#seroneraairport

[sandjsbeachbumbonanza]

Day 110 – Bye bye killer plankton… hello tsetse flies

We woke up very early this morning to go to the airport. Zuri organised everything like clockwork, including breakfast boxes complete with hardboiled eggs, bread, sandwiches, fruit and drinks. Dulla picked us up and took us to the airport. He has now become our driver during our stay in Zanzibar, and we organised for him to pick us up on Monday from the airport.

When we arrived at the airport, we were concerned to see a huge throng of people standing around with their bags. Fortunately, Dulla informed us these were the Russians waiting for their flight back to Moscow. S lowered his head and started forging a path through the scrum. It wasn’t easy, but we made it. We are happy to report that no little children were stepped on in the process.

Domestic departures at Zanzibar is a rather casual affair. Before entering the departure zone, we had to stop by the ‘security desk’, which is just a guy sitting under an umbrella who checked our printed airline ticket confirmation and passports. We put our bags through the scanners and went through the metal detector, which went off. Apparently that’s not a problem here and we just kept going. We found the one-person check-in desk for Coastal Air. A guy came up to grab our luggage and take it to a physical scale across the room to make sure we didn’t exceed the 15kg per person limit. He then affixed some handwritten baggage tags to our bags.

We joined the other safari aspirants in a holding pen and got some coke and beer from the coffee shop. Amusingly, J saw that the gift shop has Korean writing on its sign. We have no idea why. There was no flight board and boarding announcements were also a bit casual. They consisted of the check-in desk guys coming by and shouting out the airline name and destination. We tried to board the wrong flight a few times. Finally our check-in guy told us to stand by and he would come find us for our flight. We were finally walked to the plane, where we joined three other passengers, who were already on the plane. Before we boarded, we were shown our luggage in the hold of the plane. Otherwise, the handwritten bag tags might have made us slightly nervous given our experience with InterCaribbean Airways.

Our flight to Arusha was about 1 hour 40 minutes, which doesn’t seem long unless you are on a very small aircraft and need to use the loo. When we arrived in Arusha, our Coastal Air minder mercifully took us by the loo before taking us out of the terminal and back into the terminal through security. This time when the metal detector went off, S was asked to remove his belt, watch and wallet. The metal detector went off again, but this time they decided to let him pass without further inspection. We were then put in a holding pen. J took the opportunity to buy some popcorn. We waited in the pen until a guy came and called us by name to board the flight. We followed him back on to the same plane that we had just come off of. Once again, we were shown our luggage in the hold.

The flight from Arusha to Seronera was only around an hour, but was extremely bumpy due to high winds. We both had to control our air sickness. S helpfully pointed out that there were air sickness bags in each seat, just in case. We skidded to a landing and exited the plane. S contemplated kissing the earth, but thought better of it as it was a dirt runway (hence the skidding). We were met by our Serena guide, Godson. He loaded us into the standard Toyota Landcruiser. Like Dona’s car, this one has a pop-up roof and windows that only slide partially open.

We headed off down the dirt road to our first lodge, Serena Serengeti. Almost immediately, we spotted two lions that were courting one another under a tree. We only saw them briefly as they ducked down and hid in the tall grass. Thankfully Godson also has binoculars, which he loaned to S. On the way to the lodge, we saw a variety of animals, including a warthog, impalas and baboons. While we were viewing the impalas, we met another resident of Tanzania, the tsetse fly. Tsetse flies are bloodsucking parasites, that resemble western horse flies. Apparently their bite is quite painful and stays itchier longer than a mosquito bite. Fortunately we were only annoyed and not bitten. At that point, Godson said he needed to drive quickly as we were driving through an area with a tsetse fly infestation and he did not want to let them get into the car. He lent J an animal hair fly swatter, which she used liberally, including smacking Godson in the head to protect him from flies, and S in the eye as he was collateral damage. These are no ordinary flies – these suckers are mean and aggressive.

We then arrived at the lodge and were ushered straight to lunch as lunch was ending. J spent most of the time googling tsetse flies, bite prevention and how to repel them. The answer is – good luck. Even DEET is not 100% effective and they can bite through your clothing.

Lunch was three courses in a beautifully decorated lodge, with wood carvings and overstuffed leather chairs. We only saw one other group dining and they oddly seemed to be on business as they were wearing business casual reminiscent of S’ gorilla trekking attire. We had a zucchini soup and a fruit cup and J also had a main (stir fry chicken). J seemed to get the benefit of this lunch as by the time S had given J all his watermelon, there was almost no fruit left for him in his fruit cup. J’s cup, on the other hand, runneth over with watermelon.

We were then taken to our room. The standard rooms are in a thatched roof cottage. There is one room on the ground floor and one room up a ramp. We have a gorgeous view looking out over the Serengeti and one of the windows looks out on a tree filled with different, colourful birds. The room oddly has lodge décor but resembles a hotel room. There is even a hotel phone to call reception, something we haven’t seen in any lodge to date. The staff had made an elephant towel creature for us and left us an impressive bowl of fruit. The room and bathroom are smaller than our previous lodge rooms, but are practical and clean. We already know that we have electricity, WiFi and a fan, so that’s a step in the right direction. This place is run very professionally and has a bit of a corporate feel. After our experience in Uganda, this is not necessarily a bad thing. S is particularly happy as while there are some stairs, all are clearly marked so he can see them.

We were told that we are strictly forbidden from walking alone at night as there are dangerous wild animals walking around the property. Instead of the usual Masai guards, J saw a guy in camouflage gear holding an AK47. We assume that he will be our escort tonight.

As we didn’t have a game drive this afternoon, we decided to try out the pool, which is a few feet from our room. It is kidney-shaped, shallow at both ends and more than 2 metres / 7 feet deep in the middle. There is even a full-time pool guy who clearly doesn’t have much to do as no one was using the pool today. He thanked us for stopping by. He saw us check it out earlier today and was worried we weren’t coming back. He set us up with two padded sunloungers in the shade and got us some cocktails and towels. His name is Musa and he’s from the Lake Victoria area. He spent a lot of time chatting with us – he’s clearly bored and keen to be helping out guests. The pool was nice, albeit a bit cool with a few flies (thankfully not the blood-sucking ones). Musa told us during the very dry season, animals stop by to drink from the pool as it’s only lightly chlorinated. He said they’ve seen lions, leopards, giraffes, buffalos and zebras.

Dinner was another 3-course affair. We skipped the starters and just had mains and dessert. S had the veggie fusilli and fruit cup and J had the black pepper beef tenderloin with a cheese plate. Fortunately for S, there was only a limited amount of watermelon on his fruit plate, so he got to eat most of it.

After eating, we decided to sit in the bar and finish our wine in the bar’s outdoor seating area overlooking the grounds. This turned out to be a perfect viewing spot for dik-diks. The dik-diks basically stayed there the entire time and did not run off. J got to watch them eat and lounge around, while they watched out for leopards. We also heard some not too distant hyenas making their usual whooping noise.

Our escort this evening is very knowledgeable and friendly. He likes to point out animals with his torch as he guides you around. J asked him to get close to the dik-diks, which he did. He said the dik-diks live on the grounds and are not afraid of humans. It is safer here as the cats don’t come around as frequently, but the dik-diks still get killed by leopards from time to time. In a tree right next to our room, he pointed out bush babies, which J had not yet seen. Bush babies are nocturnal and only come out at night, so they are hard to spot. All in all, we had a nice evening.