Funny Experiences

Ngorongora Crater

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The Ngorongora Crater is a conservation area and National Heritage Site. After breaking camp in the Sarangeti, we drive another two hours up to the Crater rim where we set up camp so we can be ready for the drive down into the Crater the next morning. The crater is 16-17 km across; the difference between a park and a conservation area is that people can live in a park; so many Maasai life in the Sarangeti but none in the crater. The crater sides are covered in a dense rain forest; Black Rhino only here; no giraffes here because it is too steep for them to walk down; no Topi or Impala here; the alkalai lake is filled with pink Flamingos; Corey Bastards are mating; hyenas with their lowered backsides slither along…

The Land Rover dodges huge elephant poop on the roads meandering along the crater bed.

Maasai and Samali Ostriches: incubation 48 days; female watches the eggs during the day and the male at night. Biggest enemies are man and lions; Red Billed Duck; Black Winged Stilt; Black Headed Heron; White Heron; Sacred Ibis; Crowned Crane; Wida Bird; European Stock: coming from Europe with no passport and flies back in December-he is not ours, Francis says.

Common and Golden Jackal; Flamingos by the million who eat algae and salt that makes them pink; Spotted Hyenalives 35 years; noctural;4- 5 months gestation; he was walking the whole night that is why he is sleeping. No one else eats the Hyena except other Hyenas when they die. Lions may kill them but they don’t eat them. Male Lion eats first-big boss-then the mother and the cubs; 40 lions in the crater; sometimes you see no lion because they don’t know you are coming to see them and they just lie anywhere in the tall grass where you can’t see them, Francis says.

Wart Hog; monkey sitting on top of an Acacia Tree-the king of the world. A mini bus drives up. Ladies in nice clean white blouses sit in the back with their suitcases with wheels on them; probably staying at the expnsive Ngorongoro wildlife Lodge on the rim. “My god they are not even camping; not getting the full-on experience!” the kids yell out to each other laughing hysterically. By the way, at a potty stop, one of the kids spotted a tourist all dressed up like Safari Guy just stepping out of Magellan Catalogue. All the crew and kids laughed themselves silly.

Francis says that the animals in the crater are very polite because they haven’t been in the hunting block outside the crater where they learn to be scared of the human.

Black Headed Heron eating baby Black Mama snake; male elephant with biggest penus ever…swinging between his legs as he walks. Weighs 3 kg, Francis says. How does he know, Bob retorts.

We stop at Tak Tak spring for a rest and watch a school of Hippos.

When the zebras walk or run away from the car, their heads bob up and down telling the lions “I have seen you, I have seen you, I have seen you,” Francis says.

We drive around a bend to find five Forest Elephants all in a row. They are waiting for pictures, Francis says smiling. Then we drive up and out of the crater and head back to camp.

To the Sarangeti

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A week before picking Bob and me and another 3 people up in Nairobi, the WorldWide Adventure Company had taken about 15 others across the Masi Mara into Rwanda to see the Gorillas. Their stories made us sorry we didn’t go…”we were 2 meters away from them…they were so relaxed…and peaceful. The gorillas were completely comfortable with us being there…”

Our first day out the kids were hyper as hell from being stuck in the mud for two days after seeing the gorillas. I threatened to abandon the truck as soon as we got to Dar es Salaam but earplugs got me through. The second day was better…our good natured trip leader talked the kids out of the Michael Jackson tape. Our guide, Rod is South African; the crew-Kenyans. George is a great cook and James-a good driver. The truck is a great way to see Africa because you sit up high and can see all over.The luggage and kitchen stuff is underneath the seats…accessible from outside.

As the truck was moving through the Kenyan/Tanzanian border a young kid wanted $100 American for his little hand-carved giraffes; we all laughed and he yelled up at us “I want to be the Bill Gates of Africa!” then quickly added, “I am just joking!”

