3/10/07 Back to Arusha

We awoke this morning to the sounds of rain. Apparently it had rained quite hard during the night. So after our buffet breakfast we loaded up our Toyota Land cruiser for the trip back to Arusha. Eustace had already put the vehicle in 4WD. The "road" which had been rough, rutted, and dusty was now slippery mud. One of the first drivers to leave this morning was apparently inexperienced in this type of conditions and got stuck within several miles of the lodge. A long line of cars quickly formed behind him. There was no alternative route due to the washed out bridges. After 20 minutes or so the other drivers got him going and so we continued, sometimes straight sometimes up a hill at a 45 degree angle. :(

We had to pass through two "dry washes" on the way out and I was concerned there might be a problem there. When we arrived at the first one no water was flowing, but as I looked "up stream" I could see the leading edge of the water approaching less than 50 yards away. we made it across with no problem. We soon reached the entrance gate, passed the now infamous "ant cache" and were onto paved roads again for the drive back to Arusha. About half way back the rain stopped and it was sunny by the time we reached our hotel, the "Mountain Village Lodge" a Serena property." All the cottages are designed to look like native round grass roof covered huts but with all the amenities and comfort of civilization inside. We even had a TV for the first time on this trip.

Driving into the lodge we passed the local market, and since it was Saturday it was full of shoppers. I took some pictures, trying to be subtle about it, through the open window of our moving car.

They had a buffet lunch set up and we enjoyed it. then we rested for awhile and I took a hike/bird walk finding three new birds to add to my list. the "fanciest" was the Brown-breasted Barbet which has a bright scarlet throat and cheek patch then the brown breast and a white belly.

Tomorrow may be interesting. When we inquired about who was taking us to the airport they said that they would call us a taxi and the cost would be about $50 US. We had a voucher for this ride so some inquires will be needed to be made to straighten this out. Check out tomorrow is 10 AM and they would not give us an extension. Since our flight doesn't leave the airport until 9:45 PM we will have a lot of time to kill. They said they will store our luggage in a safe place.

We were able to use a computer here this evening to catch up on our BB teams of interest. Our boys lost two heart breakers; one point to North East and two points to Farrell, but our girls are still playing and winning. We also registered the three caches that we have done here in Tanzania.