is passed around the group as a social drinking circle (the last time I did that was at Uni, where we tipped all of the dreg of booze into a bucket after a flat cocktail party to maker a very ‘special’ cocktail, and then proceeded to past it round a circle of us, necking it straight from the bucket). Now, the banana beer isn’t particularly potent but the taste and texture wasn’t too far off.
It’s quite hard to describe the flavour. Not particularly banana like, but quite musty and burnt in flavour. It’s made with sorghum flour which a residue that floats on the top of the pint. This residue holds an amount of flavour, so the technique to drink it is to put the mug close to your lips, and gently blow so that the residue moves away and creates some clear space to drink from. This all means that the first people don’t all scull the nice stuff on top, leaving enough of the “floaties” for the entire pint to be drunk with some for everyone. Something tells me that it won’t be making an appearance at the Great British Beer Festival’s international stand anytime soon.
We drove on to the Kudu campsite at Karatu as our pre Serengeti campsite.
We paid for some entertainment from a local group, which was effectively circus and magic tricks with a smattering of local dance. Not entirely traditional, but fun all the same.
