Tanzania Trip – Summer of 2002 Saturday - May 25, 2002 After an uneventful flight from Minneapolis via Amsterdam, my brothers Kim and Dean and I arrived at Kilimanjaro Airport in northern Tanzania at 8:00 p.m. A short snag at customs kept us at the airport for an extra hour (we had an electric regulator in our luggage for a German friend in Tanzania who is building an electric/gas hybrid vehicle) and we had to pay some duty on that. Thad Peterson, one of our cousins who with his two brothers Dave (aka Daudi) and Mike now run a safari outfit called “Dorobo Safaris”, met us at the airport. We loaded our luggage into his landrover and drove the 30 miles or so to Olasiti where they live. The roadways around Arusha were busy and crowded with a lot of pedestrians milling around so the going was slow. The sounds and especially the radio music that emanated out of the small dukas, cafes, and bars along the roadside confirmed that I was back in East Africa! We arrived at Olasiti at about 11:00 p.m. After a good cold Safari beer and a short visit with Thad and his wife Robin, we hit the hay at their little guesthouse. Sunday – May 26, 2002 Up at dawn the next morning – made some fresh chai – stepped outside under the yellow-fever acacias and listened to the mourning doves and other birds – the lush smell of banana and papaya trees mixing with an earthy smell that I remembered so well! It was a cool wet morning with a few clouds drifting past Mt. Meru which rose above us, seemingly just beyond the confines of the trees. After a leisurely breakfast at Daudi’s

house we all went in to the Arusha community church for Sunday service. The sermon was by an Irish Anglican layman – short & to the point as sermons go. We got to see and visit briefly with some old missionary friends and schoolmates who still live in the Arusha area. During the afternoon we got ourselves organized and packed up for a “Recon” trip to the Ruaha the next day. (The plan was to drive to southern Tanzania and forge a track through the western part of the Ruaha National Park all the way to the Mzombe River and then take a 5-day hike on foot along a 40 to 50 kilometre segment of the river.) We had a wonderful picnic supper at Thad and Robin’s house. And, in the evening we were privileged to attend a piano

recital (hosted at Thad’s house) with music played by some of the Peterson kids and their friends who are attending the International School in Arusha. We went to bed fairly early. Monday – May 27, 2002 We rose at 2:30 a.m. to begin our trip to the Ruaha National Park in southern Tanzania. We loaded down 2 LandRover TDi’s that were customized for safari use with equipment, food, and plenty of liquid refreshment, and then we climbed in. We were 9 in all – three Jacksons, three Petersons, Jon Simonson (an old schoolmate

who is now the manager at Tarangire Park Lodge), and Simon and Lominyak (Tanzanians who work as mechanics and drivers for Dorobo). It was drizzling and cool when we left Arusha but it cleared up several hours into the trip. We drove straight through to Iringa, about 900 kilometres, with one stop for gas and some samosas, and a couple of “Tanganyika slash” stops (to relieve ourselves). We arrived just outside Iringa at about 5:00 p.m. and spent the night at a camp owned and run by a friend of the Petersons, David Moyer and his friend Richard, who would be joining us for the trek. This camp is also used by Houghton College for a “semester abroad” study each year, which Jon Aronson (an RVA

schoolmate) is involved in. David Moyer’s wife cooked us a great feast with roast goat and several hot dishes that night. After some time spent relaxing and gabbing around the campfire, we drifted off to our tents and to bed. Tuesday – May 28, 2002 Up at 6:30 for a quick breakfast. Daudi, Thad, and Dave Moyer left camp first to fly over the park with Dennis (an Alaskan bush pilot of 20 years who moved to Tanzania a few years ago to find a warmer clime.) They hoped to determine a route from the air where we could later take the landrovers through to the Mzombe River. There are no roads there, but there are lots of mbugas (swamps) and dense pori (woods), which we would need to negotiate or avoid if we were to make it through with the vehicles. The rest of us piled into the LandRovers

