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Tanzanite: A Rare Stone Discovered Near Mount Kilimanjaro

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2011| 4 Comments »

 “Honest poverty is a gem that even a king might be proud to call his own – but I wish to sell out.” – Mark Twain

African Safari: No Sale

Tanzanite: The rough stone and a polished stone. -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Tourists to Africa, like Kim and myself, are valued for the dollars they bring. Knowing that made it easier for me to understand the royal and polite treatment we received at all the places we stayed, and helped erase the guilt I frequently suffered for having so much while others had so little.

I would like to think that some of the kindnesses extended us was real, but I’m sure some of it was just for the generous tips both Kim and I diligently handed out. It seemed only just that we do so.

The Africa Adventure Company that had arranged our tour, meanwhile, had gone the extra mile to make sure we traveled safely and enjoyed our stay. This included providing us an opportunity to spend our money on souvenirs from sanctioned local shops and native co-ops. .

I realized this fully for the first time when our Ranger Safaris’ driver stopped at a place where they sold tanzanite, a rare gem first discovered in 1967 in the hills near Mount Kilimanjaro. Neither Kim nor I had ever heard of this brilliantly blue and violet crystal-like stone.

The mining of the gem was nationalized by the Tanzania government in 1972; and its original name of blue zoisite, was changed to tanzanite by Tiffany when the company began marketing the jewel.

Company big wigs thought a stone named after the country where it was found would sell better than one whose name sounded like “blue suicide.”

Monkeys by the side of a road were a common sight in Tanzania. -- Photo by Kim Perrin

According to Wikipedia, “the mining of tanzanite nets the Tanzanian government $20 million annually,” while retail sales, mostly in the United States, total “approximately $500 million annually.”

The largest tanzanite stone discovered, 252 carats and known as the “Queen of Kilimanjaro,” sits in a tiara owned by Michael Scott, Apple Computers’ first CEO.

I found the tanzanite trivia fascinating, but wasn’t interested in owning one. Both Kim and I, after noting the cost of the jewelry, agreed we would rather spend our money on more travel instead.

Next Episode: Coffee Plantation Lodging

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A Colorful First Glimpse of Tanzania

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on June 28, 2011| 1 Comment »

“At dawn in East Africa the sky bleeds raw swatches of color … the sun rises with passion, like a reckless dangerous lover. It ignites the world in reds and golds and vaporizes cool mists collected overnight. Within minutes the passion burns itself out.” –David Ewing Duncan

African Safari: The President Passes By

An African sunrise, enough in itself to warrant traveling to the Dark Continent. -- Photo by Pat Bean

As I look over the notes I took about the drive from the Kilimanjaro airport, through Arusha, to a coffee plantation where we were to spend the night, I find myself almost as overwhelmed again as I was observing it originally.

Color was everywhere. African men and women on bicycles wrapped in blue, red, orange and purple robes making their way over packed red earth. A pickup truck with a gigantic load of yellow oranges bouncing on the rutted road ahead of us. Grey burros plodding beside the road with green leaves of some sort loaded on their backs.

The banana truck -- Photo by Kim Perrin

There were small boys, whom I thought should have been in school, herding cattle and goats; and women in long dresses walking purposefully with huge bundles on their heads, sometimes with an empty-handed man walking ahead of them.

I watched, and smiled to myself, as a man pulled a load of squawking chickens down from the top of one of the smoke-belching over-packed buses we frequently passed.

And I was amazed at the way our Ranger Safaris driver weaved in and out among traffic and people. I was sure he was going to hit something or someone. But he didn’t. Even when a car decided to create a passing lane down the middle of our narrow two-lane highway and we passed him three abreast.

From my journal -- Photo by Pat Bean

But the strangest thing of all was when a bully of a policeman came along and made everyone pull off to the side of the road. Our driver, who was on the cell phone at the time, didn’t respond quick enough and so was singled out for a Swahili chastising.

Kim and I sat unusually quiet during the confrontation, wondering what was going on. .

A few minutes later, a pickup truck with armed guards standing in the back passed us, and soon traffic was back to its chaotic normalcy.

“That was the Tanzania president,” our unfazed native driver said.

