Best Kenya & Tanzania Day 12
Best Kenya & Tanzania
Day 12 - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - Ngorongoro Highlands/Walking Tour Farm/Wairaqw Village/Overland to Ngorongoro
Even though we had a free morning, we woke up at 6:15 and prepared for our day. The temperature was 65º and the humidity was 63%. It almost feels like summer in Colorado!
As soon as the office opened at 7:00, we checked our mail for one last time and I sent the journal for yesterday to our son who will post it for me. Gennie found out last night that the internet works much better when we were the only ones trying to access the limited satellite connection.
We were one of the first in the breakfast room so we had the egg chef to ourselves. We had made to order eggs and toast and we were ready for the day.
I paid the bill and Gennie and I talked to Bariki about the next 6 days when we will be going into the Ngorongoro Crater and then on to the Serengeti. There was a map at the reception desk so he showed us exactly the route we would take.
Most of us met 10:00 to go on a tour of the 500 acre Ngorongoro Farm with Paulo, our local guide for the day. He started with the organic gardens where all of the herbs, vegetables, and fruits are grown for the lodge and the guests.
Our next stop was the small coffee plantation where the coffee trees are shaded by taller trees. Paulo showed us how coffee is hand picked.
Now the plants are resting and waiting for the rains to come. But we did see where they are drying the beans in the sun on screens.
The last stop on the tour was the roasting shack. The Farm has a roaster from Colombia to roast the beans at 250ºC. Then the beans are packaged and sold in the gift shop.
At 11:15 Leonard took 6 of us to Paulo’s modern Wairaqw village. On the way we passed a brick factory where men are making red clay bricks for their modern homes.
The clay is mined in a quarry close by. The clay is ground and then mixed with water by foot power. The men actually stomp the mud and water to make the clay.
In the next step of the process men shovel the mud into a mold and then lay the bricks out to dry in the sun. When they are dry enough they are stacked and sealed into a kiln where they are baked.
All of this is done by hard working young men and all by hand. Each man makes 1000 bricks per day and earns about $23 for the day.
Paulo then welcomed us to his home where we were greeted by his wife Paulinha. The family played music for us and some of us learned the traditional dance.
We were very pleasantly surprised when they invited us to share their noon meal. The stew called makande was made of beans, corn, tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.
We arrived back at the Farm in time for our lunch in the coffee pavilion. At 2:00 the guides loaded our luggage and we started up to crater, which is really in geological terms a caldera.
We made a brief stop at the visitor’s center so Barikiel could give us information and show us a relief map of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
The rim of the caldera is a collapsed volcano that scientists think might have been higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro. We had climbed from 5294 feet to 7665 so the air is much cooler, a relief from the heat we have been experiencing.
We reached the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge at 4:00 and had plenty of time to unpack our bags, do a little laundry, and start to sort photos and write the journal.
This lodge has no power during the day and limited generated electricity in the evenings and there is no internet. We will continue to keep up the day’s notes as we are doing so many activities, we would forget them if we waited for 6 more days when we have access to the internet again.
Our buffet dinner was in the dining room at 7:30. It was pleasant to have such cool weather and spectacular views of the caldera. Our room is right at the edge of the rim!
Accommodations: Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge - - - Meal: B, L, D
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Comments
Paulo Playing and Singing with Family and Friends (2:05)
View from Restaurant at Ngorongoro F...
Brick Making
Paulo and Children
Berickiel Loading the Luggage
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