I got really impatient with fixing my spelling errors so I have just decided to ignore it all for now.

After the Street Hustler brought Nicole to me we decided we needed to find a bathroom and the bookstore that we were in the other day. We shook off the vendors and we briskly headed off, we were quite confident that we knew where we were going, but apparently we didn't as we walked up and down and up and down and simply could not find the street, We even asked some of the "men with guns" and they pointed us one way...no bookstore there. We walked through one of the smaller roundabouts a few times trying to not stop and look like we were lost as that brings them flocking to you like tse-tse flies. We hear the cry: "pole-pole mzunga" ("slowly, white people.")

We never did find the bookstore. Things just vanish around here, roads, streets, store, entire bus-stops. It's really very strange. We ended up taking a taxi back to the hotel ($2.00) where we caught up on laundry and postcards and had a nice light dinner.

Tomorrow we will take a taxi directly to the bookstore, no more of this aimless wandering. In case you are wondering about the attraction to this book store, it's in a well ventilated building, there are loads of books (new and used) about Africa and also the Best Sellers from America too. There are souviners, odds and ends, bits of art and crafts and a little cafe that serves coffee and cakes. It's just a nice little haven to spend a few hours in. The city itself is not conduicive to wandering around in, and there are no "sights" per se.

TIDBITS.
When we left Haydom we decided to leave our mosquito nets behind. They are really pretty bulky and since we were returning to the Impala we knew we wouldn't need them there and we asked at Sunny Safari's if all the hotels on the safari provided nets and the answer was yes, so we relinquished ours and made a bit of room in the suitcase. I have had 3 bites, and none were in the rooms, all were outside, one in Haydom and 2 in the Impala, so it isn't like the net is saving us from either malaria or dengue fever anyhow.. However, everyone, even the doctors at Haydom do sleep under them at night. It isn't just mosquitos that are out there, but there is a plethor of winged and creepy crawlies just waiting to join you in bed. I have only seen 2 spiders though, a small and speedy one that took off across a floor and one HUGE one that was on a wall inb Haydom, but it was nowhere near me.

We also saw (again in Haydom) caterpillar type things and millipedes. But nothing too horrendous and they are all things I can outrun or stomp on.

But once again, "I digress". We asked Clementina, the hospital secretary who was so helpful and had helped Nicole set up the whole visit, what we should do with our nets, if maybe the hospital could use them and she asked if she could have them. She lives 2 km from the hospital so it's somewhere that does not have running water (the village has a public water pump, there are no pipes that run to individual homes) and she has a 3 year old daughter so we were happy to have them go to her. It seems odd to think that a net from the Cranbrook Wal-mart is going to be living out its days in a small African village.

Jan 21.
Today we decided to take the taxi to the bookstore after our pathetic attemptto find it on our own yesterday. Our taxi driver took us there is a matter of minutes and we asked Abdala if he would come back for us in an hour and of course the answer is always "no problem." We had a nice browse and bought a few little items (african wrapping paper actually) and when he returned for us we asked him to take us to the Natural History Museum. He was pleased to do so and off we went.

As we pulled up, a van came screetching to a halt beside us; siren blaring and out leaps 4 or 5 swat team members dressed in full riot gear, guns and all and went running through the gate. Our driver said very casually: "Oh, it's ok, you don't have to worry about them, just go in." We were a little hesitant and it must have showed (gee I don't know, do you think eyeballs bugging out an inch and a half and feet frozen to the ground would indicate a little fear?) so he jumped out of the taxi and ushered us in, commenting that he didn't want us to be concerned. He even took our packages for us and stored them in the trunk of the car. We went through the doorway and saw the swat fellows talking to a screaming woman and we never saw any of them after that, so I have no idea what that was all about.

The museum was small and dusty and didn't have much in it at all, although there were some of the fossils that Doctors Mary and Richard Leaky had discovered and we found that of interesting.

The museum itself however, is in the old German Boma, or Administrative Headquarters from Colonial times. The Germans did bring western education and health care (this being in the late 1800's and early 1900's) but there was also very harsh working conditions and slavery and very few of the railways and roads and other improvements benefitted the African people and this eventually led to the maji-maji uprising in which over 100,000 Africans were slaughtered. The German era lasted until the end of WW1 when the country became Tanganika under British Administration and finally in the 1960's it received independance and became Tanzania. There is still a lot of hard feeling toward the German occupation.