Next Episode: African Tanzanite

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Flying Over Untamed Landscape to Adventure

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

 “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

African Safari: From Nairobi to Kilimanjaro

This is a view of Mount Kilimanjaro that Kim and I did not get to see. I post it so as not to disappoint readers, including one who was looking forward to seeing it,. The Wikipedia photo was taken by Muhammad Mahdi Karim.

Our plane to Tanzania from the small Wilson airport on the outskirts of Nairobi was a Twin Otter with single seats separated by a narrow aisle that held much of our luggage. It was a bottleneck one late-arriving passenger had to stumble through to sit down.

The aircraft’s non-uniformed, Anglo pilot, a grin on his weathered face, twisted around and gave us our flight briefing. He ignored the luggage. It was as different from our KLM attendant’s memorized agenda on our flight to Africa, as our scrumptious breakfast at the Norfolk was to the in-flight meal we were served in a paper sack on boarding.

The entire lunch consisted of a slice of zucchini, a slice of carrot and a leaf of lettuce on a miniature hamburger bun.

The meal reminded me of the sign noting that millions of Kenyans lived in poverty that I had seen on arrival in the city. Just how thankful some people would be for just such a meal was impressed even more on me as the plane flew over an area of Nairobi where salvaged crate box homes were crowded on top of one another.

I decided right there and then that there would be no complaints from me during my stay in Africa. Kim had the same reaction.

Meanwhile, my seat near the front of the plane gave me a pilot’s view of the 50-minute flight. I could easily tell I was not flying over the United States. The landscape below lacked the tidy borders of fences, parallel streets and plowed fields that consume Americans’ sense of tidiness.

But by my own personal criteria and desire for adventure, today’s flight was perfect – even though Mount Kilimanjaro was hidden by clouds, both from the air and when we landed at the tiny Kilimanjaro airport near its base.

“Perhaps it will be less cloudy tomorrow,” said our pilot as he bade us good-bye. I think he was more disappointed than his passengers. Kim and I were already thinking about our  next leg of the day’s journey, one in which all traffic rules, if there were any, were broken.

Next Episode: The Chaotic Drive to Arusha

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Norfolk Hotel: Hemingway Memories and Garden Birds

Posted in African Safari, Birds, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2011| 3 Comments »

The Norfolk Gardens

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” Ernest Hemingway

African Safari: Rum and Chocolate at Midnight

A hadada ibis. -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

As late as it was, and as tired as we were, Kim and I weren’t ready for bed when we finally got checked into the Norfolk Hotel. We stood awhile on the balcony drinking in the night air and looking out over a lush garden beneath us.

Then we raided the room’s mini bar, making ourselves a couple of Captain Morgan Jamaican rum and cokes, and toasting ourselves on the adventure we were about to begin. There’s something to be said for not being rich enough to be well-traveled. The excitement of finally getting away to strange and exotic places that once existed only in your dreams is delicious – as was the small box of “Out of Africa” chocolates that we ate with our midnight drinks.

 

We were met in the evening and seen off the next morning by the Norfolks Green clad doorman.

It all felt a bit decadent. But I loved the feeling. .

The next morning I roamed through the hotel, where it seemed the décor and furnishings were of another era. The Norfolk Hotel opened on Christmas day 1904. It is said no other hotel in Kenya captures as much of Nairobi’s past. President Teddy Roosevelt, Lord Baden-Powell, the Earl of Warwick and the Baron and Baroness von Blixen are all part of the Hotel’s history.

And so is Ernest Hemingway. As a writer, I got a thrill peeking into the bar where he is said to have sat for hours at a time. I was only brought back to the present day when I observed a maid talking on a cell phone.

Out in the garden, I saw my first African bird. It was a hadada ibis, and a dozen or so of them were hanging out in the garden’s trees. I identified it using the East Africa bird guide Kim had given me for my birthday earlier in the year.

My second and third lifers (bird species seen for the very first time) were a baglaflect weaver and a pied crow.

I was as eager to see birds as I was to see Africa’s more famed four-legged wildlife. So much so that I occasionally annoying to my traveling companion, who likes watching birds but was more excited about Africa’s four-legged wildlife than its winged species on this trip.

