13 july.... The Safari ends.

We had breakfast and went out to meet Charles so he could drive us back to Dar. Charles was out there... The lads tossed our bags (Light according to Charles) into the LandCruiser and then Charles states he needs breakfast (we were early). So we sent him off to eat and we went over to the office and chatted with Conraed, the Dutc SouthAfrican camp host. So Charles finished his mornnig meal and we jumped into the LandCruiser for our trek back to Dar. Of course Charles was on Lion Alert all the way. He got us to Movenpick hotel... checked us in... and bid us goodbye til the AM.
Mum and I checked in, checked email on the hotel wireless on my lappie.. .and then decided to go down for a swim in the infinity pool. We swam until I got too hot.. so we headed up to the room, Mum stopped at the coffee kiosk and I went up.... in the hallway i found Shane and Sue from Saadani... we were all like "huh?" Weird.. they were in the room NEXT to ours!!
Mum came on up.. and met up with them too. She chatted and agreed to dinner together.

So we all freshened up and grabbed a cab to Sea Cliff resort for dinner. We had dinner at a nice afresco restaurant. i had thai curry. Sue had a Cosmo and I had a margaria. mmmmmmm.
We all drooled at the gift shop window after dinner and agreed to come back in the AM for shopping.


14th July.

met up with Shane and Sue again after breaky. I had made a dash out to the Mini Mart up the road for tanzanaian Tea. It was easy to get there.. but oh my gosh... to get back across the road to the MovenPick was hell! I had to dash between cars to get across road. This is NOT California.. they do NOT stop for Peds. But I got home with the tea.

As I got back to the room... Shane and Sue were knocking on our door. We took a cab back to Sea Cliff..... but on the way, cab had a flat... so we got to watch the men change the tyre. I love cabs in Africa, cos you pay em 10K shilling and they will wait for you for hours!!!!
We got back to Movenpick.. had lunch at the hotel and then I packed to get my butt to Dar Airport. I as told I would be picked up at 2 pm. At 1:30 they called saying the ride was there... and he had been there for half an hour trying to get to hotel to find what room I was in and who I was!!! The ride to the airport sucked... traffic worse than LA. My driver finally got me there... helped me with my luggage and I tipped him well. I checked in to my Air India flight to Bombay.... ugh....
Well guess what.. flight is late...

to make a long story short... flight kept getting delayed... and 3 hours later.. we were told that flight would never happen. Now they had 40 plus pissed off Indians hollaring. I was the lucking sod.... I had a connection in London. So they put me on KLM flight to Amsterdam to London so I could catch my AA flght to LAX.
I was STOKED!! I didn't have to fly to Bombay. But what sucked is that I couldn't get a call to Mum at Movenpick because my phone was on Zantel... and Zantel lets calls through when it feels arsed to. Did get a text out to Kit. That was good.
After I had my KLM boarding pass in paws... I went through customs.. AGAIN. (never did have to pay that 8 dollar exit fee.....) I bought a few more items in the airport shops.... to use up those shillings.... then headed to the cafeteria and grabbed a Beer!! I needed it! I was sooooo stressing about getting home. I was actually happy to not have to fly via Air India into Bombay. To get re-routed via KLM airlines was a Dogsend. Woo hoo.
I got on the plane at 2330.. settled in and went to sleep and woke up in Amsterdam where I spent a few hours waiting for flight to london...... nothing like leaving Amsterdam at 11 and arriving in London at 11. Had a few hours in London.... had to go through custons to get my butt to American Airlines. I got on the undergound.. got to terminal 3 and checked in... and entered the departure terminal where I bought out the place in Cadbury chocolate!! MMMMMMM

12 July .... Village tour

at first we were like.. village tour... no way... but it was actually a really cool tour even if we did'nt meet up with Charles......................... I still think he never did the walk! The kids were cool... and Shane and Sue walked with us. Cool couple. and they loved Mum too. It was a walking tour. Charles said that he would walk the road and meet us at the village.... stated that he did not walk on the beach... Mmmm another Maasai tradition?? (Really, I love the Maasai culture.) We got to the village and were immediately found by the children.

