Moving: New House III

We moved to our fourth place in Tanzania (1,2,3). Since we recently moved three months ago, we weren't looking forward to moving again, though it is a massive upgrade. The three bedroom house has a guesthouse with two rooms, as well as two servants quarters and outdoor bathroom and kitchen. There is a small outside area with fruit trees and also a small garage. The whole place is a bit less than $100 a month, so it's quite a deal. In fact, it's far too big for us but since our previous place was somewhat deteriorating with an alcoholic landlord on premise, too big was much better than our previous arrangement. 

Our place is further outside of town than our previous places but still only about ten minutes from "downtown" Moshi (see my custom map). It's about 1km (half mile) from the main Arusha highway and in a much less densely developed area than in our previous places. The biggest thing we are happy about is that now we can host many guests, so please, you are welcome!

Front of the house with my new bbq hidden behind the pillar. 

View of the back of the house, the guesthouse, and the garage. 

Servants quarters and garage. Our car JUST barely fits so we'll only put it in when necessary. 

Outdoor kitchen, bathroom, and backyard. 

Front room. 

Dining area. 

Kitchen. 

Split bathroom. 

Master bedroom. 

There's two other bedrooms and one has my new drumset!

New Car!

We have debated long and hard about purchasing a car here in Tanzania. Since I have a motorcycle and Ana rides a bicycle, we easily navigate Moshi and take many trips around Tanzania. However, it would be nice to have for longer trips, moving stuff around, and going out with friends that don't have transport. Plus, as much as I love off roading with my non off road motorcycle, it would be nice to have a vehicle to tackle some of the roads. One of the more positive aspects is that cars that are over ten years old tend to not depreciate and nearly everyone whom maintains their vehicle well sells their vehicle for nearly the same price they paid. So we were always on the lookout for the perfect deal.

We knew that if we had a car we'd want it to be four wheel drive, though we didn't want some massive ridiculous safari vehicle. Mid 90's Rav4s are a popular car here, as are Suzuki Escudos. However, these are frequently priced at around $5,000, which seems a bit too much to pay for them. I would prefer to spend a little more and get a real capable vehicle.

And we were in luck, we finally found a vehicle that suited our needs. A 1990 Toyota Landcruiser, basically a short version of the beastly Landcruiser line. It has a diesel engine, which I've been is a particularly awesome feature. Apparently if you rebuild and work on them every 300,000 miles, the engine can go for something ridiculous like 1,500,000 miles. I'm sure our future adventures will wear out the rest of the car before the engine!

Arusha Big Birding Day

The Interpretive Guides Society of Arusha recently hosted a "Big Bird Day", which is basically a time for birders to get out and see how many species of birds they can see in 24 hours. The "rules" are a 100km (60 mile) radius from the start point just outside of Arusha. You had to begin and end at the same place, which was a pain logistically but definitely made the event more social. While not truly a "world-wide event", there has been more of a coordinated effort recently. In case you're wondering, the world record is 354 species.

The crowd of birders listens intently to the instructions. 

Our team of birders, the Moshi Mousebirds!

Map of the birding area!

All of our Tanzanian friends that are birders work with a safari company or are professionals in some way. We were hoping to join with them but they all had their own company teams, which meant we never actually had a chance to win. Our team was the only team from Moshi, and we also had two of the youngest participants, with two 11 year olds. Don't be fooled, because the Tanzanian born boy, named Donyo, was the strongest member of our team! We had his pal Willem, along with Donyo's dad Jurg (who was actually our driver), Ana and myself, along with our friend Philip who is an ornithologist on a Fulbright Scholarship teaching for a year. The biggest disadvantage we had is that with the exception of Donyo, we are all relatively new (<3 years) to the country, thus not as familiar with the birds.

Getting stuck, luckily some nice guys towed us out. 

The second, windowless vehicle. 

One of the best parts of the bird day is that the National Park agreed to waive their park fees for all participants. This was only approved a few days before the day so our plans changed dramatically when we heard that. We decided to go north through the "Lark Plains", head up through Nanyuki Forest, enter Arusha National Park, and we stayed at Hatari Lodge, which Jurg and his wife actually own.

Unfortunately the adventure started literally less than ten minutes from the start as we  got stuck in the mud on the road out of the starting point. We tried to pass some birders looking for birds we'd just seen but got stuck. Jurg realized that his mechanic had not informed him he didn't have the drive shaft and we arranged to switch cars at a later point.

The first day was amazing, with a variety of habitats, lots of birds and a whole lot of good company. The weather was cloudy so it wasn't too hot either. When we finally arrived at Hatari Lodge at 730PM, we were exhausted. I didn't realize Hatari Lodge was SO nice, but I'll take a luxury safari hotel any day of the week.

The next day we woke up at 4AM and hit the road at 430AM on our way to Lake Manyara National Park. We managed to get a coffee in a thermos and the ride down was full of interesting conversation ranging from Philip's tales of working in the Amazon to Jurg's adventures hiking across Tanzania (literally). Before we knew it it was daybreak and we were busy spotting birds.