A modernistic wildlife scupture on the University of Nairobi campus. -- Photo by Pat Bean

There’s the possibility I might also annoy my blog readers. It’s a risk I’ll take, however. I came to Africa to see birds every bit as much as to see lions and elephants.

Pied crow -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Meanwhile, Kim joined me in the garden, and we went into breakfast, which included some yummy African sausages that we would eat many times again during our African stay.

Afterward, we took a short walk on the grounds of the University of Nairobi across the street from the hotel. Our stroll was accompanied by a black kite flying overhead, whose sighting I added to my daily bird log.

And then it was off to the small Wilson Regional Airport for our flight to Tanzania to begin our safari for real.

Next episode: A view of Mount Kilimanjaro

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Cattle-Cozy Flight and Eye-Opening Sights

Posted in African Safari, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2011| 4 Comments »

 “When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

African Safari:The Dark Continent Beneath Our Feet

Nairobi skyline at dust. It was all so different, and colorful, and chaotic. I loved it. -- Photo courtesy Wikipedia

A nine-hour, cattle-car flight – well that’s what it feels like if you fly economy – deposited us in Amsterdam, where we caught an eight-hour connecting flight to Nairobi, Kenya. We had left Houston at 3:30 p.m. on August 19, but with the 17 hours of flight time, a short layover and the eight-hour time zone difference, it was late evening on the 20th when our feet first touched Africa.

A Pollman’s Safaris’ driver met us at the airport for the ride to our hotel. He stuffed our luggage and six other passengers into a van that had seen better days. In fact, I don’t recall seeing a single vehicle in Nairobi that didn’t look like it had seen better days.

But the color and intensity of Nairobi at night stirred my blood, as did our driver who would have put a New York taxi driver to shame when it came to dodging oncoming traffic as he zoomed in and out among vehicles that seemed to follow no set rules.

The word Nairobi comes from the Maasai phrase “enkare nyorobi,” which means the place of cool waters. The city, founded in 1899, is better known however as the Green City in the Sun, or the Safari Capital of Africa. It has a population of about 3.5 million and is the fourth largest city in Africa.

The other three pairs of travelers, who had flown in on the same flight as we had, were each staying at different hotels, and they were dropped off first.

The Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, where Robert Redford and Meryl Streep stayed while filming "Out of Africa."

At one of the hotel stops, guards looked under our van with mirrors. At the next stop, the Stanley Hotel, there was no such safety precautions and we could hear partying and music coming from inside. It sounded like a fun hotel.

As we drove through the city, I observed a sign that said 16.7 million Kenyans live in poverty. In contrast we passed huge well-lighted Toyota and Yamaha factories. More interesting, however, was one car driving on a flat as if nothing was wrong.

Like Dorothy, we weren’t in Kansas, or Texas, any more.

It was about 10 p.m. when our driver finally took us past a guarded barrier to let us off at the elegant Norfork Hotel. The precautions emphasized the travel warning to Kenya which Kim and I had chosen to ignore.

The armed guards made the warning seem more real, but any fleeting thoughts of danger quickly faded when we were graciously greeted to the quaint hotel by a doorman in a long green coat and a tall green top hat.

Next Episode: Hemingway Slept Here

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Johnson Space Center and Galveston Detour

Posted in African Safari, Birds, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2011| 1 Comment »

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” Ursula K. leGuin

African Safari: A Texas Prelude

The Johnson Space Center was busy the day Kim and I visited, and dreamed of what it would be like to leave this planet's gravity. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Kim’s arrival at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston in August should have been greeted with 100-degree temperatures and 90 percent humidity. Instead the temperature was about 80 with little humidity.

The sadist in me was disappointed. I had told Kim what to expect of Texas summers, and now my native state was making me into a liar. Oh well, much better for the two days of sight-seeing before we left for Africa.

Our first stop was the Johnson Space Center.

I was living south of Houston, near all the glamorous astronaut happenings, when Neil Armstrong set the first human foot on the moon, uttering the historic words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I’ve been fascinated with space travel ever since. And Kim and I both expressed awe at the idea of an adventure in space. She even oohed in awe when she actually touched a moon rock. I had taken a couple of grandkids to the center previously and recalled doing the exact same thing.

