Jambo Tanzania! Arusha and Safari Day 1

TL;DR

• We made coffee by hand like in old times

• We kicked off the safari in the remarkable Ngorongoro crater

One place I had been looking forward to getting to know better was Africa. There is a tendency to talk about Africa like it’s a country even though it’s a giant continent. Yet its so big with so many areas, it was hard to pick where to start! We knew we wanted to do a safari and the Serengeti region in Tanzania quickly became a top contender. It has all of the Big 5, it was the right season and it’s the inspiration for the Lion King (nuff said). So we packed all our best khakis and headed off to TZ!

Arusha (Day 0)

We started our Safari journey in Arusha - the main city folks fly into for Safaris and hiking Mt Kilimanjaro. It's here where we met up with our intrepid travel buddies Shivani and Aditya (Durgam). The only things you need to know about them are 1) We've been friends for ages 2) They are always down for adventure and 3) Shivani's passion for board games is only second to Durgam's for photography.

Safari Squad

Day 0 was a chance for us to explore Arusha a bit before Safari and we decided to sign up for a coffee plantation tour. The plantation is located in the lush foothills of Mt Meru. On our way, we passed so many small fields of of all kinds: corn, avocado, mango, sugarcane, lettuce, tomatoes and many others. Turns out the land here is super productive for farming. When we reached the coffee plantation, it seemed much more developed with a manicured lawn than its very rural surrounding. This setting of the developed being so proximate to the rural is a consistent theme all across Tanzania.

The plantation was very small and folks mostly employ old fashioned methods to process the beans into coffee. While I had expected to see some sort of large factory, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we would actually get to make coffee from scratch just like the locals have been doing for over a hundred years.

The key steps are [click through strip above]

1. Get the beans from the plant and dry them

2. Dehusk them in a giant mortar

3. Roast them for almost an hour (!) while stirring continuously

4. Grind the beans into powder with giant mortar again (phew)

5. Boil powder in water to get coffee

At this point we had been making coffee for more than 2 hours all together so we were ready to be done. Sipping the coffee, it was not the best I've had (a bit bitter) but I had such an appreciation for the effort it took to get from the bean to cup.

Safari Day 1: Ngorongoro Crater

We left Arusha early the next day to get a head start on the long drive to our first Safari location: Ngorongoro crater. The crater is the remanent of a volcano which exploded millions of years ago. Ngorongoro also encompasses the Olduvai gorge where some of the earliest human fossils were discovered; making this area one of the longest continually inhabited places in the world. Today this caldera houses a stunning diversity of animals in a relatively enclosed area making it one of the best and most efficient places to go on safari.

From the natural views and the animals, we could not have asked for a better way to kick off the safari. We saw lions, elephants, baboons, gazelle, zebras (so many zebras lol) and more. Not to mention countless birds amongst stunning backdrops which alternated between lakes, fields and forests.

Click through to see some amazing shots courtesy Durgam

That night we stayed at a small lodge near the crater area where we even had cape buffalo wander on to the property. Its not camping but its simple living pretty close to nature which we all really enjoyed.

Next post I'll cover the remainder of our safari in Ndutu and the Serengeti! Make sure to check the Su's photos in the album section!