Day 61 14/06/2011- Pangani

A very quiet day spent walking along the beach and swimming. With full moon tomorrow there are huge movements in tides – at high tide the water is right up to the grass on the shore, whilst the low tide recedes about 300m. The beach is very easy to walk along at low tide and it was possible to walk around the point to the next small fishing village.

It was very interesting watching the locals arrive back from their day of fishing in their tiny dugout boats with outriggers, and some small sailing dhows. The sea has been absolutely flat all day with very little by way of waves. I don’t know how these small boats manage if the sea gets rough. They all seemed to have a productive day and had some reasonable size fish on board. The manager of the lodge bought a couple of fish for dinner, which was excellent.


Day 60 13/06/2011 – Arusha to Pangani, Emayani Beach Lodge


 I left the hotel at 8-00am and was surprised to find very little traffic on the roads. I had 390km to travel to Pangani of which the last 60km was on dust roads and also included a ferry crossing over the Pangani River. The people I had spoken to suggested the trip should take about 5 hours.
The main road was in fairly good condition, and had very little traffic, and as such I was able to travel quite easily. You must remember one thing about travelling in Tanzania (and most other African countries for that matter) is that there are towns and villages along the road and at each of these there are 2 or 3  strategically hidden speed bumps, which if you don’t slow down will do you some serious damage to your vehicle. Towing a trailer means that I have to slow down to about 10 or 15kmh, and then speed up again, and this happens about every 10km which really stuffs up average speed. Anyhow, good progress was made through Mwanga, Same, Mombo, Korogwe and Segera, from where I turned off towards Tanga. The road was excellent and I soon arrived in Muheza, where the turnoff to Pangani was. I also think that things went smoother because I didn’t have my normal co-pilot telling me to watch out for the pothole, bicycle, pedestrian, goat, wheelbarrow, bump, taxi, motorbike, cow, dog, chicken etc.
This is where the fun started, and even though it was only 40km to Pangani, found that I could hardly get to 30kmh as the roads were terrible. I eventually arrived in Pangani and found there was a queue for the ferry. With no-one speaking or understanding English I had no clue as to what was going on. The ferry arrived and cars and trucks were directed and squeezed onto it, I don’t know how I managed to squeeze in-between a truck and a bakkie and then have about 100 locals all clambering over everything. 
The offloading was a lot easier and with only 15km to travel to the Lodge, and the road being slightly better, I arrived at Emayani Beach Lodge soon after 3-00pm. The place is stunning and will be my base until Friday, when I will take a ferry across to Zanzibar and hopefully meet up with the family on Saturday.
                                                                                   The ferry loading point

                                                                            View from the dining room

                                                                          The beach

Day 59 12/06/2011 – Arusha


A very early start to the day, a 5-00am wake up and a half hour drive to the Kilimanjaro International Airport to get there in time for Mel’s 6-15 check in.  I think there were 5 people in the airport building including the security staff and the check in clerk, but because I was not a passenger I could not go past the check in area to the sitting area. I was not going to stand with Mel in a tiny area for an hour and decided rather to send her through whilst I went back to the hotel.
Whilst having breakfast, a group of South Africans arrived for the start of their Kilimanjaro climb. They looked like adverts for Cape Union Mart and had all new latest equipment and clothing. I hope they climbed as well as they looked!
I eventually weakened and decided to get the car and trailer washed. After 2 months’ mud, dust and grime, as well as the coating of diesel that both the car and the trailer had received when the fuel pipe developed a leak. It had got to the stage that you couldn’t touch or brush past the car without needing a shower. I employed the hotel gardeners, and between them and me managed to get everything looking respectable again.
The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and being entertained by the Colobus monkeys playing in the hotel gardens.