and drove into Iringa to fill up the vehicle tanks with diesel one last time before heading into the Ruaha National Park. Once in the park we saw cape buffalo, waterbuck, giraffe, greater kudu, impala, roan antelope, zebras, warthogs, hippos, crocs, and lots of great birdlife. We headed through the park to a remote ranger station where we met up with the flyboys. On their aerial reconnaissance they had seen an interesting riverine forest at the top of an escarpment about 20 kilometres from the ranger station. The decision was made to bush-barge our way to the base of the escarpment with the vehicles and spend the next day climbing the escarpment and checking out the riverine forest on foot. This would be a prelude to the river trek. We picked up a local game ranger who would travel with us while in Ruaha – a really nice fellow named James. We shared some bottles of Fanta with the other game rangers and then we said goodbye to Dennis (the pilot) who flew back to Iringa, and we headed out in the direction of the escarpment hills. The grass was thick and 8-10 feet high in many places and it was difficult to see in front of the vehicles, even with someone standing up on the front seat of the lead vehicle. From the air they had estimated the height of the grass to be 3-4 feet tall – so much for aerial recognizance! We hadn’t gone too far before we hit a soft boggy area and the lead vehicle was suddenly down to the axles in mud. We radioed back to the second vehicle to approach cautiously. When they got close enough, we attached a towrope between the vehicles and pulled the lead vehicle out backwards. We skirted the bog and headed on. A short time later we did a repeat and had to pull the lead vehicle out again. A short ways further this happened yet again, and by now it was almost dark, so after freeing the vehicle from the mud this time, at the edge of a swamp, we made camp. We were only about 5 klicks

from where we planned the escarpment ascent. Some of us took baths in the swamp, and then pitched a couple of pup tents and had a great supper of beer, ugali (thick cornmeal mush), and curried meat. We sat up around the campfire telling stories until 10 p.m. or so, and then called it a night. I drifted to sleep listening to a hyena’s call off in the distance.

Wednesday – May 29, 2002 We got up at dawn, had a quick breakfast of coffee, hard-boiled eggs, and rolls, and then we piled into one vehicle to go the last 5 klicks to the escarpment. We left Simon and Lominyak back in camp with the second vehicle. Of course, two kilometers from camp we got stuck again! Without a vehicle to pull us out, we went to work

by hand. We used the spare wheel as a base and set a tall “Tanganyika jack” on it to jack one side of the vehicle up out of the muck. We cut branches and gathered logs to stuff under the wheels and laid a short roadbed of sticks and logs ahead of the vehicle. Then we all pushed and somehow got the vehicle to solid ground. Jon and I (at the back) were pretty well spattered by mud - actually Jon got more than spattered – he was fully coated! Ever the pragmatist, he said simply “It’ll dry.” We got to the base of the 1000 metre escarpment a few minutes later, strapped on our binoculars, hoisted our daypacks, and began the climb. With some mild exertion we reached the top and angled our way in towards the forest that had been seen from the air. The

and thick green highland grasses. We spent much of the day walking around and observinga wide variety of birdlife – some of which wanew and undocumented as being in the Ruaha region. I should note that Dave Moyer cousins are avid “birders” and keep detailed daily records of locations and birds seen. (It’salmost like a religion to them – bird books are their bibles - and Moyer can pretty well imitate any birdcall.) They were amazed at some of the species we were observing, and their enthusiasm was pretty contagious. We didn’t run intoany large animals, but did see buffalo sign in a number of places. Late in the afternoon we headed back down the escarpment – finding a different route dowthan we had climbed – much steeper – and my left knee was pretty sore when we finally arrived at the car. We drove back to camp without getting mired in the mud again, and had a big supper of spaetzle and meat sauce washed down with warm “Safari” lager. We spent the night again at the “swamp camp”.

fauna had changed from typical scrubby Ruaha “pori” woods to tall lush trees

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of us, after downing a few more brews, were fairly quick to follow suit.

TWe got up at dawn,amp. We piled into the vehicles and retraced our route back to the ranger

station, avoiding the bogs that had caught us earlier. We then set out in a new dire– mostly west towards the Mzombe River. Our destination was the confluence of the Mzombe and the Lupati rivers which was about 25 kilometres away “as the crow flies”We used a hand-held GPS to set “away points” which we marked on topographical maps as navigational aids. We needed to get to a ridge of high ground that, from theaerial recognizance, looked like our best bet for success as it skirted some smaller rive

