Today we finish our safari and return to Moshi. We have breakfast and then say goodbye to the staff at the lodge. There are elephants in camp this morning so we are escorted to and from our tent and not allowed to linger.
It has rained heavily overnight and it is still raining this morning so we have the roof down on the safari car.
We do a bit of a game drive before we leave the park. This morning we see the usual giraffe, antelope, warthogs etc. We also see some waterbuck who seem to be involved in some play fighting.
As we head towards the gate we spot a group of elephants. Alladini says he thinks they are heading towards the water so we stop to watch. I expect them to stop and drink but one of the elephants wades straight in. We watch as he completely submerges himself in the water and appears to be having a great time. After a while another elephant joins him. It is lovely to watch them playing however in the end we have to leave.
We have one more interesting sighting before we get to the park gate. Alladini spots a rather wet Long Crested Eagle. Another new bird for us.
We now head straight for the gate, sign out and start the long drive back to Moshi. We stop at a picnic area before we get to Arusha to eat our lunch and then carry on.
Robert has been in contact with Alladini during the morning as he is in Arusha and wants to meet up and get a lift with us back to Moshi. We find him at a cafe with his friends, Ken and Abdullah. It turns out they have all been to the funeral of a friend’s father. We say Hi to Ken and then both Abdullah and Robert join us for the trip to Moshi. Poor Alladini, I am not sure he realised he was going to be used as a taxi, luckily he seems to be fine with it.
We now have one more stop to make. Alladini had invited us to pass by his house in Arusha and meet his wife and baby son. It was lovely to see all the work he has done on his house and to meet his family having heard so much about them over the last 10 days.
Now it really was time to head straight to Moshi. Robert arranged with Alladini to drop us all at the ACTT offices so he could then just go straight back to Arusha. We were sad to say goodbye as we had had a really great trip. Hopefully we will be able to do another safari with him in the future.
Robert then dropped us at More Than A Drop. We were met by Millie and are now back in the same room as before, it was like coming home. We enjoyed a nice dinner and had a quiet evening. The only excitement being the problems with the electricity which meant we ate our dinner by candlelight. We used our torches to get ready for bed but luckily the power problems were resolved before we went to sleep.
The first map below shows our safari route from Bunda to Moshi which covered 1360 Km (850 miles) and the second shows our entire road trip so far from Mwanza. We have now travelled 3455 km (2159 miles) by road since arriving in Tanzania
Sorry to come to the end of your Safari.
ReplyDeleteQuite a trip and I love the maps at the end.
Hello Lily, Mr Shep here. Thanks for your guidance on the birds, our guide had an interest in the birds but was not an “expert” birder but he had a variety of books and the photo guides often look quite different to the Helm’s illustrations so there was often some debate whilst we reached a probable identification. We all agreed it would be far easier if the immature birds could have changed to adult overnight, rather than having a progression of loosing one appearance and taking on the other, but it kept us entertained. Now we are back in town you can have a rest :)
ReplyDelete