Doing the Nomad: Return of the Mosquito

Disaster strikes the Oasis crew again

After 3 days in Nungwi at the north of Zanzibar we headed back down south to Stonetown. On the way a few of us decided to do a Spice Tour which ended up being a lot more interesting than I predicted. All growing amongst each other we tasted/smelt pepper, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cumin, cardamom, lemon grass, and plenty more. At one point we had a local climb a 25-30m tall palm tree to grab us some coconuts which he had obviously done a thousand times before. With OH&S being a focus in Africa our climber was smart enough to take a safety rope which he tied around his feet which were wrapped around the tree, guaranteeing his wellbeing from any kind of accident. Afterwards we sat down to taste some of the locally grown fruit which included banana, passionfruit, mango, jackfruit, cassava, bribe fruit and the less than savoury smelling durian.

Crazy monkey man climbing the 25m palm tree

Some local kids on the spice tour

Fresh coconut milk

Catching the ferry from Zanzibar we landed back on mainland Africa in Dar Es Salaam and drove up to Arusha over the next couple of days. The driving in Tanzania has been incredibly slow as it has been living up to its name "The land of the speed bump" very well. Going through a standard village you will go over 8-10 speed bumps over 1km and with villages being located very close together and our truck having to slow to a crawl it made for a fairly leisurely drive. Our journey to Arusha took us right past the base of Mt Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa and the tallest free standing mountain in the world at 5895m. 3 members of our group had actually flown from Zanzibar directly to the base and had already started climbing when we were driving past. They all managed to make it to the top a few days later which is a stellar effort but unfortunately it was too cloudy to see as we drove past so no pictures and no wave of encouragement.

Yep, more animal photos

Billy the Kid roaming the plains

Upon arrival to Arusha we made our way to Snake Park, a favourite amongst overlanders. Not only is Snake Park a pit stop for overland trucks but its also a free snake bite clinic for locals and even people from neighbouring countries. All the money from drinks at the bar goes towards supporting the clinic and I am very proud to say I saved many lives over my 6 nights here. We also had the pleasure to view a feeding session where all the snakes were fed baby chicks, much to the girls disgust. It was here the group parted ways when a bit over half the truck went into the Serengeti on a 3 night safari and a few of us stayed behind. I was one that chose to stay back for a couple of reasons; the extortionate cost of Serengeti and the fact that I have already done 4 game parks along my travels down the west coast. I didn't miss out completely however as I did do a day game drive into Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest inactive, intact, and unfilled volcanic caldera which used to be part of Serengeti but has now been removed into a separate park. The wildlife here was by far the most dense I've seen throughout my whole trip. Huge herds of wildebeest, zebra and water buffalo roamed the plain and there were plenty of hyena, hippos, baboons and millions of flamingos on the lake. It was a great day and we saw 4 out of 5 of the Big 5 all within just a few hours, the only animal I've not seen yet is the evasive Leopard.

Wildebeest tussling it out

Flamingos in the crater

Sunbaking Hyenas

Woken from their slumber

Ngorongoro Crater from the ridge

On the evening on the 4th June our truck was reunited. Those that we had left behind in Zimbabwe had re-joined, those that stayed behind in Zanzibar returned, the Kilimanjaro climbers reappeared and the Serengeti safari crew came back tired and dirty. We had a bit of a party that evening to celebrate our reunion and also the departure of Carolyn and Lottie. We said our goodbyes the next morning but that same morning bought the sudden exodus of our driver Nick. After losing our tour leader Ishy just a month prior we have been travelling along with just the one crew member. When he started to get sick at Snake Park we thought it might just be a cold but the minute another overland driver in Arusha got a look at him he was straight off to hospital where he was very quickly diagnosed with Malaria. Our truck seems to have been a bit of a curse for crew with our last driver getting a relapse of malaria and our tour leader Typhoid. Emergency plans activated, the Oasis HQ very promptly organised for a new driver to be flown down from Uganda where he arrived just past midnight, ready to start driving us at 4 in the morning as we had a deadline to keep with our Gorilla trekking in Rwanda.