Tarangire Park (August 16)

We met our guides at breakfast this morning, and after some introductions and orientation we left the Moivaro Coffee Plantation (the lodge) and drove about an hour before stopping at a roadside trinket shop. The items here cost about twice what we would have expected western prices to be.

After another hour or so of driving, we entered Tarangire National Park and arrived at our home for the next two nights, Tarangire Safari Lodge.

Along the way we saw our first Zebra, Wildebeest, Elephant, Impala, and an Ostrich. We ate lunch and had some time to unpack our bags and get a feel for the place. The lodge sat on the rim of the river canyon, overlooking a small plain and part of the river across which elephants, wildebeest, and troupes of baboons constantly wandered. This was one of our "tent" lodges, and apparently Africa has a different definition of tent than we are used to -- a semi-permanent wood structure with canvas walls, real furniture, and a concrete bathroom enclosure.

Around 4:00 we left for our first game drive. We saw some new animals this afternoon: cheetah, lion, vulture, marabou stork, dik-dik, hyrex, and waterbuck (a type of antelope with a marking on the back that looks like a toilet seat). We also saw our first troupe of baboons, compelte with grooming adults, playful youth, and even some discovery channel, if you know what I mean. We saw a zebra carcass being cleaned by vultures and marabou storks (recently killed by a lioness), and soon found the pride of lions sleeping off their meal. The lion wasn't around, but the lionesses and cubs were fun to watch.

We were so amazed to have seen more animals in the first two hours of game drive than we expected to see during the whole trip. I guess we are accustomed to the sparse populations of deer in Washington, that we didn't understand that all of the parks would be teeming with so much wildlife. We were just blown away that we didn't have to drive hours to find baboons or ostrich or hyenas -- they walked right through the 'camp' at all hours!

We had a nice dinner at the lodge, shared pictures, and got to know our tour-mates a little better. We were with a really great group of people, everyone got along well enough to talk and laugh and tell stories. We finally headed for our tents around 10:30 to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's drives.

Arrival in Africa (August 15)

We arrived in Arusha, Tanzania at about 7:45 tonight after the long but bearable KLM flight. Thanks Joel for checking us in with your gold flyer card! We met most of the other tour group members on the tarmac, and we all seemed to get along from the start. Some didn't have visas yet, so the arrival coordinator expedited the process for them, and they were actually through immigration faster than those of us who obtained visas ahead of time!

Our drive to the lodge took about 45 minutes, during which one of our guides, Donald, gave us a quick overview of the structure of Tanzania's people. There are 40 million people, and 126 tribes in 4 groups (of which the Maasai, the predominant tribe in the areas we visited, is #2 by population). We arrived at the lodge by 10:00, had a welcome drink, and crashed.

Friday - August 14 - Amsterdam Part II - A Toast to Mom and Dad

We started off the day by enjoying a delicious latte and panini. That's right, we had a panini for breakfast, turns out that so many people party so late here that we couldn't actually find a place for breakfast, so we had lunch food at breakfast time instead and then headed to the Rijksmuseum and enjoyed the beautiful Dutch art. The Netherlands had a golden era while having the Dutch East India Trading Company and the Dutch West India Trading Company, bringing prosperity, and spices to the Dutch people.

After the museum we went back to our Wok spot for lunch and then went and ran some errands that we needed to wrap up before heading to Tanzania tomorrow. Sean's parents saved our bacons with regards to Expedia, and so we toasted to the West at our pre-canal cruise pub stop. THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!

We enjoyed a long canal cruise learning more about the history of the city and canals. We've enjoyed our time in Amsterdam and are looking forward to our dinner reservations tonight at the "Blue Dutchman".

We don't expect to have internet while in Africa, so we will plan on joining you all again in about two weeks! Prost!

August 13 - Amsterdam

Today we began by doing errands, and doing all our laundry in the bath tub (an adventure in itself). We joined Joel for lunch at a Wok restaurant and wandered through the many canal-side streets until we found the cutest little Dutch pub that has ever existed. The bar-tender was characteristically Dutch, tall and very friendly. She even liked, and was playing Johnny cash, so we knew we had to stop. After a beer we headed to the red light district to see what all the hype was about. Margaret was particularly surprised at how not-pretty many of the women were, and as Sean pointed out, if they were prettier they probably wouldn't be dancing in windows in their underwear. We rounded out the afternoon with a much enjoyed scoop of ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's by our hotel.