Day 58: 11/06/2011 – Serengeti to Arusha

We again had hyena sniffing around our tent during the night. After packing up camp, were on the road by 6:45. On the way out we saw the standard herds of Thompson’s gazelle and hyena. We also saw buffalo, elephant and lion – a male sitting in the middle of the road with 2 females and 2 cubs further along; he didn’t appear to be part of the pride and clearly distressed the females, who were roaring at him.
The trip from Serengeti to Ngorongoro was more manageable in the cool of the morning and one could never get tired of the rain forest area of the crater. 
Add to Bucket List:
Visit Ngorongoro & Serengeti:
  • ·         Take kids
  • ·         Do if out of season for at least 10 days
  • ·         Fly in
  • ·         Stay in lodges
  • ·         Take hot air balloon ride
  • ·         Win the lottery
We were back at Kudu Lodge at 11:00, this is a good starting point to stay at as an entry point into the park and they organise Safaris. We unpacked, repacked, hitched up the trailer and headed off the Protea Hotel in Arusha (Gray’s idea). It appears Camel Man has had enough of roughing it and needs some home comforts – next he will be heading off to the spa for a pedicure.
Kirsty reckons if we are so excited to be staying in a Protea Hotel, we must be pretty desperate. The hotel is at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro, we still haven’t seen it because it’s shrouded in cloud. Gray’s favourite ad here is “Kilimanjaro, if you can’t climb it, drink it”.
I have to get up at 5:00 tomorrow in order to be at Kilimanjaro Airport at 6:30. From there, I fly to Dar and catch a connecting flight into O.R.Tambo – touchdown e.t.a. is 6:15. One long day of flying but to see the kids, my new nephew and my friends, it will be worth it. Due to connecting flight times, I will be arriving home 2 days earlier than originally planned.
Gray and I have survived our time alone without any domestics and we may even manage empty nest syndrome one day – not too soon I hope.

I have left the Tanzanian side of the blog to Gray for the next week, so hold thumbs, his track record for contributing so far has been pretty dismal – he has taken a few pics. I will keep you posted on life in Johannesburg.

                                                                           Scenic Serengeti       

                                                              Simba – looks like a ranga version of Panda’s beard

                                           Crater rain forests

Day 57: 10/06/2011 – Serengeti

Despite the two of us sharing Rob’s small pop-up tent we had a surprisingly good night’s sleep on the ground. This was besides the brief interlude, when I was woken up with a hyena foraging and sniffing around my side of the tent – not sure if the bad breath was Grays or the hyenas. I managed a hair wash and a top and tail in 2 cups of water (Al, I hope you are proud of me), Gray sprayed on lots of deo and by 7:30 we were on our game drive. We arrived home hot and exhausted around 4:30 but we have never seen so much game in one day and we have spent many holidays in game parks in Southern Africa.
Shortly after takeoff, we came across a pack of hyena on a kill; there were lots of pups and it awesome to watch the dynamics and interactions of them stealing chunks of flesh from the older hyena and to see how tolerant the older ones were. It was also interesting to note the difference in colour of the hyena, from an almost white one to a very black pup. Next, we stumbled upon a huge pride of lions with some tiny cubs. 
From there we explored the kopje areas; they are like islands in a sea of grass. The kopjes are host to numerous rock hyraxes, lions, leopards and we saw Kirk’s DikDik – these are tiny little buck and mate for life.
We than headed off to a marsh-reed area and in the middle, on a mound was a cheetah, clearly interested in something in the reeds below. Eventually it gave up and walked off. Not to be disappointed at missing out on a kill we had also been watching a lion on a termite hill, on the other side of the marsh. We drove around and watched the lioness, draped around the hill, almost fall asleep. Next thing, she shot up and looked around, totally alert. In the distance we saw some Thompsons Gazelle coming down to drink. She unwrapped herself from the mound and stalked into the grass, as she closed in on them, they  caught wind of her and sprinted in the opposite direction, she gave chase and popped up out of the grass with one of the little antelope in her mouth. She crossed back across the grassland into the marsh area, judging by the state of her undercarriage, she was off to feed her cubs.
The Serengeti is 14 000sq km of ‘endless’ plains; at the moment the plains are filled with gazelle, interspersed with topi, warthog, a few giraffe, a few herds of impala and other general game. The vast herds of wildebeest and zebra, that we had been hoping to see, had already migrated north, due to lack of rains this season. This spectacular event, where thousands upon thousands of wildebeest travel in a clockwise direction, around the Serengeti, through the Masai Mara in Kenya, in search of water and grazing and return to the area in the rainy season. We were fortunate to get a glimpse of large herds of these animals in Ngorongora but certainly not of the magnitude of the actual migration.
Peter took us to the park restaurant for lunch, it was clearly a hit amongst the local park employees and their families and we were treated to local cuisine of either rice and beef, or pap and beef, followed by fruit. We were the only Muzungus and over lunch had an interesting discussion with Peter about his family. He has two sons that are being educated at the private school in Karatu (I didn’t even know Karatu had a school), as in the government schools they can have up to 250 kids in a class. He also informed us that education of Maasai children (for junior and secondary school) and medical services are free. This is in an attempt to educate the children in a culture where the elders want to hang onto traditional values. I guess this is similar to our Bushmen, except in Tanzania they are dealing with a much larger group of people.
From there we headed off to the tourist centre, where they have a nicely set up information and education centre and a muzungu restaurant but  was fun trying out the local cuisine.
After a break and sheltering from the intense heat of the day, we set off on our afternoon game drive. We headed straight into another pride of lion on a kill, cubs and all. About another kilometre further along we saw another lioness, clearly with little cubs, also out hunting. We wound our way along the Serondera River for the rest of the drive and saw loads of hippo, plains filled with Thompson’s gazelle, elephant, buffalo and just to crown it all we spotted a leopard in a tree. We also spent some time watching the olive baboons foraging in the acacia trees; they are a very hairy and stocky baboon. We have now seen golden, yellow and olive baboons on our travels, the closest resembling our baboons in S.A. are the yellow baboon.
It’s not hard to see why this is the most visited game park in the world. Not to seem ungrateful for such an amazing day but the only downside is that at each siting there are at least 5 other vehicles that come roaring in. Undoubtedly, they disturb the animals, especially when the predators are stalking their prey. Apparently, in high season (July and August) there are around 1000 vehicles in the area and then there is chaos. 
Back in the campsite, all except one tent had moved off and water had been brought in. We set up our tent and dived into a cold shower, I never knew a cold shower could feel so good. In really good spirits we had a snack dinner and another early night.