It was Ana and my first trip to Lake Manyara National Park and although we didn't get to see a huge area of the park, we enjoyed the patches of forest and open marshland. Interestingly enough we didn't actually see the lake as the area around it flooded to the point that we never got within eye shot from the west side. We only went so far as a place called Hippo Pool Swamp, but a visit to any of Tanzania's spectacular National Parks is a real treat, no matter the duration.

We cut it pretty close coming back and we were actually the last team to arrive, five minutes late, luckily still quite on time for Tanzania's standards! We finished 13th out of 20 teams, with 173 species. This is even more impressive considering we were actually first among the teams without guides (amateurs). The winning team got 283 species, which is impressive to say the least. Overall the teams saw a cumulative 447 species; quite impressive!

There was an excellent barbecue at the end of events along with a short award ceremony. It was a lot of fun to chat with people and ask what route they did and if there were any exciting birds they saw. I've found birders in the past to be a rather unwelcoming and snobby group of people and this group was anything but. The majority of the people had never done a big birding day so the energy at the end was really positive and although we were tired, we went home all smiles!

Mt. Meru through the clouds. \

In the forest at Arusha National Park. 

A look out towards Kilimanjaro. 

Lake with Kilimanjaro in the background. 

Lots of wetlands, lots of birds!

Getting out for a view. 

Ana takes a walk in the wetlands. 

Lake Manyara National Park

Minja Forest: Part II

Rainbow forms over the North Pare mountains. 

We first visited Minja Forest in October 2014, and it still remains one of our favorite forest reserves in all the Eastern Arc Mountains. It's about a 2 1/2 hour ride from Moshi, with an hour on the highway and the remaining time in the mountains. The last hour or so is the only part that is a struggle.  The roads are frequently filled with water and sharp slopes challenge the driver. This was a concern as this trip is during the peak of the rainy season, but I figured I had good experiences with wet roads. 

Basically woke up in a cloud. 

Driving through the clouds never gets old for me!

Minja forest reserve is located at basically the end of the road going north along the North Pare mountains. The road and villages get smaller and smaller and the road winds deeper and deeper in the mountains. Unlike the denuded landscape of the Usambara Mountains, the North Pares have a healthy amount of forest remaining.

We covered much of the same route we walked before, though we did find some new routes and chose our next area to explore. The forest was absolutely stunning and the overcast morning fit the mood of the wet and lush reserve, with some welcome afternoon sunshine drying things up a bit and giving us some more daylight.

There is an area where it is mostly flooded and full of these gigantic dandelion looking plants.

Very odd plants. 

Here is me for some scale. 

Lush forest. 

This is the smallest snail I have ever seen. 

We tried to walk in the flooded area but unsurprisingly had our shoes flooded. 

A few of the flooded section. 

A view looking south from the ridgeline. One of the higher points we climbed to (1800m/5,900 ft)

View looking east towards Kenya and the Tsavo plains. 

Pretty sure I have almost the identical picture in my first post, but that's because it's an awesome view. 

We stopped at a small lake on the way down the mountain. 

Bird watching at the lake. 

Beautiful morning to be out!

The road down the mountain. 

Nyumba ya Mungu: Part III

We recently went to one of our favorite nearby "trips", to the man-made lake, Nyumba ya Mungu (Trip I,Trip II). I was a bit worried since there was heavy rain the night before and the road is either extremely sandy in the dryness or extremely muddy in the rain. It is never an easy motorcycle ride to the lake but depending on ones mood it can be quite fun and almost like motocross.

It was quite cloudy with lots of mud!

There were several pools like this; as long as I saw some tire tracks of a previous motorcycle, I just went for it. 

The road was definitely muddy though it is always a scenic ride. The acacia woodland was somewhat wetter with the recent rains and the landscape wasn't quite as arid as it is most of the year. The ride goes through a few small villages before emerging at the north end of the lake. Because the dam is on the southern end, a vast swampland is created with bountiful bird life, including over 100 spoon bills, black egrets, and various other storks, lapwings and other water birds.

Ana looks out across the plains. 

We also had a chance run in with some fisherman selling fish to a local woman. I asked the name of the small fish and they replied, "dagaa", which is the name of a simple and bland dish, and I couldn't figure out which came first, the name of the fish or the name of the meal. Either way I enjoyed watching them sort the fish and it certainly made me confident that the hundreds of birds could each get a decent meal.

Laying out the fish. 

Sorting through, removing bigger ones for "fisherman's choice". 

The rest of the drive around the southern end was as spectacular as usual. The lake is not very wide and you can see the opposite shoreline at all times. However, the lake is very long and there are a few peninsulas and islets that make the lake at times appear shorter than it is. Because of the man made nature of the lake, the surrounding area contrasts dramatically with the lush area immediately surrounding the lake. At times the road winds in the interior and suddenly there are only acacias and dry landscape.

We could always see a few big storms across the lake, which would have looked more awesome if it wasn't for the fact that we were heading towards those mountains. When we crossed over around the southern end it suddenly got very cloudy, the temperature dropped and we braced for some rain. In the acacia woodland there aren't exactly too many places to find shelter so we had to power through the rain until we reached the main road, about 20 minutes from the lake. We got to the main road, soaked but not too cold, and enjoyed a nice chai!

Water mirrors the sky with some motorcycle tracks. 

See that storm across the lake? Unfortunately, we were headed that way. 

Some nice birding on the southern end. 

Southern end pool.