We left at 6.30 after breakfast and our very early wake up from the mosque at 5am. We are both down to a piece of toast for breakfast. Mike had an antibiotic pill as had a fever and his chest cough was no good. We travelled in the truck as far as the border, which is only about half an hour from where we stayed. 

They are about to have a general election coming up so there are election posters everywhere. It is interesting to note that most of the politicians are pretty portly compared to the local population. 

The process through the border was pretty easy. We first had to show our yellow fever certificates at the Kenyan side – not sure why they wanted them on exit and not entry – then over to the Tanzanian visa place. Some of the Australians got theirs at home and we found it was both quicker and cheaper at the border. The immigration officers just wanted our $50US and our passport – no other information. 

We said goodbye to our driver, Sam, who was taking the truck back to Nairobi, and moved our stuff into 2 Land Rovers. The Land Rovers are much more comfortable on the back roads but less roomy. Evidently the truck can’t go into Tanzania because it’s a tourist vehicle and doesn’t have Tanzanian plates. 

The very first thing we noticed is that Tanzania is clean. The roadsides are clean and the towns and villages are clean. I got talking to our driver at dinner (Rama) and he said the government used to have clean up days once per month and now the local councils have them about 3 times a month or as often as the locals want. 

Both in Kenya and Tanzania they have these trees which look just like cactus trees in the shape of a candelabra. The trunks seem normal but the branches are just like big cacti. They are Euphorbia candelabra and known as candelabra trees. They are really striking.  

We called into a town beside Lake Victoria for a rest stop and to change our money. 

It was a Sunday and the banks were shut so we used a local money changer at the back of a very busy and very cramped general store. I think the guides go there anyway because his rates are better than the bank’s. Most of our party were changing US dollars into Tanzanian shillings but we had plenty of Kenyan money to change. The Tanzanian currency is worth about a fifth of the Kenyan so you get wads of cash. Erellah bought himself a small electric blower to get the dust off his computer at home. He obviously had spied that item on a previous visit. 

The comfort stop was at a campsite beside Lake Victoria, just at the edge of the town whose name I forget. It was really pretty. No crocodiles and the hippos are all on the other side of the lake. Lake Victoria is the second largest lake in the world after the Canadian Great Lakes. 

We travelled along a highway through interesting and changing scenery. We passed coffee plantations and a few rice paddies and lots of sugar cane. There were lots of places with green nets on the ground where they were drying sardines from the lake. Also lots of dried flat fish for sale. Nearer the border with Kenya there were loads of market gardens and you can just pull up and get produce brought to the vehicle. Erellah bought some avocados and some bananas. We ate the bananas on the truck and have had the avocados at dinner and as a salad for lunch. The bananas are very sweet and the avocados are the nicest I’ve tasted. They look like our round green ones but they turn black and are twice the size. 

We stopped for lunch not far from the park gates at a campsite. They served us fish and chips (which were delicious) as well as a cup of rice and fruits. So much food. 

Mike ate the fish and chips which is good because he was feeling pretty sick and didn’t go to dinner. The trip into the park took ages as the campsite is a long way in. After about 11/2 hours we stopped at a rest place and had a ‘sundowner’. That was our choice of red or white wine (South African), beer, soft drink and assorted biscuits. Unfortunately Mike wasn’t up to even getting out of the truck. The travel pillows Jen gave us have been really useful and Mike was able to rest in the vehicle despite the bumpy road. 

The rest stop was beside a river and at the other end of the car park there was a pool filled with hippos. They really are disgusting. They live in an effluent pond and all poo over each other all the time. The link to a video taken y one of the others is below. . There must have been 30 or 40 of them. We had stopped at another river a few kilometres earlier and I got to see my first crocodiles. They were just upstream from some hippos and looked enormous. 

We got to our camp just before sundown. It is called Katikati tented camp and is set in amongst the bush in a clearing. There are lots of clearings in the park and huge areas bereft of trees. Evidently elephants are a keystone species and can change the nature of the ecosystem from bushland to grassland just by the way they feed. You can see their destruction everywhere with broken trees lying around. 

There is no fence so we have strict instructions to stay away from the long grass and always to move to and from the dining tent with an escort after dark. The tent is large and we scored a king sized bed which is very comfortable.

We are keeping quiet about that as everyone was warned there were only single beds. At the back of the tent is a bathroom with basin and running water and beyond that a toilet and shower room. It’s excellent. 

The porters came with a 20l bucket of warm water for each person’s shower and it was just enough. The water was a perfect temperature. The loos also flush so they must fill the tanks for each tent with cold water. I understand that is pumped to a truck from a river (not near the hippos) and transported here. Within the camp you have all these men carrying buckets of water. 

Dinner was great. Tomato soup with fresh rolls first then chicken casserole and various vege dishes and then some kind of cake thing. Mike didn’t come to dinner but the cook came with me after dinner and took some soup and rolls down, which he drank and enjoyed. 

There are solar lights in the tents and solar lamps on the bedside table. It is all most comfortable. We were told not on any account to come out in the night. There are whistles to call for help in an emergency though am not sure where the whistles are. We woke a couple of times and Mike had some paracetamols and on one occasion woke to the bark of a hyena outside. It was really loud. There was quite heavy rain just after we arrived and during the night so that cooled the temperature a lot and it was very pleasant, especially as Mike woke up feeling very much better.