Our sight-seeing continued the next day with a trip to Galveston via the Blue Water Highway that runs from Surfside, parallel to the Gulf of Mexico, to San Luis Pass and then across a bridge to Galveston Island. My son and his family came along, and we did some birding on the way over to the island.

I had earlier infected my son, Lewis, with my passion for birds, and the others in the party were patient with our dawdling drive. They might even have enjoyed the sight of brown pelicans flying low over the horizon, snowy egrets gathered in the shallows and a lone great blue heron patiently fishing along the shore that we saw this day.

Hurricane Ike, just as a matter of trivia, took out the Blue Water Highway the next year, but it has since been rebuilt.

Laughing gulls and royal terns are common beach-side sides along the Blue Water Highway. -- Photo by Pat Bean

In Galveston, we walked along the sea wall, whose water-front sandy beach has been disappearing in recent years. Afterward, we stopped at the Rain Forest Cafe for dinner.

The cafe, which looks out on the Gulf and has an amazing rendition of an exploding volcano on its outside facade and a waterfall and computer animated wildlife on the inside is a popular place. We had an hour wait to be seated.

What helped make the wait worth the time was how the hostess finally announced that our table was ready.

“Bean, party of seven, your safari is ready to begin,” she said.

It seemed so apropos, as tomorrow Kim and I would fly to Africa and our safari would begin for real.

Next Episode: Flight to Nairobi

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Mother Nature Shook The Funk Out of Me

Posted in Birds, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

A starling chick getting its first look at the world. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” — Guillaume Apollinaire.

Travels With Maggie

I seldom get in funk, but that’s what I found myself in this past week. I’m not sure it was just my computer problems either. Thankfully Mother Nature stuck around to hold my hand and point out how precious every minute of life really is.

A pair of European starlings have been nesting in the self-pay kiosk here in the campground at Lake Walcott State Park. For weeks I’ve been watching as they disappear and reappear from a hole in the back of the small structure.

Yesterday morning I was rewarded with the end result of all the starlings’ hard work. I watched as a chick emerged from the hole for a look at the outside world. It sat on the rim of the hole looking amazed, and totally unafraid of the strange new sights.

It made me recall all the birds I saw in the Galapagos Islands that hadn’t yet, and hopefully never, been given reason to fear humans. I had a Galapagos mockingbird actually land on my shoe, and a blue-footed booby that refused to move off a trail to let me pass. I was the one who had to go around.

Later, when Maggie and I took our daily circuit around the park, Mother Nature continued to share her wonders with me.

Mother Nature is generous with her gifts here at Lake Walcott State Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The huge willow trees that were leafless when I first arrived in May are now bursting with lush green leaves that dip down to the ground. The frosty green Russian olive trees add texture to the park’s lively green landscape, while the flowering trees give it color.

Honking geese, giggles coming off rushing rapids on the Snake River that feeds the lake, screeching killdeer, rustling tree branches and cheery robins provide the musical background.

It’s as if Mother Nature is laughing at my funk and telling me to get over it. I heeded her advice.

 

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Computer Woes Continue As My Blood Pressure Leaps

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on June 16, 2011| 6 Comments »

 “The hacker mindset doesn’t actually see what happens on the other side, to the victim.” — Kevin Mitnick

Travels With Maggie

Hackers are drowning us with viruses just as surely as Mother Nature does with her weather extremities, as shown here at Cedar Hill State Park in Texas. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The picture that accompanies this blog was taken several years ago at Cedar Hill State Park in Texas, when the area had an excess of water. Today the same area is in a drought.

Meanwhile, Northern Utah and Southern Idaho, which is my stomping grounds for the summer, is having an excess of water.

Given the extremities of Mother Nature, it’s a problem of inequity that’s never going to be solved.

I’m beginning to think it’s the same for my computer woes, which is actually what got me focused on this particular photo this morning. I feel like I’m drowning.

It seems my brand new computer may be suffering from a malicious virus targeting Windows 7. So far, counting travel and tech support costs, I’m out nearly $300 in an attempt to get it fixed – and it will be more when I have to drive 320-miles round trip to pick it up again.

As I’m the only campground host volunteer at Lake Walcott State Park, I need to get back there for the weekend crowd. And my computer, the geeks told me, won’t be ready by then.