Stayed the first night at Namanga Camp where Bob discovered a small pretty Maasai woman named Eunice tending the small camp store. Eunice gave me my Maasai name-Milanoi. We exchanged addresses and she promised to make me a necklace with my Maasai name and send it to my home. (I never got it of course.) She refused to take money for the necklace or the postage so I gave her a silver ring. But in the morning she didn’t give me my 20 shilling change for a Fanta I drank the night before and then the other shoe dropped. She asked me to send her clothes, shoes (size 4) earrings and nail polish and clothes for her 9 year old son. Our expectations of cultural exchanges so different…we hate feeling “used” under the pretenses of friendship. Extend that to our Aid programs world-wide. Who is used by whom?

Nairobi…First Impressions

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On April 30, 2002, the plane from Cairo landed in Nairobi Kenya to music from “Out of Africa” (groan) and a horrific monsoon-season rainstorm. A taxi ride to the downtown area that should have taken 20 minutes took three hours.

The Parkside Hotel where we are staying, across town from the Hilton and Stanley Hotels, is decent and many of the non-governmental organization expats stay here. For a city with a population of two and a half million people the downtown area is surprisingly small and you can walk across it in about 15 minutes.

First Impressions
You immediately see signs of the ousted English: driving is on the left side of the road, many of the taxis are English (they look like black 1940 limousines)they serve English breakfast including pork and beans without the pork. Besides Swahili and the tribal dialects, English is spoken as the common language.

The feel of the people and sound of their voices is soft and resonant-not strident as in Egypt. The smiles on these faces are wonderful. We are very happy to be here.

We don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable yet. We are called Mama and Papa…disconcerting reminders of course that we are not 20 something backpackers.

The women all have straightened hair unless they have cornrows or short cropped hair. The men all have very short cropped hair. One seller, comparing his lack of hair with Bob’s referred to both of them as having “mosquito highways” the literal translation for a bald head in Swahili!

Bob & The Greeks Again

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Bob had some more adventures on the ferry the morning of April 13th. He saw big cups and little espresso cups by the coffee machine and said he wanted a big cup of coffee. The waiter said he only had one size cup. Bob said he could see two sizes of cups. The waiter said again that they only serve one cup. Bob was getting progressively more frustrated when the waiter finally took down the big cup and gave Bob his coffee. If the waiter had told Bob to begin with that
the cup they used was the big cup it would have all been over. Or…if Bob could just have asked for coffee trusting that what he got was what he was going to get…

The second adventure was when we wanted to upgrade to business class on the ferry so we would have a seat for nine hours. The guy in charge said which “aisle” do you want? This thoroughly confused Bob as he could see no aisles so he said, I have a ticket and I don’t know which aisle it is on. Then the guy said again-which “isle” are you booked on? This time Bob got it.

Stuck In A Train In Napflion

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Train Trip to Nafplion

The next morning we walked to Syntagma Plaza to took the metro to the port at Piraeus for departure to some of the Greek islands by ferry. But we had just missed the ferry and since the train station was next to the metro we walked over and bought a $3 ticket to Nafplion 100 km down the coastline of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. Bob said he felt like he was on a train ride in Disneyland because the wheels had such a narrow gauge and the train jerked toy-like back and forth around the curves.

When the train stopped at the end of the run Bob debarked while I finished writing in my notebook and gathered up my baggage to follow him out. But just as I got to the door it slammed shut! Knowing how fast these trains had been arriving and leaving I urgently began banging on the window on the other side of the train where I saw a man standing-but he just stood and shrugged his shoulders! Then I turned back to the debarking side and saw the conductor so I banged on that window too. He looked up and laughed-apparently thinking it quite funny that I was stuck inside the train-and with some difficulty and after some seconds he finally got the driver of the train to reopen the doors. Bob, meanwhile, half a block ahead was oblivious of the whole thing! Some travel buddy!

