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Africa Mass E-Mails From July 31st to August 25th, 2001, Bret, Terri, Terri's Brother Scott, and our friend John Boyle organized and took a month long trip to Kenya, Tanzania, and Amsterdam. Once in There we experience the culture and safari wonderment that Africa fantastically offers. We also got another kind of experience visiting Amsterdam as well ;-) Below are the e-mails we sent to all our friends and family during our trip while it was happening! It was unique to have the opportunity to keep everyone updated right after we did a tour or climbed a mountain. Enjoy!
Hello All: Well we all made it safely to Tanzania, Africa and things are going great! We have been enjoying the local culture as we are based in the town of Arusha. Aside from being the gateway to the Serengeti from Tanzania, it is also where the United Nations Criminal War Crimes from Rwanda are being conducted. We departed Houston with a brief plane change in Newark, we headed for Amsterdam for an 8 hour layover which we made the best of by going downtown. We saw a little bit of the locale, but stayed clear of the Red Light District as not to spoil my surprise birthday present Terri is getting me, since we will be back for three days on the return leg of our trip in 15 days. We landed in Nairobi, Kenya and was greeted by 50 degree weather (Wet and very cold). In fact, today (Aug 5) has been the warmest day at 78 degrees. We then took a shuttle bus for 5 hours across Kenya into Tanzania. We drove through local villages of modern day tribes that mostly live in absolute poverty. Wood shacks and dried mud homes were the normal living conditions. A real eye opener to say the least. Farm animals all grazing over the road caused several near close calls as well. Upon arriving in Arusha, we met our tour operator, Erwin, who is a local in the city. John Boyles, director of SpiritQuest, arranged all of our tours and safaris through Erwin. He delivered us to our hotel that is actually an old coffee plantation (web site: www.moivaro.com ) that houses us in very picturesque cottages complete with fireplace. No TV's though, but even a swimming pool. We start our safari tomorrow (Mon) and return Saturday late. This is where the real roughing it begins as we will sleep in tents, unprotected from roaming wildlife, and we will be without electricity, cell phones, internet, showers, or toilets for most of the trip. But this is where we will see the real migrations of the famous Serengeti and tour the unique Ngorongoro Crater filled with plentiful wildlife. There is so much more to tell about the trip thus far, but the e-mail is too long as it is. So enjoy the pictures. Bret, Terri, Scott, John, Bill, Ginny, Sue, Linda, Alexis
Hello All - Our 2nd installment from the John Boyles/SpiritQuest Tanzania Trip: I know from the last e-Mail everyone was wondering why I didn't have animals in the pictures. Well we didn't leave for the safari portion until Monday (Aug 6th). Well we just made it back from the Serengeti Plains, as well as various conservations areas and wildlife lakes. So, so, so much to tell ya' ll about the trip as it had unbelievable sights, sounds, and especially people! WOW!!! We saw lions, tigers, and bears! Oh My! Well, actually lions, gazelles, zebras, gazelles, cheetahs, gazelles, leopards, hippos, elephants, gazelles, and giraffes, and did I mention Gazelles? One night that we will all remember is that upon returning to our campsite, we and several other safariers came upon a pride of lions feasting on a zebra about 15 feet from the road! Great video, and as always, the lions ignored us. This was about a minutes drive from our camp site however, and that would have implications!!!! About two hours later, we saw several eye glows just in the bushes and then it happened, John, Scott, Terri and I heard the grumbling of another lion to the RIGHT of us and we shined our lights to see . a male lion in the camp!!! (I have proof on video!) We knew we were in trouble when the native tour drivers and cooks scrambled for their vehicles and the camp went haywire. Other lions made the way into camp from the other side. We all scrambled to the tents and pretty much stayed there. I had another "personal" encounter with the lions about 3am that night, but I will have to tell that story later. Apparently, they were really interested in the water runoff from the 5000 liter tank used for camp cooking. Lions like to drink after dinner, and our camp was closest. Something to remember next time. Another highlight was the hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti. We went as high as 9960ft and low as skimming the grass top chasing gazelles and such. Afterwards, they fed us breakfast in the middle of the wide open plains underneath a Flattop Acacia tree. We also stayed in a mission near the Ngorongoro Crater that works with the Masaai tribes. They killed two goats in our honor and performed customary dances for us. And this entire trip we roughed it in tents in a different location almost each night. But we had wonderful cooks with four course meals every night and lunches. However, to do this trip, we stayed in our own tents for the entire 5 night trip without showers! Also there were zero paved roads and this being the dry season . well Pigpen had nothing on us. Every vehicle we passed got us dusted. Uhggggg. We were coated. But the trip was well worth it!!! Anyway, we rest in the lodge again for two days and then we are off to backpack climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is the highest mountain on the African continent. Scott has already left this morning for his 6 day trip to the summit. Good luck to him. Unfortunately, the e-mail program at the lodge is not cooperating today, so I will have to send the pictures later. Bret, Terri, Scott, John, Bill, Ginny, Sue, Linda, Alexis