and swamps that would be nigh impassable by land transport. However, what looked very doable from tair was a real challenge at ground level. We got stuck several times again and had to spend time extracting the lead vehicle from swamps that appeared out of nodeep. Late in the afternoon we reached a deep “korongo” (gully) with almost vertical sides. We spent until dark chopping away at the sides of the gully withpick-axes, hoes, and shovels until we finally managed to make it passable (it was still extremely steep but the Landover Tdi is an amazing off-road vehicleAfter getting both vehicles across we immediately set up camp in the tall grass at the edge of the gully. We realized that we were still a fair distance from the rivers. It was a lovely camp – like a round kraal completely surrounded by a 10-foot tall grass stockade. Our supper of ugali and meat sauce never tasted sgood! Mike had a touch of malaria and wasn’t feeling well at all – so he took a malarial cure and rolled up next to the campfire for an early “to bed”. The rest

ere to bury us axle

Friday - May 31, 2002

We were up at dawn the next morning and headed out early. Because of the tall thick grass, we stumps and low termite mounds, which were as hard as rocks and completely hidden in

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We got up before dawn and loaded our packs with light ground mats, sleeping bags, cameras, some a few extra layers of clothing, foodstuff to last us for four to five days, and (most

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occasionally hit old treethe grass. Three times these hidden dangers bent the front steering tie rovehicle so badly that we had to remove the tie rod and straightening it (by hand) using our rear trailer-hitch as a fulcrum point. Simon was a master at this – andthe 1” thick steel rods looked almost arrow-straight when he’d get finished with them. We managed to finally reach the crest of the ridge we were seeking. We zigzagged along it through the “pori” bush slowly. At times the “pori” was so thick we had to walk ahead of the vehicles with “pangas” (machetes) and hack thway wide enough for the vehicles to pass. We did this continuously for rt kilometers. At noon we called a halt under some mapane trees and had some

sandwiches and coffee. Then we were off and running again for more of the same. Finally, late in the afternoon, we came upon a large herd of Cape buffalo, which were at the edge of the Lupati River. It was fairlyswampy near the river, which prevented us from going much further with the vehicles. We decided to p

camp under a fig tree right at the edge of the river - still 9 kilometres from the confluence with the Mzombe. We all tookbaths in the river that had some lovely large rocks on whicdry off. Daudi got out his fly rod and caught a couple of “kambalimamba” (catfish) that James splayed out on sticks and roasted over the fire. These supplemented our supper of uand chicken. This was our last night camping with the luxury of tents. It was decided that we would begin our foot trek from her– we would follow down the Lupati to the Mzombe and along the Mzombe from there. This would add distance to our planned trek of 50 kilometres and we now had only 4 days to complete iting to the river had taken a day longer than we had hoped, and ke from here on.

Saturday - June 1, 2002

down smaller trees to make a pseveral hours gaining a few sh

rather than the 5 days we had planned on. Gewhile it was half the fun, it meant a grueling h

simple medical supplies,

water and add iodine crystals to it to purify it. Each pack was filled to hold about 20 kilos or so. The Peteralso had two rifles along for precautionary measures (a .375 Magnum and a .458). James, the game ranger, carried a smaller rifle. So we were well prepared for any situation that might present itself along the way. It was very chilly in the early morning hours as we ate a hasty breakfast and we were eager to get walking. Siand Lominyak were sent back the way we had come with the two vehicles. It would take them three and a haldays to get back to the ranger station and then follow a long circuitous park trail/track to a ranger outpost that was 50 klicks up the Mzombe and was where we hoped to meet them in 4 days.

At 7:00 a.m. the rest of us finally set off on foot along the Lupati. The terrain along the river was extremely dense 10-foot high grass making it not only difficult to walk through bu

ght be just ahead of us. Eventually the grass thinned some and we entered more open areas where wwould occasionally see dikdik (small antelope) and kanga (guineafowl). There was a lot of other birdlife though, and were treated to a wonderful display by a Pel’s Fishing Eagle, which is a rather rare bird. We kept up a pretty steady pace as we zigzagged along the watercourse finding the best pathways we could. We

would take 5-10 minute rest stops every 2 hours or so. By 10:00 a.m. the temperature reached well over 100 degrees farenheit – and walking was a hot sweaty business. About 1:00 p.m. we reached a nicely shaded

section of the Lupati and took a short break flunch. There was no surface water in the Lupati at this point so we dug a deep hole in the sand river bottom and waited for it to fill up with water from its underground source. We replenished water bottles, purified themand had some sandwiches. Daudi figured wewere not too far from the Mzombe at