But we were soon all laughing again when, as I walked up to Bob, a very funny Greek lady took all my baggage off my back and put it on Bob and told him to carry it for me. When he refused she repeated the gesture. Finally Bob-unable to communicate his displeasure- dropped my luggage and walked off. She ran after him insisting that he pay me one euro for making me carry my own baggage-to no avail of course. We laughed again as we waved goodbye-thinking that we liked this country!

Nafplion
Looking at the map I saw names I recognized from the Bible-and from Ancient History and Lit in school-Mycenae, Corinth, Olympia. Nafplio on the east coast of the Peloponnese, is tucked up against a Venetian fort high up an acropolis, the Palamidhi, and is approached by 899 stone-hewn steps.

Charming as the town was all the signs were in English which is a tell-tale sign that everything is adjusted for the tourist. We walked around for awhile and sat at the Napoli di Romania Cafe on the Boubulinas and watched the sun go down over the Guld while I drank a double Ouzo and Bob had a Cafe Frappe. You could see some ruins on an island a short distance out into the Gulf that later became a hotel for a time. A guidebook says that Melina Mercuri claims she consummated her first marriage there…

About 8 pm, when we walked into a totally empty restaurant, we thought it was closed. But it was open and exactly at 9pm Greek residents started rolling in for dinner. By the time we left at 10:30 pm the restaurant was full of noisy Greeks talking, eating laughing and listening to Bouzouki music.

The train back to Ireus was a riot-full of noisy young Greek soldiers going to Athens on leave. There were not enough seats; four German tourists had to stand but seemed to be thoroughly entertained by the bedlam.

Rome

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“Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome. Let’s go to Rome tonight and never come back. Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms.

Took one of those plush high speed TGV trains from Florence to Rome-one and a half hours. Wish the U.S. could have a similar system. A nice young guy in Bayonne, France who, while selling me some wonderful French perfume, told me about his three months he spent in the states and Canada-by traveling and sleeping on buses!

In Rome we checked in Pensione Cortorillo near the Termini (train station). This time there is a lift to the fifth floor. However, it was about 3 feet by 3 feet square. Bob thought he was going to be smart so he turned around and backed in with his backpack on. I walked in face first flat up against him. The inner doors (like French doors) barely closed behind me. Ok, good to go. Press the button nothing happens. Then Bob realizes that there is an outer door. So I have to back up through the door, turn around and back in so I can close the outer door. We get to the fifth floor. The lift stops. I look down through the metal grate of the lift and see the next floor about 12 feet down. Bob can’t see anything but now we can hear voices so I am thinking that since I can hear them maybe they will hear us holler for help. After some few seconds (which is long enough for many different thoughts to race through your head) Bob manages to turn his head far enough to see that behind him is another metal grate door and through it he sees the hotel proprietor waving frantically and yelling for Bob to open the door behind him which he does with great difficulty. Saved from eternal imprisonment in Rome.

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna.
We took a two-hour bus tour to get an overview of this city full of marble domes, Roman ruins with pieces lying willy nilly about, noseless and penusless statues and motorcycle dust. The tour was narrated in English but we only understood about half of it because of the Italian accent.

I had wanted very much to see the Trevi Fountain across from which was a delightful guesthouse where Barbara and I, in 1965, could look out on the fountain from our second floor window. We weren’t looking, unfortunately, when every last single bit of our luggage, and film, was stolen out of the trunk of my little red Spitfire Triumph that night. Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the Fontana di Trevi, with its rumble of cascading water emerging from the back wall of the Palazzo, is ensured a speedy return to Rome and one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome. Well, in 1965 the first coin didn’t ensure such a speedy return but the second coin worked-my travel partner was charmed by a young Italian and spent a week longer in Rome while I went on toward Berlin by myself.

Rome is sensory overload of 2000 years of world history, art, architecture, politics and literature. We were exhausted after trying to absorb Florence and now Rome so we retreated gratefully to our room for a nap-falling asleep to the sound of music from “The Doors” and laughter from the young backpackers that filled the pension.

