The travel weariness mentioned at the closing of the last post continued unabated during our first days in Tanzania. You can’t travel like this, through half the continent of Africa week after week and not expect a few times when the spirit is brought low. It’s an anticipated part of the fabric of every adventure, the expected experience of highs and lows that come from leaving “normality” behind. Paradoxically, adventure travellers looking back upon their journey once completed, will hold many of the “lows” above the “highs” in terms of richness of experience.   Maybe it is because it is during the “lows” that we get closer to the objective of adventure travel, to be prepared to change the “you” that is travelling.

Weariness can slowly materialise like a toxic fog enveloping your emotions. Although we think of “travelling” as the objective movement of ourselves through the physical world, in reality travel is as much something we do within our mind as with our physical bodies. It’s our mind that interprets the changing world around us and in turn provides our experience of it. It is through our own mind that we filter the experience of the environment and create the judgments and attitudes to it. It is our mind that creates our expectations or disillusionments and it’s within the mind that the heavy veil of fatigue can cloud our decisions and blunt our tolerances.

We could not escape the broken potholed tar road (in favor of our preferred rural tracks) that we needed to travel over as we headed north in Tanzania. Old trucks and buses belched out thick black noxious fumes as they weaved and struggled over the hilly, narrow and badly cracked roads. Progress was slow and seemingly dangerous as we passed fatal looking accidents. Where as earlier in our trip we sought out conversations with locals as we passed through their sporadic villages on rural tracks, roadside stops seemed to crush our spirits in a vice of bodies thrusting out hands wanting us to buy some product or give them food or money. The rains of the previous evening persisted, further dampening our spirits under heavy grey skies. Having our own tent and bedding, as an alternative to local guesthouses is always favorable. Camping out, alone in the wild with a campfire under star filled nights lifts every soul to new highs, but, being forced (through complete lack of options) to camp on the outskirts of another dirty noisy town and wash in a filthy public bathroom can still bring it to new “lows”. The light humorous banter with crooked policeman evaporated with short tempers (our own) and time. The world around us changed and so did our response to it. It was grinding. There was no easy escape, as we had several days of this “transition” phase of the journey ahead, so we resolved to try to change our own interpretation of it.

The remarkable thing about the interpretation of “lows”, in travel or life, is how quickly they can change with an altered perspective (and weather!).

We camped one night on the outskirts of a small town, Kolo, (not famous enough for hundreds of ancient rock paintings in the surrounding hills, some over 7000 years old) and awoke to the sound (and clear indication of how far east we have travelled) of the imams from its two mosques competing, over crackling loudspeakers, with the “Fajr adhan” or morning call to prayer. One verse that is melodically recited a few times in the Fajr is, “As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”, which translates, as “Prayer is better than sleep”, and with that in mind we contemplated what the minority non-Muslims in the area think of the Fajr and its melodic, all be it crackling pre-dawn morning alarm.

We stayed near this town, as it was a gateway for us to visit some of the Barabaig tribe who still follow a semi-nomadic lifestyle and unlike many of the Maasai around the Mara or Arusha are not so used to or geared to tourism. Ashrof, the well-educated local guide for the rock paintings was happy to act as our guide/translator for this excursion and we set off into the bush along tracks dense with acacias trees and bushes bristling with their razor sharp 5cm long thick white thorns. Eventually the bush became too thick and concern too great that the fallen thorns that littered the ground posed too much of a risk even for our armoured tires, we alighted and set out on foot in search of some of the tribe.

The culture of Barabaig is very similar to the better-known Masai but they tend to live in smaller family groups and bomas (livestock enclosures) and remain more nomadic. Like the Masai they wear the shuka or toga blankets and elongate their ear lobes in the same way (although many now also wear western clothes underneath the shuka), keep cows and goats and subsist on a diet almost exclusively of milk, blood, meat and maize.