so we decided to walk down the sand riverbed of the Lupati until we got to the confluence of the two rivers. We pushed on along the river and finally reached the Mzombe at about 3:00 p.m. We had come 9 kilometres (GPS distance reading) and had probably walked about 12-15 kilometres to get there. We were feeling the h

and we decided to make the confluence our first campsite. The Mzombe River had aamount of flowing water in it, unlike the Lupati, which was little more than a streamwhere it fed into the Mzombe. We relaxea while and hiked a little up and down the rivclose to camp. Mike did some fishing in one ofthe pools nearby and caught enough to roast over the fire. The water was very calm along here and there were some wonderful mirror images created on the pool by driftwood on theother side. We had a lovely stretch of sand along the river where we built our campfire. A hyena stalked past us on the other side of theriver in the evening and we later heard him calling somewhere up river. It was a beautiful

clear starry night and the Milky Way absolutely lit up the sky! There is no place I know of on earth where the Milky Way shines with such brilliance as it does in Africa, so far away from any ambient light sources. You don’t need a moon to see by on such nights. We circled the campfire with our sleeping bags and fell asleep as the fire died down to a few glowing embers.

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Breakfast consisted of a bowl of granola. We washed up in the river, paour gear, and started walking at 6:30 a.m. Our walking took us back and forthacross the river as we followed its meandering course. Occasionally we would find hippo trails through the thick grass above the river, which made for much easier walking. The hippos stomp down the grass and clear a good 2 to 3 foot wide path as they browse during the nights. We saw lots of birds and a small herd of zebra early in the morning. Later in the morning we came upon two Greater Kudu. The bull was magnificent with a full double twist to his horns due to the tall grass, a little hard to view. We watched him for a while and then several of usedged down to the river and saw his mate just below the bank down on the sand. I was able toget within 15 metres of her and just had time to snap a hurried (but blurry) picture as she bounded away. She stopped at about 40 mand turned to survey us calmly. This gave me

the opportunity to get a fairly good picture of her. As the day progressed the temperature rose and soon we were again hiking under the hot sun (105 degree F.). At about 2:00 p.m. we came to a beautiful stretch of rivwhere it flowed through large boulders with big flat rock shelves along it. We had put 12 more (GPS) kilometres behind us after covering close to 20 hiking kilometres. This was going to be our second river campsite.

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There were several large pools about 30 yards from where we set up camp that had lots of hippos in them. We gathered wood for a campfire that we set on a large flat rock shelf and then heated up some hot salty soup broth (to replenish body salts.) We relaxed as we ate a late light lunch. Some of utook baths in flowing pools closto the campsite. Daudi, Dean, and Kim threw out some fishinglines in the hippo pools and immediately started getting bitesfrom some good-sized catfishtook some interesting pictures ofmy brothers fishing, with the hippos swimming around anbelching just a few metres awayfrom them. We soon had enoucatfish to cut up into delicious boneless filets to fry over the fire

for supper. I wandered downriver a little and sat at the edge of a quiet pool for a while. I was surprised at thesight of an otter making his way over the rocks and in and out of the pools as he did his own brand of underwater fishing. What a special treat!

By this time I had developed several large blisters on the bottom of my left foot. Mike applied some moleskin and “second skin” patches to the affected areas of my foot and that made walking a lot more tolerable. By early evening we were all so tired that even laying our sleeping bags out on the hard rocks did not deter us from falling to sleep quickly. It felt so good to drift off with the sounds of running water bubbling over the rocks nearby. Occasionally we’d hear the muffled honk-like grunts of the hippos not far off. We were soon lulled peacefully to sleep. Monday - June 3, 2002 We woke up a little later than planned at 5:30 a.m. We made some hot coffee and ate some bread for breakfast. Even so, we managed to get packed up and walking by 6:30 a.m. We needed to cover a lot of territory today so planned on walking hard early in the morning when the air was cooler. As we were attempting to cross the river at one point, we suddenly came upon a lone hippo bull that decided we were unwelcome trespassers to his favorite pool. He immediately came rushing heavily and noisily with his mouth and teeth making large biting motions directly at Thad who was point man at the time. Thad quickly chambered a shell in his .458 rifle as the hippo approached to within ten metres, and the rest of us hurriedly scrambled to

higher ground. Luckily, our movement backwards appeased him and no shots (warning or otherwise) were necessary. This place on the river offered a good place to ford it, and we were discussing how to get around this disgruntled hwhen James, the game ranger who wawith us, started lobbing small rocks and pebbles at him. Showing his immense

displeasure, he slowly turned and swam across the pool and moved up into another pool around the corner of the river. We quietly made our way across and headed on downriver.

