Monday, Oct. 9, 2017
We got up early to go out on a 6:30 am safari drive. This time we saw hippos, crocodiles, impalas, zebras, lions and lion cubs. I got the shot of the day-2 lion cubs looking right at me, hidden in the bushes. There were right next to the road and you would never know they were there, unless you were a guide in the park. Thank goodness for our guide, Amani (which means "peace" in Swahili).
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| Lion cubs and their mother |
We came back to our bandas and Edward and Deb were bubbling with excitement. Edward had gotten an email that a photo of our Maasai girls at their graduation in their full gowns made it onto the front page of the newspaper most read by the government people. It wasn't a picture of the RC or DC - it was of the girls performing They were ecstatic because now everyone will take notice of these girls (and the girls who have gone missing)! We had a celebratory breakfast.
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The girls' photo on the newspaper
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We decided not to stay at Mikumi another night since we weren't too happy with our bandas. We had already paid for the second night, so we could only get half of that money back. We had also paid for a second day in the park, so we weren't in a big hurry to leave. Asia and Edward thought we should go to Udzungwa Falls. They told us it was a beautiful waterfall and had black monkeys to see. They also wanted us to go to the Ruaha Game Park (3 hours back the way we came and 3 hours more.) After many phone calls to make sure we would have a place to stay that night and the next, we packed up all our stuff in the Rovers. We drove around the park for a couple more hours and saw a lot more animals. We stopped at one point by a huge baobab tree that everyone but me climbed up inside. Somebody had to take the picture!
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| Inside the baobab tree |
We had lunch at a different restaurant in Mikumi park. This was a much nicer restaurant. Deb1 thought that maybe we were mistakenly booked in the wrong bandas. There were some other nicer looking ones near the restaurant. We sat at a massive table over-looking the park and a watering hole. As we ate, animals would walk by on their way to the water. The table had some very heavy sculpted animals on top of it. This place had a gift shop so we all bought some souvenirs. Asia bought us each an African scarf or shawl. Since 3 of them (including mine) were not so pretty, she told Edward to buy 3 more when we got to Dar (and 3 more plain ones so we'd all have 2). I gave Asia and Miriam each one of my SD scarves (not near as pretty as the African ones, but at least it was a little something.) The restaurant ran out of beer while we were there (just like the bar last night). Guess we must be heavy drinkers compared to the usual guests.
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| The table at the restaurant |
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| Miriam (the security guard) and Asia (the DC) with my scarves |
We then drove by the lion spot one more time on our way out of the park. The male and female were out more in the open. Got some more great shots. Then we started on our way to Udzungwa Falls. Along the way we stopped in a town. Edward came up to each our vehicles like a carhop, introduced himself and said that DC had ordered him to take our orders for beer to drink on the way. We all wondered if that was legal, but our driver told us as long as he wasn't drinking them we were ok. Anyway, we had the DC leading the way and buying them for us. Who would stop us? I got one Kilimanjaro to take home to Bob. We also stopped to buy newspapers with our girls' picture in it. Edward even found an English language one.
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| Can you see both lions? |
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| Asia at our "beer stop", probably on the phone pulling strings for us. |
More driving up and down, through the mountains to a whole new climate with sugarcane plantations, palm trees and steamy humidity. The last stretch of road was even worse than the road to the school but thankfully not as long. The Udzungwa Falls Lodge is very deluxe. They greeted us with cold wash clothes and a watermelon drink. It's built into the mountain side so it was up hill to our room. I hauled my suitcase halfway up myself because the path got too narrow for the little gal pulling both Deb's and mine. Ugh! Then we were told to go down and pay so we walked all the way down to the desk only to be told we needed to pay in US dollars. Back up to the room again to get our money and then paid the $120 for the night. The room was gorgeous, huge, and deliciously cold! The bathroom was beautiful and so modern compared to the night before.
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| Our bedroom at Udzungwa Falls Lodge |
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| Deluxe bathroom! |
We then found the dining room and they had a big round table for 10 all set up for us. It looked out over the rain forest, but we couldn't see much in the dark. Deb2 and I ordered a bottle of wine because we thought it was one of the smaller sized ones we had been getting at other places for 15,000 schillings (about $7.50). Turned out it was a full bottle and 55,000. So I drank a lot of it. Meanwhile everyone else showed up and had taken showers. We felt grungy and they were all clean and refreshed. Especially Asia and Miriam who were all dressed up. That night I had the best meal I had in Africa yet - creamy vegetable soup, tomato and cucumber salad, spaghetti, and carrot cake (a little dry, but good). Came back to our deluxe room and they had turned down our bed and put our mosquito netting down, too. We plugged everything in to recharge, showered and crashed!
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| Table for 10 in the rain forest |
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