Budget cuts, layoffs and business failures abound these days. It’s a time when everyone in this country should be pulling together to find solutions.

I do not understand why some of the brightest minds, those among us who might even be able to improve the economy, are so intent on making it worse. How, I ask myself, can we stop this maliciousness?

I truly wish I had an answer.

In the meantime, I hope every hacker making this country’s economy woes worse is caught and prosecuted to the fullest degree possible. We need to let them know their pranks are criminal acts that are costing people their jobs and business to fail.

And my blood pressure to rise.

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Mountain Joy and Computer Sand Woes

Posted in Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on June 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

 “Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” – Robert Service

The sun was shining brightly over Lake Walcott when my computer crashed. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Travels With Maggie

It was sunny and bright, after a morning of light rain, at Lake Walcott State Park, when my new computer crashed Monday.

My choices to fix it was to drive 160 miles to Ogden, Utah, where I had bought the computer at Best Buy, or 45 miles to Twin Falls, Idaho, to the closest Best Buy. I chose the former because of having a place to park my RV in Ogden and because it was an opportunity to visit friends.

I packed up my RV and left immediately. Maggie, as always, was tickled to be on the road again, and soon was contentedly snoozing in the co-pilot seat. I was also happy to once again be going down the road.

The drive from Southern Idaho to Ogden on Highway 84 is a pleasant drive on a four-lane divided highway over a mountain pass with minimal traffic. The best part of the journey for me is coming back into sight of the majestic Wasatch Mountains that were my home for 25 years.

It took longer than usual, however, to see them. About 50 miles into my drive, Mother Nature decided to weep Mississippi tears.

Anyone ever caught in a Deep South downpour knows what I’m talking about. The rain comes down so hard that one can’t see more than 10 feet ahead – if that. Windshield wipers can’t keep up and are almost useless.

All one can do if caught on a highway driving in such a downpour, as I was, is to try desperately to stay on the road and keep driving. To stop is to risk being hit from behind. I truly think I drove through the hardest rainstorm I had every experienced  in Utah.

The sight of the Wasatch Mountains finally breaking through the storm briefly made me forget my computer woes. -- Photo by Pat Bean

It wasn’t until I hit Brigham Cit, just north of Ogden, that the rain lifted enough for me to enjoy the view. It,  as alway, filled my heart with joy.  I’ve seen many mountains in my lifetime, but none that touch my soul like these western peaks of the Rockies that stretch from Idaho to Central Utah.

Just to be able to drink in their beauty once again made me almost forget my reason for seeing them.

But tomorrow, when I would spend the day confronting Best Buy and HP geeks and management before getting my computer problem solved, I would remember.

 It was my day to have sand in my shoe.

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Snake Adds Element of Surprise to Daily Walk

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , , on June 12, 2011| 3 Comments »

Nature's surprises aren't always as beneign as a bull snake. I gave this Brazos Bend Texas State Park alligator sleeping beside the trail I was walking a wide berth. Photo by Pat Bean

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” Ashley Montaqu

Bull snake -- Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Travels With Maggie

Maggie and I, out for one of our daily walks here at Lake Walcott State Park yesterday, weren’t looking where we put our feet as we rounded a curve that took us back into the campground.

I was watching a red-winged blackbird, admiring the contrast of scarlet epaulets against black feathers, and Maggie was keeping her eye on a dog sitting beside a nearby RV.

I’m not sure what caused me to look down, but one more step would have put my foot on the top of a long snake that had evidently been sunning itself on the paved trail.

I jerked Maggie back and let out a yelp, followed by the words “a snake!” I wasn’t afraid, just surprised, and loud enough to alert nearby campers who all came rushing over to see it for themselves.

The snake, in the meantime, was slithering as fast as it could toward a scattering of rocks beside the trail. All the onlookers got to see was the end of its six-foot ropey body as it eased itself out of view.

It was a bull snake, which isn’t poisonous, and I suggested that everyone just leave it alone. I hope they did, because bull snakes eat small rodents, the kind that twice have found their way into my RV.

Up until the snake surprised us, my walk with Maggie had a sameness about it. The snake gave it the exclamation point that set it apart. While the red-winged blackbird was a joy to behold, the more rarely observed, although not as pretty, snake made the walk more memorable.

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