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Published: August 8th 2008
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Hello everyone! Wow, it is really good to be able to check email again. I had put it off for so long, mostly because I was so busy doing other stuff while on the mainland. We are back in Zanzibar for three days, staying at the Mauwani Inn and preparing for a week on Pemba Island, the other main island that makes up Zanzibar. We leave for that on Wed morning.
Classes at University of Dar finished well. We got a really neat selection of lectures from history, to biodiversity to the waste management of the country. Very cool. We also went on a field trip to a coastal forest. The coastal forests of Tanzania are one of the top 25 world biodiversity hotspots...basically the most endemic plants and animals/area on the planet. Pretty neat, except that we had to ride in a really hot cramped bus for 3 hours each way and then it does not really look any different from any other coastal forest we had seem. I guess biodiversity does not always mean that it will look any different! It was good to get out of the city though.
We had a two and a half
day safari trip to Mikumi National Park, outside of Dar. We were told that it would be a 2-3 hour drive, and 5 1/3 hours later, we arrived. That is travel in Africa! We stayed that the Mikumi Game Lodge, a little village of guest huts and that were really cool! They were right in the park and had screened windows all over the huts. We could see wildlife right from our beds! We were required to be inside when the generators were turned off at 10:30 pm, with the doors locked. Lions have been known to sleep on the porches of the bungalows! We did not get to sleep with any lions, but we did see an absolutely stunning array of animals. We saw well over 130 elephants...ranging from huge bulls to brand new babies. They were incredible! We did a total of 4 game drives...where you go out in vans/land rovers with pop up tops and stand up and watch for animals. You are never allowed out of the car (with the exception of when we had to push start ours once!) but we did some really cool off-roading to get some great views. We saw zebras, tons
where is it?
all 15 of us on safari of sweet birds, elephants, herds of giraffe (my favorite!), wildebeest, buffalo, impalas, hippos (i got a movie of one yawning!!!) crocs, and one of the highlights was 3 lionesses! We almost ran them over...they were napping in the grass! We stopped literally 8 meters away and got to just watch them. It was incredible. I have so many good pictures that I cannot wait to show people. Our one full safari day was three game drives, one from 6-8, breakfast, drive from 11-2, nap, then drive again from 4-7, and then dinner. It was amazing food too, so it was pretty much a luxury vacation with cool animals and amazing food. Such a change from the octopus curry at Kizimkazi!
One dark spot on the safari trip was that two girls got their cameras stolen the night before we left. Someone had sliced open their netted window and taken their cameras when we were all at dinner. It was horrible. I feel extremely lucky because the three of us had the nicest cameras on the trip, and I still have mine, and it was sitting out in plain sight too. Amazing how quickly you forget that you need to
watch your stuff all the time, even when you are out in the middle of a national park in the middle of nowhere. Kate luckily had just changed her memory card so she saved the 900 pictures that she had taken with her brand new zoom lens camera, but the camera is gone. Avra and I have the same cameras, and she lost everything...including all the pictures she had taken on Zanzibar. So sad. We are all keeping a closer eye on our stuff now.
These three days on Zanzibar transition us into another segment of our trip. Tomorrow we go on a spice tour, then Tuesday I and half the group are taking a trip to Chumbe island to snorkel and have a lecture. The other half goes on the 21st. Then on Wed we leave for Pemba. Nobody actually knows what we are going to be doing there for a week, but we are in a homestay for 4 days of it. We also celebrate Eid, the end of Ramadan there. Highlight of that: I get to wear my gaudy fancy and amazing dress that I had made! I cannot wait!
I will try to be
in touch again before going to Pemba, but I am not making any promises. I hope all is well at home. I cannot believe that it is already a week into October!!! The semester is flying!!! Love to all,
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