After that we decided to have a ginger ale in small restaurant/music club in the grounds behind the museum, a nice little place called Via-via. We then went outside to find our driver reading a newspaper, happy as a clam to wait for us. He took us back to the hotel and it cost us a whole $5 each to have him basically spend half the day with us, and watch our parcels as well. We tipped him an additional $5, a 50% tip, but it is so worth it, and he is such a nice guy.

We thenwent to our local supermarket to pick up a few bottles of water and some snacks for tomorrows ride to lake Manyara, the beginning of our safari! We were sidetracked by a furniture/souviner store where we accidentally bought a few more things. The lack of suitcase room is becoming critical. We were in bed early tonight, I think by 9 PM.

Jan 22. Safari Day!

Wow! What a day! I can't use enough exclaimation marks! As we were checking out of the Impala I saw a fellow wearing a Sunny Safari shirt so I introduced myself to him and he is our guide, Hamisi. He loaded up our suitcases (so meagre compared to the other clients who were all cramming themselves and dozens of suitcases into their vehicles) and we hopped into the Toyota Landcruiser Hilux diesel.

We drove out of Arusha, past the local shops and small lumber mills and the general area where a lot of the locals live. It was market day and thus the roads were filled with families all dressed in brightly coloured clothes carrying their wares, tugging along little tethered goats, and pushing carts filled with all sorts of items, as well as the women carrying all those amazing items on their heads.

Children were outside their homes, brushing their teeth and spitting in the ditch, I guess if you have no running water it's a little hard to brush and spit indoors. All these things are the types of things that never occur to you when you are lucky enough to live where we live.

We drove through the military base, which is HUGE, it goes on for miles and miles. They let the Masai live there and graze their cattle there, although parts are left vacant for military exercises. No photo's allowed.

The roads are crowded with people walking to town (or home) waiting for the dalla-dalla at designated stops and even selling charcoal on the side of the road--which they make. They take a large tree, dig a hole and put it in, douse it with kerosene and light it on fire. It's then covered with dirt and smolders for 3 days and then you have charcoal! They fill a huge burlap bag and sell it on the roadside. Quite innovative.

The first animal we saw was a zebra on the edge of the road, unfortunaly crows were snacking on it as it was not much more than a carcass. The crows here have huge white patches on their chests.

We stopped at a small curio/souviner/little food stand place to use the toilet and it was our first experience with the "hole in the ground" type, and a very filthy one it was indeed. The best item we have brought along are the little antiseptic wet wipes. I'm sure they have saved us from many an unusual germ.

It took the promised 2 hours to get to the gates of Lake Manyara national park, the first time that we had an event that was on time. Hamisi paid the entrace fee ($50 for each of us) and in we went. It is very lush, a lot of foliage and green shrubs and trees. Sort of like our forests except the trees are ebony, mahogany, wild palm, wild mango and yellow backed acacia, tamarind (the fruit is used to make a type of porridge that Muslims can eat during Ramadan) and a very strange tree called a sausage tree. It looks like a regular leafy tree other than the hundreds and hundreds of fruits that are dangling from it that look EXACTLY like some prankster has crawled up there and tied bratwurst sausages to every limb. It was hysterical! The locals use the sausage to make alcohol and also for stomach remedies.

The park is 330 sq. km and 220 sq km of that is the lake, so the land area is quite concentrated and has a lot of wildlife in a small area. Of course the lake is way down right now because of the drought and that is good for tourists because other animals from smaller lakes have no water and they are coming to Lake Manyara which still has some. Not good for anyone or anything else though.

Almost the minute we got into the park we saw blue monkeys (they aren't blue though) They were jumping from branch to branch, roughhousing and scampering around. We were totally enthralled. Then, just around the corner were baboons---hundreds of them just wandering down the road like a rag-tag bunch of children. They would walk by the truck and sneak little glances at us out of the corner of their eyes, quickly looking the other way if we made eye contact. There were big ones, small ones, moms with babies on their backs and babies clutching their moms tummies and rowdy "teens". And yes, they had those big red baboon butts! It was like a convoy.