We wandered all through the city, past Anne Franke's house, and on towards an Indonesian restaurant for dinner. Margaret and Joel had never had Indonesian food before, and Sean was excited to try it again, we were not dissapointed.

After dinner we went back to the cutest little Dutch pub ever and had a pint while listening to the evening live music.

August 12 - Lindemann's and Choco-Crawl

After a short metro ride we found ourselves at Lindemann's brewery. Sean's Aunt Julie had arranged a tour of the brewery for us at this small family run institution. Two cousins are currently running the brewery, the seventh generation of Lindemann's to be there. We were greeted by one of the cousins, and then shown around the brewery with a guide. Lindeman's is a "Lambic" beer which means that the fermentation is done by yeast which just lives in the air, naturally. In most beer the yeast is added separately so that the specializations of the beer can be better controlled. Lindeman's only makes their lambic beer during the winter, when only a few different types of wild yeast are active. Lambic beer is naturally very sour, so they typically add fruit juice to it. Joel argues that according to German purity laws this makes it 'not beer', but Margaret likes it anyway and doesn't care if it's really beer or not =). Their most popular flavor is cherry, followed by raspberry. Margaret bought a cookbook and is looking forward to going to Red House and picking up this beer for some tasty dinner time treats.

We took the metro back into the city and had lunch at a small natural food store (with wi-fi). Then something beautiful happened (suggested by rick steves) which we will call a choco-crawl. Basically it's the same idea as a pub crawl, but you do it with chocolate truffles instead. Four chocolatiers later we were convinced that we couldn't possibly eat any more truffles, headed back to our hotel, collected our bags, and headed to the train station for our three hour journey to Amsterdam.

August 11 - Magical Orval

Today was absolutely magical. We woke up early and took three different trains and finally arrived in the small village of Florenville in Belgium. We waited for the bus to come and take us to Orval...and waited, and waited... until a troop of boy scouts came by who could actually read the schedule. They told us that there were no buses to Orval on Tuesdays...so we walked 2km in the rain to downtown Florenville where we hired a taxi for the remaining 8km. The rain was a lovely Seattle like rain, and it felt just like a big cozy Northwest blanket, the kind that just makes you long for a cup of Ivars clam chowder....yummm....Ivar's clam chowder...well, back to Orval. We arrived an hour late, but lucky for us so did the preceding tour group of Belgians.

Francois finished up his tour in French, and then took us on a lovely tour of the brewery. Because of other tours we have been on, Sean learning from Lance about brewing, and Joel being a home brewer himself, Francois didn't spend much time explaining the brewing process and instead dove into the beautiful and rich history of the region, monastery, and brewery. After the tour Francois shared a lovely lunch with us at the monastery's tourist pub. Most items on the menu were made with Orval cheese, bread, or beer. We toured the beautiful ruins (the French DESTROYED this beautiful place, and hundreds of years later it was rebuilt), and then Francois personally drove us back to the train station. We ate dinner back in Brussels, and then hit the sack.

August 10 - Low Key Day

Today we wrapped up all the little things that we wanted to make sure to do in Brugge before heading to the big city. We posted a box of souvenirs home and visited a small quaint chocolate shop called Dumon. Ladies and Gentleman, let me just state that this is truly the next to the best chocolate truffles I have EVER had. The best would be made by Wicked Chocolates in Seattle (www.wickedchocolates.com I think is the website). This chocolate is SO good, that it makes Godiva look like the ugly red headed step child with braces. The shop keeper is the daugher of the woman who stgarted the shop, and sister to the current chocolatier. She was so excited to talk with us about the history of their company, how much they care about chocolate, how they are able to grow, what each of the chocolates were, etc. We bought a small mixed box, and as we left we noticed the personaly signed Christmas card from Rick Steves and his family on the cupboard. After chocolate we ate fries with tarter sauce and ketchup in the town square, and went for a walk to see the town's remaining windmills. After a light lunch of tapas and beer (beer, chocolate and cheese all before noon!) we caught the train to Brussels.