POSTCARD FROM MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 14 April–16 May 2017

I arrived in Doha early at 6.40 on Saturday morning, 15^th May, after a good flight and slept a little.  I had to give in my bottle of whisky to Customs!  Not allowed to bring booze into Qatar!  However I am allowed to pick it up on departure!  At the Grand Hyatt I was given a temporary room, where I was able to sit outside on my balcony, but did not get into my room until 3pm. However thanks to a friend who knows the GM I was upgraded to an enormous suite, and allowed to use the Club facilities!  Spent the rest of the afternoon on my suite’s balcony!

I spent Sunday by the pool, and on Monday I took a hop-on hop-off bus trip around Doha.  I spent an hour or so at the Museum of Islamic Art, which was fascinating as they had some good exhibitions on.  After that I spent my days by the pool and my evenings in the Club Lounge enjoying a few glasses of fizz with some very good nibbles.

On 21 April I flew from Doha to Kigali, via Entebbe, having picked up my whisky bottle first!  It was a rather long and not particularly comfortable flight with Qatar Airways.  After checking into the Serena Hotel in Kigali, I then met up with my Volcanoes Safaris boss for a very nice dinner.  The next morning I visited the Volcanoes Safaris office in Kigali and spent the afternoon by the pool in rather dull weather.

 

On Monday, my driver, Robert, drove me to Volcanoes Virunga Lodge – a fascinating journey seeing local life in Rwanda, bicycles carrying everything, school children, ladies in beautiful dresses, often with babies on their backs and packs on their heads, to mention but a few.  It took us just under three hours but was great.  On arrival, after unpacking, I had a light lunch and then generally sorted things out in the afternoon.  I spent the evening in the lodge lounge where a nice fire was blazing!  When I got to my room I had lovely fire there to warn me getting into bed!

At 5am the next morning I was awakened and by 6am I was on my way to the Virunga National Park.   After checking in, I discovered it was just me and a Canadian lady in my group.  It is the rainy season so hardly anyone around.  By 8am we set off on a pretty difficult, if luckily shorty, tracking – very muddy, and we got very dirty.  I had a brilliant porter who held my hand and helped me most of the way.  After an hour and a half, we reached the gorillas and spent an hour with them.  Sadly it was very rainy and very cold so they hardly moved.  We had the silverback, Muhoza, and four of his females very close indeed.  Sadly my photos are not too good as it was SO wet and cold.   We then set off on our track back to the car and then drove back to the lodge. I arrived back very wet, very muddy and very exhausted around midday.  After a much needed shower, and a light lunch, I spent the afternoon recovering!

On Tuesday Robert, my driver, took me to Lake Kivu on the Congo border.  It was another fascinating drive to see local life in Rwanda and to see the countryside.  We went to the Serena Hotel in Gisenyi for lunch and from the beach there we could see Goma.  After lunch Robert took me right to the Congolese border before driving me back to Virunga Lodge.  That evening I had dinner with interesting group of ladies from all over the world who were on a Fam Trip to Virunga Lodge.  On Wednesday morning Emmanuel from the Lodge took me on an incredible walk from the Lodge to the Lake – it took all of two and a half hours, and we met all the locals en route.   In the afternoon Emmanuel took me to visit the local school, which Volcanoes Safaris supports.  I visited two classes, one very young, around 5 years old, and the other were 15 year-olds, where we had an interesting question and answer session!   By the end of the day I had walked almost 11 miles!

On Thursday 27^th April, I set off back to Kigali with my driver, had a very good and swift journey and was back in my hotel at lunchtime.  As I was exhausted after all my excursions in the Virungas, I had a good soak in my bath and some dinner in my room.  I spent my last day in Rwanda visiting my colleagues in Volcanoes Safaris and taking it easy in the hotel.