Around the next corner we saw our first giraffe-just standing in the bush twirling his ears. We felt like it was all animatronic and that we were in some sort of Disneyland...

Then we saw banded mongoose and drove to a small swampy area called The Hippo Pool where we saw maribou storks and pelicans (Pelican-his beak can hold more than his belly can) There were these huge grey rocks with some birds on them and imagine our amazement when the rocks shifted and turned into hippopotamus's. (hippopotami?)

We could see animals in the distance that were cape Buffalo and also some wildebeest and we got close enough to get a few good pictures.

The impala are everywhere, and the bucks are massive with beautiful wavy horns, and also there are thousands of gazelles as well. And the zebra are all over the place, grazing just like horses. They, to me, are the most exotic looking animal-all those stripes are stunning.

Hamisi pointed out all these interesting birds as well--guinea fowl with a foolish little top knot that bobbles as they run away and red-billed hornbills that look sort of like a toucan.

We saw a little dik-dik standing as still as a stone, looking just like a miniature deer, maybe 18 inches high. They aren't that easy to spot as they are very, very shy, so we were happy to see this little fellow, with a tiny female behind him..

We stopped for lunch under a huige acacia tree and opened up our box lunch which had Indian food in it; an empanada type of thing filled with spiced meat, a meat pie filled with a different type of meat, some injera bread, a box of juice, a donut and a chocolate bar. It was excellent, eating our lunch overlooking Lake Manyara.

There were some amasingly clean bathroom there, with flush toilets. I couldn't figure out how they possibly could have a flush toilet until I noticed a 5,000 gallon tank on the roof. I assume that a tanker comes in and fills it as needed.

As we continued on we saw elephants! Elephants all over the place! We watched a mother teaching her baby how to kick up dust to take a dust bath and then the baby was nursing afterwards, there were some young males drinking and there were elephants just lumbering along, going about their elephant business. It was very surreal to us, to actually be watching all this, like a national Geographic special come to life in front of us.

We came across more giraffes, eating from the trees, spreading their gangly legs apart to bend over to get a more delictible leaf from below, glancing at us now and then and then blending into the bush as they slowly loped away, looking like they were running in slow motion and tilted to one side almost like they were falling over.

It was really like a scene from Jurassic park, all these huge animals just appearing out of nowhere and I really would not have been too surprised to round a corner and see a brontosaurus standing there, that's how dreamlike today has been.

As we headed out of the park to the hotel we saw a warthog trotting down the road, his tail flicking from side to side. He stopped and looked at us for a second and then vanished into the bush. We had seen a mom and baby earlier, but they were quite a ways away.

Just as we were leaving the park we got a flat tire and poor Hamisi had to change it in the heat, it must have been 35 outside. We got to stand in the shade while he changed it, but he had obviously done it many times before as it only took him minutes. Each vehicle carries 2 spares.

As we left the park we started up this steep and windy road and Hamisis pointed out this huge (HUGE) baobob tree and he pulled over for a second so that we could get a picture and to our amazement a little boy leaped out of nowhere with a chameleon on a stick. I think we were supposed to buy it or give him money to take apicture of it or something, but Hamisi rattled off some Swahili to him and the little guy took off. Where do these kids come from? They must just linger somewhere and hope for a tourist to stop.

We arrived at the hotel about 4 PM--the foyer is large and open, no doors, and they greet you with a cool, damp cloth and fresh orange juice, mmmm. The hotel grounds are green with lots of huge leafy trees to sit under. There are a lot of flowering plants and bushes and even some candleabra trees, which have the trunk of a regular tree but then branches look like a cactus or an aloe plant and point upwards like a....candleabra. There are also magnolia trees in bloom and a swimming pool in the middle of this little Eden. The lobby has couches and chairs to relax in and a large glassed in dining room for the buffet dinner. The entire complex overlooks Lake Manyara. We are at the edge of a cliff, and the lake is below, each room has the same view and it is incomparable.

I cannot believe that this is considered a moderate hotel.