Tanzania, Africa travel journal – day 6

I am getting closer to this timezone. I woke up at 5:30am. I used that time to charge some more of my electronics, backup my photos and work on a video edition of the podcast (Las Vegas).

We ate breakfast again at the hotel. The porridge made from sorghum was very good, they told us to add sugar but it was plenty sweet with a flavor similar to cream of wheat. Breakfast also included a choice of eggs

(spanish omelet), breads, tea (or coffee and cocoa) and fruit.

We packed up and left at 8:30 for Terengere national park. Terengere is known for its elephants and we saw about a dozen but not as many as we might have seen on the right day. The park was covered with zebra herds in amazing numbers. We also saw water buck, dik dik, wildebeest, mongoose, giraffe, moneys, warthogs, and numerous birds like horn bills and ground horn bills. We ate lunch at the lodge in the park which had a stunning view overlooking the river.

We did not see any leopards although we did see an elk killed by a leopard hanging in a tree. We saw ostriches in the distance while eating lunch. The food was also very good, but sitting on a warm day with a mild breeze and a beautiful view was a highlight.

We stopped on the way back to Arusha at a couple of additional places to shop for crafts as well as at the bank.

For dinner we went to Via Via at the Natural History Museum which is a restaurant owned by a Belgian ex-pat. It was a quick walk from the hotel. I was able to guess the nationality of the proprietor from these clues:

they served Croque Monsieur sandwiches the fries (chips) came with mayo but not ketchup, and they served Flemish beef stew.

Some of us tried the local staple ugali which is made from corn. It has a taste a little like cream of wheat except with less flavor. The chocolate cake for dessert was more popular (although some would have preferred it if it would have had frosting), but the dessert crepes were even better. After dinner we worked to put together the school bags for the kids at Moshi. I helped start the project but then some of us took off to catch up on our email and various other internet tasks. I was on for 2 hours including a call home for me and for Pastor Rick. We used the connection across the street at the New Arusha Hotel. It was cheap ($1 an hour) and they had 7 computers, but it was slow and was dropping one packet in 10 so my email did not finish downloading in 2 hours.