Through Others’ Eyes

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In the hotel in Paris at breakfast one morning. I struck up a conversation with a woman that wasn’t speaking French to the waiter and she had avoided talking to me. I guessed that she might be English or Scandinavian and most Sacandinavians speak English. It turned out she was from Poland but knew English very well. She had avoided talking to me because she thought I was French. When I started talking to her and finally told her I was from the states, she said “no wonder your English accent is so good-I thought you were French!”

She was on her way to a business meeting in Lancaster PA. In her slender 30’s she had short cropped blond hair and was wearing a yellow sweater and tan slacks. She said that on a trip to NY several years ago, she was struck by how “big” many American were and she made clear that she meant fat. She guessed that it was because they didn’t get enough “motion.” It is interesting to see ourselves through other’s eyes. I tried to explain “jet lag” the lag part being the most difficult.

Later, an English woman in the hotel in Bayonne said that when she had visited NY several years ago she was shocked at how people, who were dressed up in suits and other nice clothing, were wearing ugly sneakers and walking so fast down the street. We tried to tell her we didn’t find “sneakers” ugly and that when I worked I wore nice shoes to work and carried my tennis shoes in a bag that I then used when walking to/from the car. But she said there were “nice” comfortable shoes you could wear out on the street and she held up her foot whereupon there was a nice black walking shoe.

Mother Country English

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Last night we were walking to the theater and a guy sitting on the sidewalk against a building waiting for the bus after work called out and asked if we were tourists. I turned and smiled and said yes. He said “Americans?” I shook my head yes. He shouted “I could tell by the way you walk!”

I looked back and discovered that the Brits have a whole vocabulary unfamiliar to us that was apparently lost when we crossed the Atlantic or they snuk it in when we weren’t looking! “Potty” means eccentric, the subway is called the tube, a house is “in” the street not on the street and they go “to hospital” not “to the hospital.” A dish towel is a “tea towel.” Food “to go” is “take away” but then they use “take away” in New York too. (That’s another whole vocabulary.) “Bugger off” means go away. A “robot” is a traffic light and the trunk of a car is a “boot.” Actually neither word, “trunk” nor “boot” makes any sense to me. A diaper is a “nappy,” a clothes pin is a “peg.” “Pants” refers to underpants or panties. The correct term for “pants” in England is “trousers.” New Zealanders use “togs” to mean a swimsuit but the English use it to refer to any clothing. Pegs, (pronounced “pigs”) means clothespins. A “powerpoint” is a plug-in or socket. To us in the U.S. it means a microsoft application. Don’t know about England but if you are in Scotland don’t tell someone to “scoot over.” The “scoots” means you have the “runs.” Don’t call it a “fanny pack” when you’re in the UK, Australia, or NZ. That word does not mean “tuckus” there. Instead Aussies laugh at the American tourists wearing “bum bags.”

And then other things that seemed odd to us at first look…yogurt was brought around to sell to patrons at the theater during intermission, (actually not a bad idea). BBC reported on the curling gold medal every time we turned on the TV-very big deal over here…I had never heard of curling.

I watched the Olympics closing ceremony on TV while Bob went to Piccadily Square to get tickets for a play and buy a eurail ticket which is another long story entirely. In the meantime, we were entertained by “Blood Brothers” about twins who had been separated at birth by adoption to poor and and rich families respectively….theme being class differences of course. We are greedy…going to another play tonight; half price on same day. We’ll see what is available.

Oddest thing I’ve seen is Black guy with half his head front to back in a natural and the other half in dreads…a split identity?

I want fish and chips one more time before we leave London for Paris! In pubs we found out the hard way that you have to go up to the bar to order-wouldn’t come wait on you if you sat there all day! Foot long wonderful breaded and deep fried but juicy piece of fish more sitting atop a pile of french fries (chips in England) and sometimes with a cup of peas dumped on top of it all or can just order peas which are called “mash.” Usually served in a stiff piece of paper twisted to make a funnel-like carrier.