Category: Tanzania 2022

For once we did not need to get up early and could have breakfast at Rivertrees.

This beats the usual packed breakfast consisting of a cardboard box with dubious food items in it. We set off at 08.30 for 10.45 flight from Arusha. Annoyingly the flight is making lots of stops. Lake Manyara, Lobo, Serenara and finally Kogatende, where we disembark. The flight takes the best part of 3 hours and we do not arrive in camp until 15.o0.

We sit under the shade of a tree and are served lunch with a beautiful view of the bush.

Large clouds form in the sky and it is looking certain that there will be rain before the day is out. We have a brief orientation meeting with the manager and are then shown to our tent. The camp have excelled themselves. They have given us a family tent so effectively we have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Neat!

There is little time to enjoy the room as it is already 16.30 and time for our afternoon game drive.

The first thing we encounter is a carcass with a lot of vulture activity.

We then notice some vehicles parked up not far away and see a lone cheetah lying in the grass. We suspect he made the kill that the vultures are now devouring. We sit and watch for an hour or more. It starts to rain heavily and the light is poor but I still manage some half decent shots.

The rain eventually eases and the sun appears below the clouds. We practice different sunset techniques. Our guide Qamara is a keen photographer. We are going to get on exceptionally well.

We make it back to camp at 18.45 – a quick change, then G&T’s round the campfire and dinner. We have an interesting evening chatting to a Coastal Aviation pilot , who it turns out, knows my friend Julien Polet from Mahale very well. Small world. We continue with a bottle of red wine around the campfire before bed.

Well – that was a surprisingly straightforward day’s travel. Apart from the hour long queue to check in everything else was very smooth. We watched a beautiful September sunrise as we took off from Heathrow and saw lots of wind turbines as opposed to windmills as we came into land at Amsterdam.

The second leg of our flight would have been on time had it not been for an abusive passenger who was removed from the plane and we had to wait for his luggage to be located. The flight was not full and we had the central three seats between the two of us. Although we flew economy there was lots of leg room, the crew were great and I would fly with KLM again.

Kilimanjaro Airport lulled us into a false sense of security. Passport and covid documents were checked very rapidly before entering the terminal. Then it was SLOW! Fortunately we were at the front of the queue. Second in fact. It only took an hour for us to get through from there. I feel sorry for the 300 passengers behind us. Surprisingly local residents just barged their way through and were speedily processed.

We collected our bags, put them through the X-ray machine that no-one was monitoring and left the terminal. Our driver Abdullah was waiting and sped us to Rivertrees – our hotel for the night. I have stayed here several times before and it is an excellent transit stop. We were warmly welcomed and shown to our room which only had one bed. Huge apologies from the staff. We went to have a drink and bite to eat while they transferred our bags to a room with twin beds. We are not a couple!!