                                                         Thompson’s Gazelle

                                                         Topi

                                                         Lioness spying out prey

                                           Our camp site

Day 56: 9/06/2011 – Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti

Where to start??? I guess at 5:30 when Graeme woke me up and we packed up the last few items, I had a shower and Peter arrived at 6:00. We drove the first 20km in the dark to the gate of the Ngorongoro National Park. 
Morning dawned as we ascended the road up the crater wall. It was very cloudy and misty but we still had an amazing view of the surrounding rain forests, above and below us. About 6km into the park we reached the top of the crater at, 2400m and the clouds cleared briefly, to allow us our first view of the plains below.
Ngorongoro is amazing – it is often described as ‘the 8th Wonder of the World’ and is a World heritage Site. The crater is around 20km in diameter and inside of the crater plunges 610m below the rim. The mountain, where the crater now lies, was thought to have once been the tallest in Africa but due to a series of volcanic eruptions over millions of years the inside collapsed, giving rise to this breathtaking volcanic rich scenery. The area boasts enormous biodiversity; ranging from the semi-arid grasslands of the North West plains to the dense rainforests of the crater walls.
As we descended through the rain forest, these snow white clouds poured over the edge of the crater, like a waterfall. On arrival in the grassland area we were met with herds of buffalo. From there, we stumbled upon a pride of lion, with cubs, ambling up the road, they walked so close to the vehicle that if I put out my hand out I would have touched them. Next we saw around 30 spotted hyenas on a kill, with black backed jackal waiting in the wings. One hyena had bitten off a piece of the zebra leg, hoof and all, and ran off. Shortly after that, we were fortunate enough to see a cheetah; these are fairly rare here, as due to the large numbers of hyena, their prey is usually stolen from them. We also saw a black rhino and a huge elephant bull with the biggest tusks I have seen in a long time; only male ellie venture down into the grassland areas of the crater because there are too few trees for females and the young to browse.
There are huge herds of Grant’s and Thompson’s Gazelle, we had never seen these before, so that was pretty exciting. Then to finish it off we came across herds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra. The wildebeest are the white bearded species and make the strangest noises. There are no giraffe in the crater as the walls are too steep for them to descend, strangely there are no impala either.
After a stunning morning of game viewing and then driving through the Lerai Forest, with its fever trees and flat topped Acacias, we ascended back up from the crater. We stopped at the top and took pictures of the view in sunlight.
After the most amazing morning, the day kind of went downhill. The next 120km from Ngorongoro to the Serengeti were long, hard, hot, dusty, boring and the road was badly corrugated. The area is inhabited by Kenyan Maasai and their cattle. The Maasai and the wildlife have had to vie for grazing areas in the past but at present, in a multi-landuse experiment they are living side by side. The only wildlife we saw in their area was a wildebeest; guess he thought he was a cow. From what we have seen, the Maasai really rape the land with overgrazing. Clearly it’s not only cattle that are a problem but they are also causing overpopulation, with its polygamous society. Peter told us about one Maasai that had 20 wives and over 100 children and proudly bears the name Impala. The men also still insist on female circumcision, despite protests from the Tanzanian government. I’m not sure I like these chauvinist Maasai men, despite the fact they are friendly towards us. 
Serengeti means endless and that is just what the landscape is, endless grasslands. We had a few raindrops along the next 40km to the campsite and mercifully this cooled things down for a few minutes. We also saw a pride of around 15 lions, including some big males and some tiny cubs. Another first sighting for us in the antelope world was seeing the Topi.
We arrived at the camp site around 4:00 and this is the worst one so far. It is packed with tents (for around 40 campers); 2 toilets and 2 showers for all these people; but useless as there is no water and it is not the cleanest camp either. I think the Serengetti Parks Board need to take a serious look at the state of their public camp sites. We, along with hundreds of overseas visitors have had to pay US$30 per person per night for this and that’s without the park fees of another US$50 per person per day. It doesn’t matter how wonderful the park is, you still would like clean, working ablutions and a clean camp site at the end of the day.  

