We arrive on Thursday and haven’t planned anything other than adjusting after 3 days traveling ????
We will be leaving Oregon Monday, staying overnight in NewYork City and then in Nairobi on our way.
We’re open to suggestions.........
Friday will likely be shot for us, but there apparently are 2 options for Saturday- the park and/or a walking tour. We're good for anything. I need to re-read the many pages i have copied down.
Did you notice anything about carrying a small bag onto the Jeeps? I am thinking about a small camera case, so i can change lenses as needed and binoculars, smaller camera, Ipad etc.
It seems people do bring small bags ...We are planning on taking a backpack for camera, binoculars, fleece jacket etc.
Hopefully that will work.
Either option you mention for Saturday sounds good. I think we can plan those things once we get there and adjust from the trip over.
Thanks Laurel-
I have a (relatively) smaller camera case which i will take.
Re the park this is what i found-
1. Hotel will set up the park tour. ($200 per car- apparently cash) with jeep/drivers who end up often as Tauck guides. not sure who we pay this to.
2. Hotel will make box lunch ($15)
3. Park entry fee $45 per person. May use credit card if it is working.
4. Optional walking tour $12 per person during/after car tour.
I'm talking about Saturday for us and if you get there earlier as it sounds and you want to make a Saturday trip, please add us- Barry and Cyndie Schlossberg.
One more question, which i will also ask separately. Have you seen anything about hair dryers? (Never mind - i see almost
all have hair dryers)
Looking forward to meet you both !!
A few notes about the optional walking tour at Arusha National Park:
• There are no lions and other predators are "rare" or "very rare" in ARP. But there are other large animals (giraffe, buffalo, zebra) that are common and if disturbed, could be a problem.
• You are accompanied by an armed escort (hence the additional charge).
• Our arranged driver/guide (who was also one of our Tauck guides) was not keen on the walking tour. Not sure why, other than he must return to the park entrance and wait there with the safari vehicle. I don't the know drop off/pick up details.
• We didn't do the walk, but others who have, had a great time and likened it to the scene in the original Jurassic Park movie where the characters walk among some large trees and dinosaurs.
That sounds great...if we aren’t too exhausted we will plan on it....see you next weekend
I know that AlanS is a believer in doing everything there is to do at each and every place he goes. Few who have not done this trip can appreciate the intensity of this experience. Once the tour actually begins, the first real rest break does not come until day eight at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. So your ‘free’ day upon arrival is going to be your last opportunity to get some rest for more than a week. And, your TD will probably tell you that you will not see anything at the ANP that you will not see during the scheduled Tauck tour and events. The Arusha Lodge is a beautiful place, and the grounds and the Lake provide a great opportunity to walk about and relax ... take a nap. You will need it. Most days you will be getting up in the dark.
If you arrive two days early, I think that it is worth going to the Arusha National Park. One good thing is that you do not have to leave to get there at the crack of dawn like you do in the other safari locations. There are no predators of the lions,cheetah, leopard variety. We enjoyed it, it’s very different as far as vegetation is concerned from the rest of the tour. There are reasonable roads and you go in on a one way system. We opted for the two hour walking tour too, the first we had taken in Africa, though we have taken others since. You pass by buffalo, the most dangerous of the animals there, warthogs etc and trek up to a waterfall. You stop st a picnic spot where you can eat your bagged lunch. There is a lake which had thousands of flamingoes. We really liked it. But again, I stress, don’t book this in advance, see how you feel after the very long flights. Again, I recommend arriving two or three days early for what is a grueling tour. Getting up before dawn most days and added on to that the jet lag for in my case at least threee days to adjust. And I really am a morning person.
How you adjust to the time zone shift is a somewhat personal thing. I flew international flights for a living, and the normal rate of adjustment is one hour per day. Coming from the West Coast the time difference is ten hours. We started to sleep somewhat normally after a week. At the beginning our day was basicly upside down. When you wake up at five am in Africa it is seven pm in California. When you go to bed at ten pm in Africa, it is noon in California. We have been home for a week and our sleep schedule is still not normal. We had techniques we used to force sleep before flying, but those are not appropriate for a stay of two weeks, only over night. You need to try to start your trip well rested, and a day or two resting in Arusha is your last opportunity for a week.