As you all can see, our group has been roughing it with extreme barebones conditions out on the Serengeti plains. This is really tough to endure, but we decided we will stay out here a little longer. Be thinking about us in our misery :-( Bret, Terri, Scott, John, Bill, Ginny, Sue, Linda, Alexis
Hey All: Well we just returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and it was a wonderful experience :-) Oh boy was that a climb. The whole group pretty much said that they were glad they did it for the experience (except Terri), but all agreed they probably wouldn't ever, ever, ever it again (including Terri). We climbed up 11 miles of steep terrain. Of course, we didn't have it as bad as the porters who took up our luggage and food supplies. We spent two nights on the mountain, which had the most beautiful sunset and sunrises. And the stars at night were absolutely spectacular. So very bright they were. Our top altitude of climbing was over 12,000ft, which made the climb particular hard for those of us who live at 50ft. The climb down was considerably tougher, most of us agreed (except Terri, who was smiling all the way down because she wasn't going up) as it was hardest on the legs and calf muscles. Scott was the only insane one to go all the way to the top. We assume he summated today (Fri, Aug 17), but he will catch up with us tomorrow and give us his details. Bill, Ginny, Sue, Linda, Alexis made their plan today and are on the way home while the rest of us leave for Amsterdam on Sunday after a night in Nairobi, Kenya. We plan to party all night and our hotel has promised to leave the RED LIGHT on for us ;-) Chat with ya'll later. Bret, Terri, Scott, John
Hey All: We are back safly in the States. Actually, we have been for awhile (since last Friday 24th). However, I had to jump back into the job. We were able to trudge back through East Africa back to Nairobi for a day. We were really excited to learn and meet some of the production crew of the third installmet of "Survivor", which had just wrapped up tapping the day before. This installment takes place in (where else) Africa. We asked if we could meet Mark Burnett and take a picture, but alas, he headed straight back to the States with the final tapes that show the next WINNER! While also in Nairobi, we ate at the wold famous Carnivoure restaurant were they serve wild African game animals. We partook in Zebra, Alligator, Ostrich, and other such delicaseis. We felt like lions at the end ... stuffed and thirsty. Ther we also sat next to the "Survivor" crew as they celebrated the show's end. After a 2 days of hanging out in Nairobi, it was on to ... ANSTERDAM!!!! Gratoius, Ansterdam was full of cheap sex (didn't have any), cheap drugs (didn't have any), and gloriuos meuseums (didn't see any). Well we did see musuems like Ann Frank's house and the 1500 year old town hall. My classmate from San Angelo, Andy, also took the train in to meet us and see what Ansterdam was all about. We were all met by my Mother, Mary,who showed us all the ropes. For those of you who haven't seen this area it's very interesting and different. The streets are lined with little shops. Each has a bed, sink and hi fi. A curtain closes it off from view when desired. Scantily clad young women (usually very good looking women too) stand and beckon in the windows. When a customer sees what he likes, he opens the door, negotiates and goes to the cubicle of choice. The curtain is drawn and the act is done. Someone asked what was I doing in the Red Light District. Well, museums of course. I didn't really want to go but everyone else insisted, especially Terri. We saw an erotic museum and Terri 'insisted' we would check it out. Speaking of which, while waiting for John, Andy and Scott to come out of this "Muesuem", Terri could have made enough money to have paid for the trip from all the offers from passerbys. She didn't even have any glass in font of her. I got one inquiry. We did do other things in Amsterdam other than visit dens of sin. The first afternoon John, Terri and Scott went bicycling around the city. Mother and I waited for Andy, who d his train connection in Cologne so he didn't show up as planned to arrive, so we went to tour the Dam Palace(next to the Dam Hotel in the Dam Square)(such language!). The sculptures there are very interesting and I would suggest that you sit thru the movie before the tour. I had seen the palace before but enjoyed it much more this time after having seen the movie. Alas, our money all spent, we had to leave for the states. There we metTerri and Scott's Dad, Uncle, cousins, and Grand parents for a quick lunch a the Mewark Airport Marriott. It was Margret's (Terri & Scott's grandmother's) B-Day that day, so we had a little party. Then a last late night flight back to Houston. We are finally home!!!!! Unfortunatly, I had to work the next week instead of taking a vacation from our vacation as I really wanted. Oh well, as Rachel says, ... we have it so tough :-( Thank you for all the e-mail and I hope you enjoyed mine. Sorry for such a long e-mail. Catch ya'll later! Bret, Terri, Scott, & John P.S. I plagerized some of this text from Mary's e-mail due to time contraints. Enjoy the pixs.
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