We got back to Saadani on foot... Mum went off to jump in the ocean, while I grabbed my lappie and went up to the office to jump on the wireless to check email. (Knowledge gained thanks to Shane.) After that... lunch. Shane and Sue were headed back to Dar that afternoon. So we bid adiau and carried on.

I loved meals here best... great food and great chats with the staff.

10 and 11 of July

We wake up this AM for a game drive. The animals here are not as numerous as at the other parks.. but Saadani is a new park... saved from poachers. The animals are making a comeback slowly. We did a drive unitl about noon and came back to the lodge for lunch.....oh what a treat!! We have never had lunch at the lodges before (in the last two trips) and this lunch was enough to make Emeril salivate. Fresh bbq'd prawns.. HUGE prawns. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Love how they always provide fresh fruit for afters.
The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming in the Indian Ocean.... ok so it was wading... cos on this day the water never got deeper than thigh deep. I attempted to snorkel but all I saw was sand swirling in front of my mask. After dipping in the salty ocean we showered off and jumped into the pool OOOOOh nice! did a few laps and went back to banda to lounge in the sun and drink tea. Awwww the life.
Dinner that night was on the veranda... but before dinner we went out to the "treehouse" to check out animals comeing at dusk to drink at the watering hole... all we saw were a few bats and some bugs... Grrr. So we went off to the open air bar for pre dinner drinks and supper.

11 July
today was the river safari. this was the day that we met up with Sue and Shane (Aussie and Kiwi). we took a boat trip up the Wamu river. We saw crocs, birds and hippos. It was really nice going up the river rather than in a landcruiser.

We were back at the lodge for lunch again.... fish and shrimp kebabs. MMMMM.
Spent the afternnon reading until about 3pm when Charles took us out for an afternoon drive.
We got back in time to shower and get ready for dinner. Yet anothe delicous supper afresco.

10 july still.....

Here are just pics of our game drive on 10 July.

Saadini... travel to on July 9

We left Mikumi early on the 9th of july. the drive to Saadani included passing out pens to the local kids..
We got to Saadani... and relaxed on the beach.. I ran to the ocean.... and checked the water. We relaxed a bit the first few hours, showered, read our books and headed for dinner at 700. Dinner that night, after drinks on the open air bar/lanai was afresco next to the pool. They had the pool lights on and candles all around. Beautiful. And the food was delicous! We had soup for starters and chicken for main dish. We were pretty knackered, so we buggered out early and back to the banda for sleepy time.

8 July- walking tour of Mikumi/ Udzungwa Mtns.

and this AM w e head out to hike the Udzungwa mtns. Mum wasnt feeling well so I took of in the landbruiser with Charles and Sapphire. We got to the Sanje reserve and charles hired a guide to takee me up on some long ass hike.... WRONG. No loos... no long hike.. I have been drinking water like a fish.... I ain't going on no 4 hour hjke!! I subjected the guide to an hour.. .tjhat's it.

We got back to Vuma Hills post lunch. Mum is feeling better and has had lunch; so Charles and I have tea with her. The bartender checked out Charles.. but he could go piss off.... we were having tea with OUR guide. supper that night was another tasty affair... but soup agian for starters.
I definately know that Foxes Safari makes the menus for all camps at a central location in either Capetown or London.

7 July 08

This AM we got up and had breaky and did an all day game drive. We started off by seeing a dead male lion with his ladies still roaming about. the drive found us many giraffe, wildebeat and jackal
Charles was excellent at finding Lion tracks.... but we didnt find lion. but he found us some cool crocs, ellis, hippos, giraffe and impala and zebra.

6 July 08 Drive to Mikumi

Ok... so I took a few pics from the LandBruiser!! So kill me.
We passed out pens to the local schoolkids. Charles was a great judge on who was in school and could benefit from a pen. (Kids in Africa need to provide their OWN pens for school. (next time you school supply shop for your kidlets.. tell em this)
It was a hell long drive and by 4pm we were at Vuma Hills Tented Lodge. It was an ok lodge... loved the hosts Vicki and Adam. They were from Portsmith, England.... and she chuckled that I told her she was from a shire named for me....Devonshire.
It wasn't the best lodge, and a tad too cold to imbide in the pool and Mum was feeling lll on the day of the hike in the Udzungwa Mountains. We had to drive up into the mountains.. prolly 2K up. I mailed post cards from Kidatu. I wondered if the postcards would actually get mailed.. but they did!!!!! So i cannot lose faith in African Postal System YET.