On Saturday I set off for Tanzania.  There was a delay at the airport as the Ethiopian Prime Minister decided to leave at the same time as us, but I eventually arrived at Dar es Salaam airport just 30 minutes late.  Sadly the agent had badly screwed up – I was not met and I had to take a taxi to the Hyatt.  We had an horrendous journey but the taxi driver was amazing and we eventually got to the hotel about two hours after landing.  The travel agent had let me down badly, but the hotel made up for it immediately.  The General Manager was there to meet me and he had allocated me the most amazing suite with a balcony.  After settling in, I had a quiet evening and caught up with myself!

On my first day in Dar the sun came out in the morning so went to the pool and in the afternoon a lovely chap from the agency who ‘screwed up’ my arrival took me on a free tour of Dar, which was great. On my second day I joined the GM and his wife and son for dinner, which was a treat! Sadly the rain tipped down all of that week.  I usually managed an hour or two by the pool in between the rain showers, but usually in the cloud so hardly any sunshine at all.

On Saturday 6^th May I set off for the Serengeti – it was a long day.  I left the hotel at 7am, then had a flight from Dar to Zanzibar to Tanga to Arusha.  Then changed planes and flew to Lake Manyara, Sasakwa and then to Seronera where I was met by my guide, Kimambo, who served me with a picnic lunch fit for a queen at the airport!  After that it was a long drive to the Lodge, but we stopped numerous times to see giraffe, hippos, topi, elephants, wildebeest, zebra, impala, warthogs, waterbuck, and finally a beautiful cheetah!  I then settled into the Lodge, and met up with my friend Oli for the evening.

On Sunday I had an amazing day on safari for nine hours!  We saw so much, wildebeest in their thousands, at least 6 lions, giraffe, elephants, buffalo, zebras, topi, impala to mention but a few but we also saw a leopard in the distance through binoculars!  There were also a few eagles around too!  The picnic was a little over the top, especially as I don’t eat very much and particularly at lunchtime, but Kimambo was an amazing guide and I had a fantastic day!   It all finished off with a delicious dinner with Oli.

Monday was another fantastic day on safari – spotting lions and their cubs, two cheetah, a leopard in the distance, and many other animals in a long morning.  It was back to the hotel for lunch and then we went to the hippo pool in the afternoon – a rather smelly and loud place!

Tuesday was another very long day on safari.  Soon after setting off we spotted a leopard [a little far off], lions [up on rocks also a little far off] and then we drove off into the middle of the Serengeti.  We saw so much – millions of wildebeest, thousands of zebra, goodness knows how many lions and especially a mating couple!  It was another fantastic day on safari, finishing up with a swim in the Lodge pool and a short lie in the evening sunshine.  Then I had dinner with Oli sitting outside under the stars!  It was all an outstanding experience.  The only down point was that I got eaten alive my mosquitoes that day!

Wednesday was a day of travel – 9am out of the Lodge, 11am on a small plane to Arusha, then another small plane to Zanzibar and on to Dar [a very long flight in a very small plane], and then a very long road journey [thanks to traffic] to the Hyatt in Dar.  President Zuma from South Africa was in residence, so I was lucky to get a room [probably thanks to my friendship with the GM] and the place was swarming with security!

My time in Dar was again very wet, so was good for catching up on the computer and rearranging my packing after my Serengeti visit when I only took one small bag.  On the Friday afternoon I set off on the dreadful road to the airport for my evening flight to Bahrain.

I was glad to get through Dar’s dreadful airport and on my way to Doha/Bahrain.   My stopover in Doha was very easy spent in a very posh lounge!  I arrived in Bahrain at 3am and was in my hotel by 4am!  First they gave me a room without a bath, then a room with a wall for a view.  So next morning I managed to change to a room with a bath and a view of the Twin Towers.  Spent the day by the pool and came back later that evening to a bottle of fizz in my room from Reception, presumably for screwing up my room!!!  The following morning I took a tour of Manama by car just to take photos and not for stopping anywhere except for the Fort, and came back to spend the rest of the day by the pool.  My last day was spent soaking up the sunshine before heading off to the airport for a 1am flight to London.

A fantastic holiday, except for a very wet Dar and too many mosquitoes!