By 10:00 a.m. it was again more than 100 degrees F. out under the sun. The big blister on my left foot popped and made walking a bit painful. To add to this aggravation, my left knee started to throb and I developed some more blisters on my right foot. I took some more ibuprofen and that made things a little better. We had a beautiful day for walking and my pack was becoming more and more comfortable

with each days exercise. We saw lots of more hippo and some crocs along thad developed deeper banks and each time that we would near the edge of the river we would have a wonderful view down along its winding path. We were walking along the western side of the river at one point when we walked straight into a small herd of elephant in some thick pori at the edge of the river. They had been down for a drink and were just leaving the river themselves. We backed slowly away and hunkered down about 30 to 40 metres from them and watched as they slowly and lazily took their time, browsing as they moved off throthe trees.

his stretch of the river. The river

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We started looking for a suitable camping site and finally called a halt and set up camp. Everyone was glad to take packs off and relax. It had been another long and hot walk, and by this time my feet were

complaining mightily! We had covered a good 18 (GPS) kilometres, so things were looking good to finish the trek the next day. We reckoned that we only had another 16-18 kilometres to go. It wasn’t until a while later that we began to find the scorpions. We were too pooped to move camp so just took our time and care in moving any sticks or rocks around. A good hot supper that evening revived us substantially. Thad made some delicious biscuits using two “sufarias” (aluminum pans) to form an oven at the side of the campfire. There was definitely less movement around camp as most of us were just interested in relaxing and regaining some of our energy. I

doubled my dose of ibuprofen and managed to sleep like a baby that night. Tuesday – June 4, 2002 I had more blisters and my left knee was shot! I could tell that I was really going to love the walk today! I took a double dose of ibuprofen with my coffee for breakfast. We headed out on the nearest hippo trail at first

light. The first couple of hours weren’t too bad. We saw a lot of hippo in the pools along the river as we walked. At one very sandy area along the river we were walking in the riverbed when we noticed a lot of lion and lion cub paw prints in the sand. We also notice a number of vultures hanging around in the trees on the river bank so we knew that there was a kill nearby. So we set about looking for it. We followed a large set of tracks which headed up the bank. Suddenly there was a loud roar and I had a fleeting glimpse of tawny skin flashing in the sunlight as a young male lion leapt up directly in front of us. It immediately leaped into the bush, away from the river, but not before it had us backpedaling down the sandy bank as we all reacted simultaneously. After sorting ourselves

out we cautiously approached the place that the lion had vacated moments before. We found a half of a zebra

under his tree. The lion had ripped up a lot of grass all around the zebra which it had scattered on top of the decomposing carcass. Presumably this was to aid in protecting it from the vultures and other carrion feeders in the area. We saw no sign of the rest of the pride, but decided not to pursue the matter any further as we still had a long way to travel. The next few hours we walked at a fast clip, pushing on into the heat of the day with only occasional stops to drink some water and take a breather. We walked through a forest of baobab trees, most of which were heavily laden with fruit. When we passed under one tree though we noticed that it had almost no fruit pods in the tree but the ground below it was littered with broken empty pod husks. Daudi said “This tree has the good fruit –the elephants have fed here.” They know which trees have the tastiest fruit and will bypass other trees to feed at them. So we retrieved a couple of pods from high in the tree and, sure enough, they were wonderfully tart and very tasty. We pressed on and eventually caught a whiff of smoke and heard some voices ahead of us. We had finally made it to the end of the trek where we met Simon and Lominyak in a hastily constructed campsite. They had gotten there the previous night. They greeted us with some bottles of wonderfully cold Safari Lager which we drained in no time flat as we were parched! Dennis (the bush pilot) flew into camp shortly after we arrived to take Dave Moyer and Richard back to Iringa. James also flew with them as far as the park ranger station. After quick farewells, the rest of us packed up and began the long drive back north along roads that would take us to some of our early childhood homes. (But that’s another story…)

At the end of the trail – 10 happy trekkers!

Mike Daudi Thad

Dave

Richard Dean

Kim Joel Jon James