Martin and Paul's East Africa Bike Blog: Heart of Africa

We had always planned to have some R&R days during our last week and because we arrived in Arusha slightly ahead of schedule and thanks to Hoopoe Safaris this plan has come together nicely. We had a completely down day at Impala on Tuesday where we caught up on emails to family, some skype calls and some snoozing around the Impala Hotel pool. All very welcome.

Wednesday we set off at 0700 with our driver and guide Elias. We left our non essential items at the Hotel courtesy of the very efficient Philipina who rules the front desk at the hotel with a great sense of humour mixed with genuine efficiency and a ‘can-do’ attitude. She also arranged for us to leave the bikes there for the two nights we are away and to book us back in for Friday. All good. All very good.

Hat borrowed from William!

We set off for the 2 ½ hr drive back to Tarangire which is re-tracing our steps from our journey to Arusha a few days earlier. It was interesting to review the route which included some very dire road surfaces and road works from the vantage point of a Toyota Land Cruiser. The unmade roads are very dusty so, get this, the African way is to wet the mud roads to reduce the dust. This has the effect of making them like butter. The 4WD Toyota was sliding all over the place most of the way there and we were very glad we had ridden in dust rather than this. Paul tried to locate the place on the road where he had had his accident in 2010 but the landscape looked very different and it was hard to tell. We will try again when we go back to Arusha on Friday.

Tarangire is spectacular and the landscapes are absolutely vast. The views go all the way to Lake Manyara in one direction, to Kilimanjaro in another and across huge planes to the Masai Steppe on the other. There is not as much wildlife to see as Samburu but what we have seen has been fantastic and the park is stunning to drive around. It covers 245,000 square Kilometres!

Our camp is just half an hour from the gate to the park and is basic but very comfortable thanks to Emily’s ‘budget friendly’ itinerary. The small terrace outside our tent leads straight into the bush and we have a whistle on our room key ring should we need to call for the Masai to scare away an elephant in the night!

As Paul has a terrible cold which we think he caught on the Mwanza ferry his snoring is likely to keep the elephants at bay without the aid of the Masai or a whistle! That said, if his snoring doesn't, my flatulence will!

Masai!

We have been right at the heart of the Masai lands of Tanzania and the views have been amazing and there have been very impressive masai everywhere. So colourful and so spectacular.

We have also been in the heart of the Tanzanian part of the great rift valley and again, we have been spoilt by the incredible ‘huge Africa’ landscapes.