As usual, British, Sealord, and I have slightly different opinions, though I think we are all correct. I do, in fact, like to maximize our trips by adding extras where possible and I am probably not as affected by jet lag- I'm a tad younger : ). We had the same TD in 2015 as Sealord had last month, and yes he said we wouldn't see anything we wouldn't see on tour. But, like British said, it is a different environment, different terrain. Though the park is not fenced the animals hang around and I think are used to tourists- kinda like Disney : ) We actually got closer to the giraffes and zebras here than on tour. We arrived almost 2 days early so I used the ANP tour as an opportunity to get accustomed to traveling in a safari vehicle and taking photos of the animals, especially from the vehicle.
Photos taken at ANP. The giraffe and most other animals were closer than they appear in the photos!
Just a small fraction of one flock of (lesser) flamingoes in the small lakes of ANP:
Great photos Alan. But I object, I am younger than you.???? I had many years of working night shift and adjusting back to sleeping at night after a run of night work makes you feel similar to what Sealord says. Your head feels as if it is full of cotton wool and it's hard to make clear decisions. So in that respect, it is a little easier on a tour because you don't have to make a life threatening decision and can take a nap. Mr B has always needed hours more sleep than me, which is why you see me here so often.
Interesting, for us, the worst time change to overcome is about five hours, gosh we have probably had that at least one hundred times. Yet the twelve hour time difference seems easier.
We often notice people on the tours missing out on a few of the trips because they are too tired. That's why I recommend arriving two days early if you can. I can't fathom those who arrive the same day especially on the tours that get straight on the bus to start the tour as opposed to those where at least you get a night of sleep before the tour starts prperhe next day.
It's good we differ in opinion, it's good that there are different ways to look at things, that's why traveling to another country is so interesting or life changing because other cultures will differ from us too and some times we realize we Americans have got things way wrong.
I have enjoyed all the comments and stories about resting up and it has convinced us to kick back upon arrival, I’m pretty sure we will need the low key couple of days.....thanks and love the photos AlanS
Great photos Alan. But I object, I am younger than you.???? I had many years of working night shift and adjusting back to sleeping at night after a run of night work makes you feel similar to what Sealord says. Your head feels as if it is full of cotton wool and it's hard to make clear decisions. So in that respect, it is a little easier on a tour because you don't have to make a life threatening decision and can take a nap. Mr B has always needed hours more sleep than me, which is why you see me here so often.
Interesting, for us, the worst time change to overcome is about five hours, gosh we have probably had that at least one hundred times. Yet the twelve hour time difference seems easier.
We often notice people on the tours missing out on a few of the trips because they are too tired. That's why I recommend arriving two days early if you can. I can't fathom those who arrive the same day especially on the tours that get straight on the bus to start the tour as opposed to those where at least you get a night of sleep before the tour starts prperhe next day.
It's good we differ in opinion, it's good that there are different ways to look at things, that's why traveling to another country is so interesting or life changing because other cultures will differ from us too and some times we realize we Americans have got things way wrong.
I was referring to Sealord : ) , he's a geezer ???? . During one of my Pentagon assignments I had a job that was on a crazy rotating shift with a mix of 8 and 12 hr. shifts- that was tough even for a young person.
By choosing another carrier or different routing we could have avoided it, but next year on our Botswana trip we will have our first-ever overnight layover. Our flight from Atlanta gets into Jo'burg at about 5:30 pm and the flight to Livingstone doesn't depart until 10:40 am. That should potentially give us a good 12 hours of sleep. Rather than staying at either Protea we decided to stay at the InterContinental which is only a few yards outside the arrival hall. Hopefully that will give our body clocks a head start adjusting to Africa time.
I was referring to Sealord : ) , he's a geezer ????.
Well Alan, we were both in ‘college’ in 1968 ... so if I’m a geezer ... I’m afraid you are a geezer as well. (;-)
There were some people in our group who skipped a couple events ... they were younger than us. We skipped nothing except the night safari that followed the twelve hour day that started with ballooning, and then went to the Mara river to see some of the migration. I think the only people who went on the night safari were people who skipped the Mara River excursion, and thus had the afternoon off. We had intended to skip one thing in order to have more time at the Mt. Kenya safari club, but that did not work out because of logistics. So we did the whole shebang.
Comments
Chris and Joe
Barry and Cyndie, coming from Baltimore although primary home is Boynton Beach Florida.
