The drive to Moivaro Lodge

After collecting my bags, I exited the terminal to find a group of drivers with signs awaiting their passengers. I soon found my driver. His name was Jackson. He is a guide for the Hoopoe Safaris company that I will talk more about later. Jackson would be my personal guide for most of the next 18 days as we toured 5 different game parks and several villages. He is a very pleasant man with a great Tanzanian accent but pretty easy to understand. He was about 5'7", certainly not the tall war-like Maasai we have heard so much about.

As we walked through the parking lot of safari trucks to get to our Land Rover, I began to get the sense that this journey into the wild of Africa had truly begun. The drive to Moivaro Village would take about 45 minutes. I quickly found out that a Land Rover built for the African bush country is no limo ride, even on a paved road. But I did not come here for a limo ride. The temperature was beautiful, just a slight cool in the air, so I was able to roll the window down and enjoy the fresh air. This was after all in the middle of winter just 3 degrees south of the equator. This kind of winter weather, I can take. As Jackson was telling me about the area and answering my many questions, I was trying to watch what was around me. Mount Kilimanjaro was within easy eyesight but is was too dark so see, so I would have to wait until at least tomorrow to see the "great mountain" of Africa. We were on one of the main "highways" of Tanzania. It was a well paved two lane road with a posted speed limit of 50 kph. This is the main, actually the only real road between Dar es Salaam, the capital, Moshi and Arusha.

I saw many people walking along the side of the road and even crossing randomly. You certainly don't want to drive too fast or veer off onto the shoulder for fear of hitting a pedestrian. I also saw numerous goats and cows grazing along the road side being tended by people, sometimes kids. Along the way there many homes, businesses, open air cafes and a few small communities. Corn and bananas were growing right up to the road at times. I was amazed at the number of people that were out moving about at this time of night. It was now well passed 9:00 and the sun had been set for hours. But then, the weather was absolutely beautiful, so why not be outside? It seemed that we were almost continuously in or very near a small village. We seldom had more that a few hundred meters with no one or some building in sight.

After a while we turned left off of the main road at a small cluster of businesses. There were many people milling around an open store and or cafe. I quickly looked around to see if I could find a sign telling us where we were. But, as the U2 song, "Streets With No Name" suggests, there was no sign to be seen. Even as we passed through various villages on our way from the airport, I could only recognize one village name, Usa River. But only because it was on several buildings. We were now on a muddy, bumpy, heavily rutted 4-wheel drive dirt road. This road was barely two cars wide and Jackson was constantly driving around large ruts or even rock outcroppings in the road. It had been many months if ever, that a grader had been on this road. There were many houses around that were very basic and most likely did not have electricity, much less, running water. Again, there were people walking on the road, sitting outside their houses or at several small stores along the way. The plant life around us was growing right up to the road and over it. It seemed like we were literally driving into the jungle.

The pictures of Moivaro Lodge on the internet were beautiful. I was beginning to wonder where I was going to end up. I was going to spend my first three nights at Moivaro Lodge before the actual safari started. Was I going to be off to a disappointing start? Certainly, the living conditions of the local village at least in the darkness of night, were not very encouraging at this time.