The hike was steep and hot and sticky.... Silly Charles expected me to do a 4 hour hike with out a loo stop...........WRONG. I told him... 5K max!! And the hike was STEEP! oh my gosh. We saw blue monkeys in the trees.. but they were too fast for me to get my camera of my pack. So I just took in the sights with my eyes. We drove on back to Mikumi... and met up with a recovered Mum who had just had lunch.... so Chas and I had tea with her in the dining tent. Chas seemed quit happy... but the bartender kept flashing him looks... he drank on and chatted with an hour or more.

Dinner was the usual affair.... soup for starters after drinks on the Lanai. I had a pint of Kili lager... and mum had a Ginger beer....of which I have had a couple.... They have much better ginger beer in Africa.

We got to check out the Civit before supper... love those Civits.... African Raccoons.

5 July. Early morning game drive in Ruaha.

Morning of July 5. We survived the elephants at dusk the night before (what a way to celebrate American Independence eh?) We get up at 0600 and meet Charles and Safir (Sapphire as I call him) at 0630..... Sans coffee or tea! The sun was rising as we set out in our private LandCruiser (bruiser)... and not an animal to be seen. The sunrise was gorgeous as I always love watching the sun rise in the AM. (Must be why I am a night person!!!!) finally as the sun rose we started seeing a few elephants and giraffes.... always love to see these two majestic creatures.
We drove around Ruaha game reserve til 0830 and then were deposited back at camp for breakie. No elephant visitors at breakie, but after we got back to the banda, and read, wrote and showered... we decided to trek up to the office for postcards and stamps. We bought out the desk of their stamps, and headed back down to camp.... well, we tried... as we found an elephant ahead of us chewing on a wicker laundry basket. One of the Maasai men showed us the goat trail back down the hill to camp... and we made it with being mauled by Tembo.

Lunch was at the camp..... no elephants joined us. We went out on an afternoon drive with Charles and Safir. We were starting to get a tad disappointed until we found the elephants and the lions. We found the lions stranded on a sandbar in the river..... .as they were chased there by a group of elli's.

We got back to camp in time to freshen up for supper. This time we waited for our Maasai guard to escort us. We walked a few bandas (tents) on and heard a Dutch couple hollaring for us... apparently they had no torch (flashlight) and their power never went on in their banda.... so they were glad to be escorted to supper. Mum and I were not too impressed with Foxes Safari Lodges (a chain) as they don't treat the safari drivers as well as they do in the north. We got to the dining hall, and found that supper was on the "beach" of the river. Dinner was good... well, passable. we forewent the afters and headed back to the banda as we had to get up early in AM to head on to Mikumi.

4 July.... American Independence Day

Fourth of July.... for us. it is Game Drive day!!! Breakfast then game drive.... We found the lions.
We found a lion status po Crocidile meal. The vultures were ready to dive in as were the jackals.
Now, I don't mean to be rude, but we came across of pride of lion sharing a bit of lunch de Ruaha.... You had to use binos to see... and as we were all quietly sat along side the trail... along comes a minivan full of Indians. The kids immediatly jumped out and started yelling "lion!" at the promt of the adults yelling "Lion" We kindly asked them to be more silent.. and their comment was "they can't hear us". Oh.. so they tested a Lion's hearing...ok... so I will take pics of the lions eating Indian kid for lunch. As they left, there was a trail of empty bottles and trash. oh come on!!!
That night back at camp, we decided to walk to the dining hall before dark so we wouldn't have to wait for the Maasii "guard". As we were walking, I stopped and said... "is that an Elephant?" Mum, shocked, says "THATS AN ELEPHANT!!" We stood there than I said, follow me! I dashed around a banda to get to our via the river... Mum wouldn't follow... silly mum.
Then this Scottish family walked towards us.. my idea was for us all to walk in the same direction. away from the elephant.. but NO!! Mum has to get to the dining hall.

So the Scot Dad walks us part way there. and from there... i had a beer!!!!