I assume most are coming in on Friday, and it would be nice to get together to plan something for day on Saturday.
We arrive at 12:55 PM at Mt. Kilimanjaro.
We will be leaving Oregon Monday, staying overnight in NewYork City and then in Nairobi on our way.
We’re open to suggestions.........
Did you notice anything about carrying a small bag onto the Jeeps? I am thinking about a small camera case, so i can change lenses as needed and binoculars, smaller camera, Ipad etc.
Hopefully that will work.
Either option you mention for Saturday sounds good. I think we can plan those things once we get there and adjust from the trip over.
I have a (relatively) smaller camera case which i will take.
Re the park this is what i found-
1. Hotel will set up the park tour. ($200 per car- apparently cash) with jeep/drivers who end up often as Tauck guides. not sure who we pay this to.
2. Hotel will make box lunch ($15)
3. Park entry fee $45 per person. May use credit card if it is working.
4. Optional walking tour $12 per person during/after car tour.
I'm talking about Saturday for us and if you get there earlier as it sounds and you want to make a Saturday trip, please add us- Barry and Cyndie Schlossberg.
One more question, which i will also ask separately. Have you seen anything about hair dryers? (Never mind - i see almost
all have hair dryers)
Looking forward to meet you both !!
• There are no lions and other predators are "rare" or "very rare" in ARP. But there are other large animals (giraffe, buffalo, zebra) that are common and if disturbed, could be a problem.
• You are accompanied by an armed escort (hence the additional charge).
• Our arranged driver/guide (who was also one of our Tauck guides) was not keen on the walking tour. Not sure why, other than he must return to the park entrance and wait there with the safari vehicle. I don't the know drop off/pick up details.
• We didn't do the walk, but others who have, had a great time and likened it to the scene in the original Jurassic Park movie where the characters walk among some large trees and dinosaurs.
I know that AlanS is a believer in doing everything there is to do at each and every place he goes. Few who have not done this trip can appreciate the intensity of this experience. Once the tour actually begins, the first real rest break does not come until day eight at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. So your ‘free’ day upon arrival is going to be your last opportunity to get some rest for more than a week. And, your TD will probably tell you that you will not see anything at the ANP that you will not see during the scheduled Tauck tour and events. The Arusha Lodge is a beautiful place, and the grounds and the Lake provide a great opportunity to walk about and relax ... take a nap. You will need it. Most days you will be getting up in the dark.
Photos taken at ANP. The giraffe and most other animals were closer than they appear in the photos!
Just a small fraction of one flock of (lesser) flamingoes in the small lakes of ANP:
Interesting, for us, the worst time change to overcome is about five hours, gosh we have probably had that at least one hundred times. Yet the twelve hour time difference seems easier.
We often notice people on the tours missing out on a few of the trips because they are too tired. That's why I recommend arriving two days early if you can. I can't fathom those who arrive the same day especially on the tours that get straight on the bus to start the tour as opposed to those where at least you get a night of sleep before the tour starts prperhe next day.
It's good we differ in opinion, it's good that there are different ways to look at things, that's why traveling to another country is so interesting or life changing because other cultures will differ from us too and some times we realize we Americans have got things way wrong.
I was referring to Sealord : ) , he's a geezer ???? . During one of my Pentagon assignments I had a job that was on a crazy rotating shift with a mix of 8 and 12 hr. shifts- that was tough even for a young person.
By choosing another carrier or different routing we could have avoided it, but next year on our Botswana trip we will have our first-ever overnight layover. Our flight from Atlanta gets into Jo'burg at about 5:30 pm and the flight to Livingstone doesn't depart until 10:40 am. That should potentially give us a good 12 hours of sleep. Rather than staying at either Protea we decided to stay at the InterContinental which is only a few yards outside the arrival hall. Hopefully that will give our body clocks a head start adjusting to Africa time.
Well Alan, we were both in ‘college’ in 1968 ... so if I’m a geezer ... I’m afraid you are a geezer as well. (;-)
There were some people in our group who skipped a couple events ... they were younger than us. We skipped nothing except the night safari that followed the twelve hour day that started with ballooning, and then went to the Mara river to see some of the migration. I think the only people who went on the night safari were people who skipped the Mara River excursion, and thus had the afternoon off. We had intended to skip one thing in order to have more time at the Mt. Kenya safari club, but that did not work out because of logistics. So we did the whole shebang.