                                                         Sunrise over Ngorongoro Crater rim

                                                         Hyena with zebra leg

                                                         Bull Elephant
 

                                                         White bearded Wildebeest

                                           Midday view of crater floor

Day 55: 8/06/2011 – Meserani Snake Park to Karatu

After breakfast I did some bird watching in the camp. They had, amongst other, the most beautiful yellow-collared love birds. We again had a nice easy 2 hour drive today, arriving at Kudu Lodge, just outside the little town of Karatu around 11:00.
 Along the way we passed through the lands of the Maasai. This tribe is extremely colourful, with men and women, draping themselves in colourful fabric. The Masaai are pastoral nomads who have actively resisted change and still, as far as possible, follow the same lifestyle they have for centuries. Their society is patriarchal and judging by the nature of the tribes along the landscape they are highly decentralised. Their culture centres on their cattle, which they consider sacred. 
On leaving the nomadic lands of the Maasai, we ascended up a fairly steep road into Karatu, which we are using as an overnight stop before entering the parks. It is a beautiful drive and we stopped a few times along the way to admire the view of Lake Manyara. The lake hosts thousands of flamingos and even from a distance we were able to see their pink tinge off the lake.
Once settled at the Kudu Lodge campsite we met with Peter, who will be our guide and driver into the crater and the Serengetti. We are doing a budget tour and it is costing us US$1300 (R8800) for 2 ½ days, we still have to take all our own camping equipment and food. The bulk of the costs go towards park and entrance fees. Overseas visitors, go to Kruger National Park in South Africa, it is soooooo much cheaper.
Then it was camp maintenance time; we needed to sort out what to take on our mini safari and I needed to sort out what to take back to S.A., as I leave shortly after our return for a week in Johannesburg before returning to Zanzibar. Before I started my major repack, I decided to check the food boxes and discovered a 2L carton of fruit juice had exploded – I was not happy as that entailed seeing what could be salvaged and washing everything else down.
We then headed into Karatu to buy a few provisions from the local stalls and have a look around the little town, this didn’t take long. On return we decided to relax around the pool, it has this life sized ellie that squirts water out of its trunk into the pool (pretty kitch). Gray went to get us some coldrinks at the pool bar, while I went for a dip and he was informed that my swim would cost US$10. I guess we have moved out the value for money sector.
I then went for a shower and they have the best showers here; big, clean, hot and great pressure – it’s amazing how the simple things in life, that we so often take for granted, are so appreciated. It makes one realise how lucky we really are, when to so many people in the world, water is such a precious commodity.
After dinner, we decided to have an early night as Peter would be collecting us at 6:00 tomorrow morning.

                                                         Superb Starling

                                                         Yellow-collared Love Birds

                                                         The ellie fountain

                                                         Lake Manyara

Day 54: 7/06/2011 – Moshi to Arusha

We went to the restaurant for a drink last night and a Cape Town Defender asked if we were the Gauteng Discovery.  They were the only other campers in the ‘car park’ and had arrived late so we hadn’t seen them earlier. These are the first South Africans travellers we have seen in weeks and spent the evening swopping war stories.

