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Published: September 10th 2007
[youtube=9mugZw7l3AY]
Giraffes!
The minute we pulled into the park.(So if you've talked to me or seen me in the last couple days, time to be childlike and PRETEND I'm still in Africa.) :-)
For my second weekend in Tanzania I decided that I wanted to see more animals and take a little break from the group setting so I booked a weekend at Hatari Hotel in Arusha National Park. The driver from Hatari, Rashid, picked me up at CCS and took me for a afternoon game drive through the park on the way to the hotel. Rashid is a VERY safe driver (read between the lines: very SLOW driver) which worked out well for driving through the park.
On my last safari we barely saw giraffes and they were very far away. Arusha National Park definitely took care of the giraffe sightings. The minute we drove in the park they were right there. There are not as many animals at this park, but it was a beautiful and peaceful drive, filled with beautiful trees, lots of giraffes, many different types of birds and cool monkeys. Our drive in the park ended with a bunch of giraffes hanging out right near the hotel as we pulled up at
sunset. Pretty nice. (little giraffe video to the right)
The lodge was the site of an old John Wayne movie called Hatari (I'll have to rent it now). The sleeping rooms and the dining area are in separate buildings and you are not allowed to walk without an escort in the evening because buffalos roam around the grounds in the evening. Dinner was served family style at one big table and I was seated next to a fun American family who had just finished climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. I definitely have to plan that on my next trip.
As I mentioned, I wanted to take a little break this weekend, so I was very excited to have this PLUSH hotel room to myself, sleep in, get coffee delivered to my room in the morning, etc. I should have remembered "Hatari means Danger" when I woke up at 1:30 in the morning to a mouse nibbling on my finger in my bed! And, the hotel runs on a generator, which they shut off at night, so all I had was a very week, uncharged emergency light, but it was enough light to see two beady eyes looking at me on
the side of my bed. The security guard came in for a look around but didn't see anything but the droppings and said, "oh yes, it is a mouse." Then he kinda gave me the "hakuna matata" meaning, "no worries you crazy American girl, go to sleep!" As he left my room he flashed the light outside of my room to show me the HUGE buffalo two feet away!
The second night, pretty confident the mouse had left the building, I was again excited for a long sleep. But the monkeys didn't think I needed sleep because they decided to chase each other back and fourth on the tin roof above my head all morning. I finally decided to get out of bed to go take some pictures of them and realized they wern't just being annoying, they were trying to tell me that Mt. Kilimanjaro was up (meaning clear view out of the clouds). My second sighting during my time in Tanzania, and this one was much better than the first.
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Nikki
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Love the giraffes..
I think the giraffes in the video were playing 'who can lean the hardest?' but that's just me. I love the pictures, especially of the giraffes, they are my family dont'cha know. (the height thing :D) And yes, I am pretending that you're still there. xxx