The small Barabaig family and boma we came upon was in an area dense with thorn bush, mud and thick with black flies which crawled over the young baby. They gave us a surprised but friendly welcome and the young man wisely and quickly spotted the opportunity to make some shillings from the mzungos (Swahili for white person) asking for some money (or cooking pots or fabric) for the interaction or any pictures. Our guide did not speak the tribal language but communicated with Swahili. We spoke of how they live and how many cows they own. We gave them our instant Polaroid pictures of their family and shared some laughs about Swiss cowbells as well as our food. Despite the friendly interaction we felt an imposition and after a while took our leave.

We were struck by how difficult this family’s live is in a harsh environment. In the rains the plains are flooded and in the dry season they struggle to feed the livestock. Their nomadic homes were simple wood frame shelters under plastic sheeting. The debris of their humble lives where scattered around the dwelling which shocked our Western eyes. The old man, with partial blindness, sat on the ground with twisted arthritic legs and in obvious pain yet a warm smile. This was not the scene of the noble Masai herders we had the romantic image of. It was raw, unforgiving and yet very real. The experience quickly shifted our perspective on our “low” and we drove into brightening skies with a gratitude for our lives, which lifted our spirits. What a luxury it is that we can travel like this, experience the world in this way and yet return at anytime to our privileged lives.

That “privilege” had no greater expression than the lodge we had booked to stay at a few days later to experience the absolutely unique natural wonder of the Ngorongoro Crater, the largest caldera in the world at 600m deep and 300sq kms and teaming with a vast diversity of wildlife.   The arrival at the luxurious Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, which at 2000m is perched on the crater rim with breath taking views, could not have been better timed. The utter contrast to some of our recent experiences made the experience surreal. Neither of us was quite prepared for the rather opulent yet rustic luxury nor warmth of welcome that we were given. Our few days with Yuri, the GM, and his team were some of the best we have ever spent at any place we have ever stayed at in the world. Undoubtedly the complete contrast with our time of late (we both spent hours in the cavernous hot bath and huge rain shower scrubbing away the dust that had engrained itself so deeply) had a significant effect on us but the lodge, the staff, the attention to detail, the personalized service, the food and the entire experience was so uniquely wonderful it ranks as one of our favorites. In the crater floor itself we enjoyed an amazing safari experience with the added luxury of not having to drive or guide ourselves (!) and as it was low season we had it almost all to ourselves. Contrast this to the high season when it’s crowded with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of tourists.

Leaving the lodge and going anywhere else would have been very hard had it not been for the beautiful simplicity of our next destination. After considerable planning we set off in our Land Cruiser through the Serengeti National Park heading north west to the border with Kenya, where the simple privilege of camping out alone in our roof top tent on its vast plains comes at considerable cost in USD. The Serengeti had always captured Eric’s imagination from a childhood watching the BBC’s renowned wildlife documentaries. A vast untamed expanse of wilderness that hosts one of world’s most spectacular natural events, the annual wildebeest migration. The permits to be able drive our own vehicle through the Crater Park and the Serengeti over three days and camp out alone in the wilderness does not come cheap – they seemingly don’t want independents doing this – but, the look on Eric’s face as we set out our little camp in the middle of the Serengeti as the most magical sunset bathed the plains in a deep golden light was utterly priceless. This simple pleasure of a campfire adventure, edged with the excitement of sharing the nighttime wilderness with the great herds and array of roaming nocturnal predators, as all our ancestors had once done was the pinnacle for Eric of this African adventure. As the wall of darkness enclosed around us came the chorus of calls from the African wild, Monika retreated nervously up to the tent and Eric sat stubbornly alone by the dancing flames of our fire appreciating the incredibly wonderfully fulfilling feeling of being unequivocally aware that he was living out a long held childhood dream. Not adding any comfort to Monika’s slight unease, he called out that if he’s eaten by the large pride of lions we had seen earlier he’s at peace with life. Ever practical, and considering his remark, Monika responded by suggesting thoughtfully that she should have the keys to the Land Cruiser in the tent with her and not in his pocket, should the lions eat those in the process as well.

A couple of days later we crossed into Kenya, over our last border crossing of the journey and headed into the Masai Mara National Park on route to our final destination and goal of reaching, Nairobi, safely.