Today was a short drive to Arusha. Along the drive, we kept an eye out in the hopes of viewing Mt Killi but the area was shrouded in mist and clouds. We stopped at the Shoprite, in Arusha to do some shopping and have a bite to eat. Arusha is a big, bustling and developed town; it is the gateway to the Northern circuit of parks, including Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. The area is diversified, ranging from a bustling and somewhat dirty market area to high rise 5 Star hotels. We saw a lot more Mazungus in Arusha; in Swahili all white people are referred to as Mazungus (us, and all other whities, thinking it meant white person) but we checked on the literal translation and it really means ‘confused person wandering about’.

 Mercifully, the type of traffic changed from huge trucks, busses and tankers to 4×4’s, game drive vehicles, cars, bikes, wheelbarrows, carts and taxis (taxis in Tanzania include passengers being lifted on motor bikes and bicycles).  Oh my gosh, negotiating this traffic was something else, there are no observed rules of the road, no robots and no stop streets – the only rule is go and overtake. Gray is finding the driving extremely stressful and being a passenger is no fun either.

The traffic cops in Tanzania are dressed in white; hat, shirt and pants – this seems like a very non-practical colour (especially for the poor wives who have to do the washing) but I’m sure it’s the only way they stay alive because they are so visible. I’m not sure what their purpose is besides, like the rest of African cops, to be polite (except in SA of course). The only request we have had from a cop is to see our fire extinguisher (we have 2 on board, so he was happy). Certainly they don’t appear to ticket anybody because there are clearly no rules to ticket them for.

We made it through Arusha and carried on for another 30km to the Meserani Snake Park (yes, there is a snake park and crocs) to camp. It is an overlander camp site but good for picking up information on the plans ahead and the facilities are adequate. The road out of Arusha starts with coffee plantations, followed by maize plantations and eventually the terrain becomes barren and eroded due to overgrazing by the Masai’s livestock.

We sat down to book a trip into the Serengeti area and sort out an extra flight for my return home. My plans were to fly out of Dar but we have been warned the traffic in Arusha is like a walk in the park compared to Dar and we would have to travel around 1000km back down there. The easy solution, fly to Dar from Kilimanjaro Airport and link up with my flight back to Jhb. Two tasks that in S.A. would have been sorted via internet or phone in 10 minutes, took us about 3 hours, only to discover we had to return to Arusha to pay for my flight.

Afternoon traffic is worse than morning traffic and Gray won’t even do a morning school Hurlingham/Saints lift as he will hit traffic on the 5km trip home. He is such a girl (self admitted),  just as well we are bypassing Dar. On the way back I looked to the right, the clouds had dropped and we got the most magnificent view of Mt Meru, at 4566m, it is the second highest mountain in Tanzania. So the trip back had all been worth it.

This evening we had burgers at the snake park – 2 burgers and 2 G & T’s came to R34 for a pretty decent burger. Camping fees came to R35; all in all pretty good value for money.

                                                         Masai market

                                                         Masai herdsman

                                                         Arusha main road

                                                         Mt Meru

Day 53: 6/06/2011 – Irente to Moshi

Welcome Baby Luke Connor – Congratulations Julie and Adie
Our long awaited nephew arrived today– 3.26kg of bouncing baby boy, Julie, Adie and Luke are all doing well. My sister and I have always been there for each other, so not being around for the birth of her first baby makes me feel like I am missing out and letting her down. However, he came earlier than initially expected and I will be back to see him soon. I have a picture of him and he is the cutest baby ever.
With renewed spirits, after a good night’s sleep, in a big, comfortable bed we had breakfast and set off down the 1900m pass to the main road at Mombo. The trip took us 1 ½ hours to cover 27 km, with a stop off at St Eugene’s Convent to buy cheese – it’s been a while since last had cheese. The convent in Irente, like all huts and buildings is built on a steep hillside and is home to a hospital, school and convent. Cheese making is obviously a by-product, to raise money for the order. There are numerous churches in Irente, despite most of the population wandering around in Muslim clothing.
Our destination today is Honey Badger Lodge in Moshi, about 200km from Mombo. We had a fairly uneventful trip, along a good road, with mercifully less traffic. Pretty much along the whole route are rows upon rows of sisal plantations. Gray has taken over the choosing of accommodation – I am now taking control again. Last night I’m sure we ended up travelling higher than Kilimanjaro base camp and tonight we are supposed to be in a town that sits at the bottom of Mt Kilimanjaro (the mountain is nowhere to be seen) and we are camping in a walled car park, with less than savoury ablutions. To give the place a little credit, they have a very nice garden that we can sit in and I guess this is where ground tents campers set up camp. Much as I felt like a few days on the beach, after the last 2 days, possibly doing a reccie before bringing / or not bringing the kids up here was not one of Graeme’s worst plans.
Along the drive Gray discovered a hole in the car’s fuel line, so Camel Man spent some time under the car locating and fixing it. He emerged, full of diesel, a lot quicker than expected, having fixed the problem (I hope). After a quick shower, we headed into Moshi city centre. Like Iringa, it consists of mainly buildings and lots of churches. We saw a taxi with Soweto painted across the front (guess he was a long way from home) and a Nelson Mandela branch of NMB Bank. It is a busy and bustling town, again with some drivers that would do well on the F1 circuit.

