Meserani Snake Park

Last weekend Nicole and I spent a couple of hours at the Meserani Snake Park, just outside of Arusha. Lori and Lita had a taxi driver, Edward, who they really liked and seeing as they were gone on safari that day, we thought we would ask him to take us. He was a very nice guy, but it was a very frightening experience being in the taxi with him. He had no qualms about zipping through traffic and squeezing through gaps that left not even a centimetre on either side of the car. Nicole and I were constantly leaning in towards the centre of the car – as if that would stop us from crashing into anything! In some ways I found it a more frightening experience than the dala dala, although I frequently think I am going to die when using that form of public transportation.

It was almost an hour to the snake park and we were very glad to get there safely, to say the least. It was purely by luck that we even found the place as Nicole and I only had a vague idea of where it was and Edward had never been there before.

When we went in, I asked if Edward planned on staying or whether we should ring him when we wanted to go home. To our surprise he wanted to stay and see the snake park with us! That was fine, except that he constantly pretended that he was going to throw us into the crocodile enclosure and he disregarded the signs that said “Do NOT tap on the glass”, which agitated the snakes which then made them even more scary to Nicole and I.

Nicole didn't want to get too close to the snake, even if it was on the other side of the glass!

The snakes were terrifying – black mambas and cobras and pythons. One of the pythons was so huge that in its middle, it was wider around than I am – I wondered what it had eaten. There was also a few other animals there – reptiles like huge lizards and crocodiles and tortoises. They had aviaries with vultures and other equally menacing looking birds and they also had one lone yellow baboon who had been confiscated from poachers, but could not be re-introduced into the wild as baboons will not allow an unfamiliar baboon to enter their troop.

If you know me then you might wonder why I wanted to go to a snake and reptile park, considering my great distaste for those creatures. The truth was that Nicole had heard that at the park you could have a ride on a camel and ever since then she had been dying to go. We went for the camels – the reptiles were just a bonus!

While we were looking at the snakes, a young man came across and told us it was time to take a tour of the Maasai museum which was next door. We assumed he worked at the park and followed him inside, only to be stopped by a shouting man telling us we needed a tour guide to go in there. Turned out the young man didn’t work in the park at all! During the tour they told us about the Maasai culture which I found very interesting as I have heard a lot about the Maasai people since I have been here, yet I knew very little about them. The most interesting thing I thought was that the people wear different colours depending on their age and stage of life. Children wear one colour, unmarried women another, those married without children wear a different colour to those married with children and then grandmothers wear an entirely different colour. It was the same with the men.

After the tour we were taken to a mock village where the huts were little souvenir shops with the local Maasai women selling their crafts. We didn’t buy anything though as we can get all the same things at the market here in Arusha. 

As we left the village, we saw what we had been waiting for the whole day… camels!

There were a lot of school children there on a day trip and we watched a few of them take rides on the camel, before it was our turn. It looked quite frightening – I never realised just how tall a camel is before and the camel rocks back and forth quite alarmingly as it stands up and lays down. Nicole and I had a ride together which was lots of fun, even if she did a lot of screaming when the camel lay down! Even Edward had a ride and afterwards Nicole and I thought that it was such a lot of fun that we would have a second ride.

There was a good view from up there and it seemed like it would be quite a comfortable way to travel.

The scariest part was when the camel got up and down - it felt like you would fall off at any minute.

This picture is my favourite - the only word I have to describe the look on the camel's face is diabolical!

On the way back from the snake park we had Edward drop us at a local restaurant which is only a fifteen minute walk from the volunteer house. Nicole and I had both previously gotten sick from eating at this place, but we thought we would give it another go. Bad choice, but that's a story for another blog! Apart from that though it was a very fun day and both of us would go back and have another camel ride anytime!

xoxo,

-Hannah