Traveling

Oct. 2, 2026

The picture above is Mt. Meru, second highest in Tanzania at 14,900ft, 500 ft above Mt. Rainier. Rainier looks bigger….it isn’t.

Today we left Simba Farm House where we stayed the past 2 nights. It is a 4000 acre working farm. We got up to eat breakfast and be ready to leave promptly at 8. We bid adeau to our room and the fully stocked pantry.

Frank is our driver and guide for the next 5 days. We drove 4 hours to the village of Mto Wa Mbu, a home to 120 African tribes. We met Peter our “walking through town guide” to take us on a walk through the town, to visit a member from a tribe, to see the local market, and then to take a short hike in Manyara National Park.

We stopped to visit the banana grove and saw the rice fields. We were able to meet George who is from Mozambique (or his family is). They came during civil unrest 50 years ago and haven’t left. They now carve animals, people, toys and games out of many kinds of wood. This is how they make their living.

We continued walking to meet a painter and got to see local artists work. Afterwards, we continued to the market. It is every day as this village does not have a supermarket. You can buy anything here from fruits and vegetables to meats (no pork, because of the Muslims) and even pots and pans, utensils and brooms.

The children kept following us and saying “Jambo Jambo, pipi”. We found out that they were following us for candy.

After the market, Peter called a friend in his tuk tuk and he came to pick us up. We rode out to the park and hiked up a ways through the forest.

It was very lush and green and water running through it. We stopped at an overlook, but it was very dilapadated perhaps because of the monkeys there. We sat down to eat our lovely box lunch but would hear thuds and banging. It was just the monkey on the metal roof.

After lunch we walked back down the hill to meet our tuk tuk driver. He brought us back to Frank and we drove off to Ngorongoro to our next lodging for 2 nights.

We stayed at Ngorongoro Farm House, which is not a house but many little cottages and a 500 acre working coffee farm. It is so beautiful and even has a pool. We were greeted with cool washclothes and juice and then someone carried out bags in a wheelbarrow to our room. Our room is lovely and big. The bed is either 2 double beds together or 2 queens. We joked that we need our phones to talk to each other.

We have a lovely veranda looking over grazing cows and there are many maribou storks just hanging out.

Food is included in this lodge (as it was at Simba Farm) and it was lovely. So many choices. I told our waitress I am gluten free and suddenly all the servers and chefs knew. They took very good care of me.

…this is just a tiny subset of the pictures we have taken, less than 5%. Once we have a big screen, and good connectivity we will be back with some “best of” summaries. Enjoy the work in progress.