                                                         Sisal Plantations

                                                         NMB in Moshi

                                                         Moshi

Day 52: 5/06/2011 – Mikumi to Irente

We had a fairly peaceful night; no party (strange for a Saturday night) and no Sunday morning Muslim service, thankfully this kept the animals sleeping as well. We however, did wake up with rain, so packing up the tent was fun but better than expected. This, however, cemented Gray’s decision to travel north, as we would have had to travel over a sand road mountain pass to go south. 
I am no longer going to make statements – I had just commented on the lack of trucks on the road and the possibility that they took Sundays off, when we came upon a long line of them, the cars were waved past and up ahead was a horrific accident. One truck had gone into the back of another. The reason we had seen no on-coming trucks was because they were backed up for kilometres behind the accident. The truck and oil tanker from the previous days accidents had mysteriously been cleared away overnight, a crane moves in and pulls them back onto the road and they are towed away. The next accident was coming around a bend on a downhill, 2 trucks had had a head on and were lying on their sides in the road. This type of accident in S.A. would have closed down a highway for hours but here you just wind your way through the debris and drive on.
We stopped Morogoro, for money and diesel. It is a very busy and disjointed town at the foothills of a beautiful mountain range. The roads were so busy with vehicles of every description from hand driven carts to trucks and busses, all fighting their way around traffic circles, bicycles and pedestrians. 
From Morogoro, we headed north east, through Korogwe to Mombo and then took a right turn to travel the 30km to Lushoto; the 30km felt like 300km.  Nothing prepared us for the mountain pass up the Usambara Mountains, it was narrow and winding and breathtakingly beautiful. On a normal drive we would have loved it but after a long day on the road, with nowhere to stop, we were tired and wanted to get to our destination, Irente View Cliff Lodge. 
Eventually, after travelling for about an hour up the pass, which is surprisingly populated for such a mountainous area, we arrived at Lushoto. It is surrounded by pines and eucalyptus mixed with banana plants and other tropical foliage. From here we took a narrow and badly potholed mud road, through the village, for another 6km to Irente. Along the way we came across a wedding party and we had to try and squeeze past the bridal entourage, all dressed in purple, without splashing them with mud. 450km and 7 ½ hours later we arrived at our destination, in the rain. Gray took one look at the situation and booked into a room for the night. We entered a very dark reception and dining area, as the electricity had been off all day.
We booked in, put on our hiking shoes and headed up to the view point, feeling like a bit of exercise, it was a bit disappointing to discover it was only a 5 minute walk. Fortunately, the rain and clouds lifted and all disappointment in the long day faded – the view was truly spectacular. Perched on the top of a cliff we could see forever; it is amazing to see how abruptly the Usambara Mountains rise up from the plains below. Returning to our room, we went out onto the balcony and we had an equally spectacular view of the cliff faces and valley from the opposite side. As evening approached, we were again enveloped in cloud and it became freezing cold. Our winter clothes were all locked in the bottom of the trailer and due to the lack of electricity there was no hot water, so we huddled up in bed with our head lights and waited to go to dinner – our first meal of the day. 
Dinner was pretty average, nothing to write home about but the menu was a real treat:
Cocky-Leekie Soup    made with cocky (sure hope that’s chicken) and leekies
Pork Stir Frie – made with Pock (one confused pock) and shredded veg
Beef Stir Frie – made with Pock (one confused cow) and shredded veg

                                                         The road into Irente

                                                         The spectacular view

                                                         The clouds coming in

                                                         Lushoto Market