22/03/2016
The 12:th of Mars. Today is the big day and I got the honour of writing about it. Yesterday we had a hard time on a bumpy road but I dare not tell you the condition of the road we were driving on today. But this road is exemptible because now we were out in the bush and if only cool would be a word enough for it. But to start from the beginning I had a good night sleep all night except the usual visits and one or two extras. Alex woke up 6:49 if you’ve read about my Roskilde visit you will know it started at 6:45 and after a dramatic increase of the volume of the alarm the clock turned 6:46 but no waking up until 6:49 when he realised the high sound and after some fiddling with his phone finally got the damn thing quiet. The funny thing is I was the one sleeping with earplugs.
I quickly decided to take a shower and if you can imagen the feeling of cold water streaming down your neck and cooling the every inch of you that’s how nice it was. Almost like smearing an ice-cream all over your body before jumping in the North Sea, commonly known as a good feeling, especially in Sweden. Jokes aside but in Africa I welcomed it with open arms. It is cool now we’re in the real Africa and not on an island outside off Africa. Alex took a shower after me and I got dressed for breakfast. We almost left our houses at Hippo camp at the same time only a few minutes differed, breakfast was now near. I couldn’t’ve foreseen the greatness, the pure beauty of this wonderful breakfast it tasted like the best I’d ever tasted after weeks of just a dry bun and a cup of tea, no offence Patricia ( one of the chefs in Machui).
The content of the breakfast was fresh fruit, pancakes, sausages and omelette, sandwiches with peanut butter, jam and to drink, tea and mango juice in other words an improvement of breakfasts I’ve tried so far.
Next on the menu was, teeth brushing and putting in some contact lenses and then we were off into the bush. I was glad to be moving and very happy because I didn’t feel a hot baking sun. I realised half an hour later that it wouldn’t hold and that the clock was 9:30 in the morning and the sun hadn’t had the time to make the earth baking yet. The first animal we saw was an antelope under some trees and then after a five minute drive we saw animal number two, baboons sitting in a tree just by a quite big pond or swamp looking lake, it was beautiful in any case. What did we find in the dung if not Pumba, animal number three was off course the warthog.
We continued longer in to the jungle I kept thinking of Guns n’ Roses, Welcome to the jungle as we drove past more antelopes and then we saw the giraffes, animal number four. We met two stuck cars. Even though the cars were both Jeeps they had sunk deep into the mud. We couldn’t help them because those where the cars that were supposed to be handling mud not ours, tough luck. After not helping, it took some time and some driving. We got past some very green parts of the national park and when the trees began to spread out a bit, that’s when we first saw the zebras. The zebras, animal number five of the day was smaller than I had expected and likewise with the giraffes actually. Out there in the open we saw two roofs made out of palm leaves so we decided to take the lunch there. Scavenge the surroundings for elephants and if we had luck, lions. We found neither but we found hippos there were five of them in the water.
With the hippos included we had seen six classical safari animals. But now we were eager to see some Elephants and our hopes remained. Some incredible birds had followed the car all the way to the hippos and they were beautiful. They had a shining dark blue head with a long curved beak. Their bum was in a bright silvery blue with the rest of the body fiery and passionate, red. I never asked for the name of the bird but we later found out why they were flying by the car. There were many grasshoppers, beetles and flies that fled when the car drove over the grass. It was in other words a feast for the beauty bird. This was Animal number seven. By now Max and I had climbed on the roof sitting on the back of the truck. It was great with some wind on your skin the sun was baking hot but I had sun cream on so no worries, I thought. Of course I had no sun cream on my legs as I didn’t feel the need for it, I was going to sit in a car old day, but apparently not. So now I have very nice sun burn on both my thighs, looks funny though.
Animal number eight became a crocodile although a small one, but it was a crocodile all the same. We had actually seen one a bit bigger thedearvious evening, but this was the one we saw on the safari so I guess this is the one that counts. The surroundings were beautiful there were mountains to the west, the south was a land of lakes and forest. You could see palm trees growing sparsely in the lakes, pop up like proud kings overlooking their territory. Next Animal, number ten was the kudu a sort of antelope. It almost looked like a deer. It was brown with three thin white stripes stretching from the spine to the end of the ribs.
We continued our hunt for elephants and lions but the safari was now nearing its end and I was quite tired. We were closing the gateway to the park when I woke up. The drive took something like ten minutes back to basecamp then we parted to our houses Alex and I went to ours and Fredrik and Max a.k.a Babo went to theirs. I took a shower, it felt just as nice as this morning if not nicer. And then we gathered to eat the pre-dinner snack, popcorn and it was a very good idea of the staff of using that it didn’t take even a minute before the plate was empty. It is a very timely appetiser when you’ve been sweeting all day. The starter was leek soup with some sandwiches as a little addition to the soup. The main dish was pork in what I think was some kind of masala served with rice, cooked vegetables, and a salad. As dessert we were given fresh fruit, water melon and pineapple. We were up until ten in the evening then we desided to go to bed, Alex had left for the house a bit earlier and when I went back he was in a deep sleep. I fell asleep in just a second, it wasn’t that hard after a brilliant day like this.
Written by: Frode Jansson in Tanzania on Zanzibar.
