Safari Time!

Heellooooo everybody!

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions, they are really appreciated and I miss everyone at home!!

So after a hectic first week of getting our footing we decided to head to Mikumi National Park with BushRoutes for a two day Safari.  50 feet after passing the "Welcome to Mikumi National Park" sign were baboons all over the road.  Contrary to the lion king, they do not have blue butts, but red ones! Hahaha...

So we picked up some lunch, some kuku and chipsi (chicken and french fries) for the drive and headed off for our first game drive!!

In total we saw giraffes (twiga), elephants (tembo), simba (lions), warthogs, impala (antelope - swala), zebras, water buffalo, wildebeest, hippopotamuses, lots and lots of colourful birds (bright bright red ones that we couldn't catch on camera, beautiful!), so everything but cheetahs which are nocturnal, and rhinos which aren't in Mikumi.  It was so cool!!

At first when we saw Simba he was sleeping in the grass with a lioness.  They were really hard to see so we decided to go eat our lunch.  We stopped at an eating spot with a massive baobab tree, which Jenn and I decided to climb - it was so cool!  Just as we finished eating 7 tour buses and a bunch of jeeps pulled in to eat... we got out of there and drove back to the simbas!

Our jeep was a land cruiser that had a pop-off roof.  That way we stood inside the jeep and had our upper half out of the vehicle so we could take pictures and have a better view - a lot of the time we sat on the back of the roof. 

The king and queen of the jungle woke up when we got back and started walking out of the long grass right in front of us! The whole time they were 15ft away from our jeep - it was so cool!  They looked so cuddly I wanted to go make rafikis(friends) with them, but Roman our tour guide wouldn't let me.  The male lion decided it was mating time (which would have been kinda cool to see in the wild! Discovery channel in person!) but mama lion didn't think so - rejected!

Mikumi is gorgeous.  The baobab trees are one of many different types which are clustered around and in random spots.  In the background as far as you can see for 360 degrees are mountains. You can tell the different distances from the type of blue they are - in some spots there were 4 to 5 different 'layers' of mountain.  Just driving around taking in the landscape was enough, the animals were all just bonus.

Saturday night we stayed at the bush camp - felt like camping back in Ontario!  We had a delicious cook, for dinner we had fresh homemade tomato soup, chipsi (again), veggie stew and pineapple, ndizi (banana), papaya and orange for dessert!  The orange peels are green here so when you go to pick some up you get fooled into thinking they are large limes!  We had a campfire and hung out with the guard that night.

Sunday morning we had breaky - delicious again, fruit and omeletteish things with coffee (Africafe - yum!).  It was drizzly and the coldest day yet when we headed out for our last game drive.  Although we did not see anything new, we did get a better view of the elephants on two occasions.  First was when they decided to cross the road on our game drive, they passed right in front of us!  About six of them and a little mtoto tembo (baby elephant).  The second time was even cooler - we were leaving for lunch and on the main road that runs through Mikumi when there were tembos on both sides of the road!  Right up close, so close that I could have touched them.  They are GORGEOUS!  We got a little too close to one though and she/he let us know with a little trumpet, oops. 

So that sums up our Safari adventure!  Last night for supper Mama Mwendy made pilau.  Pilau is rice with nyama (beef), spices, and some veggies in it.  It was yummy! (tum tum tum). 

Today we are doing a lot of program planning and then we have our HBC computer/english class tonight!!
Tomorrow morning Jenn and I are presenting an STI seminar to the rural PLWA group. Then just normal programming for the rest of the week!  Fun fun.  It is a little rainy today, which is the worst it has been in Morogoro since we got here - also today we have been here for two weeks! Already! Time is flying.

This weekend there won't be any adventures outside of Morogoro, but we have a 'play day' with kids from 1-20ish who are HIV+.  That goes from 9-12 and after we take the youth 12 and up to Stone Garden for some swimming and chilling - I'm excited, but it is going to be emotionally hard.  Will keep everyone posted!

Hope Canada is sunny and bright and warm.

Love Love Love

Jamie