Tea at the Dentist’s Office – Day 10 (Hanga to Mikumi)

We got up early on Sunday to go to mass.  It begins at 7:00, but we heard stories that the "comfortable" pews go quickly, and that you do not want to sit for an hour in the other ones.  I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but we did get the good pews and they were still uncomfortable as hell.  I hate to think what the others were like.  Mass was sort of required because the monks arranged the message around our visit there. To give props where they’re due, Peter, one of the students, was the first one up and ready to go.  The church is just a short walk from our guesthouse, so we were there in plenty of time, and in fact, the monks had reserved a couple rows of good pews for us.  Right in front.  Nothing like a little spotlight for ya.

Mass was in Swahili, but was otherwise beautiful and unremarkable, except for the fact that they made Brian get up and speak again. Which I enjoyed.  Since it wasn’t me.  From mass to breakfast.  

The idea for this day was to shove breakfast and mass in as shortly as we could, and hit the road for our longest day of travel back toward the coast.  We planned to get 2/3 of the way there and sl;eep just outside the game preserve so we could get an early start on our safari the following morning.  We shoveled breakfast in as fast as we could, and boarded the bus.  We were on the road by 9:20.  A little late, but not bad at all by Tanzanian standards.

Things I noticed this time around as we traveled:

• Lots of mountins.  It was dark for much of the drive westward, so I hadn’t been able to see the extent of the mountains, but they were amazing.

• The driver littering.   Every once in a while he would open his window and drop a water bottle out.  We had hundreds in the bus and there were a lot of empties, so I see why he wanted to get rid of them, but I hadn’t expected him to toss them on the road.  I was upset for a minute, but then I noticed that he was dropping them after he drove past children, and that the kids were scooping them up and taking them to be recycled for a little money.

• Driving over a little possum-y thing.

We stopped for a late tea-time/lunch in some village where Cassian said The Sisters had a room, which turned out to be a small courtyard behind a makeshift dentist’s office.  Eesh, I was glad I didn’t have a toothache.  Still, my stomach had recovered, the food was delish, and we enjoyed the break from the road.  The Sister running the place was one of the very friendly ones we had met upon arriving in Dar, so it was very nice to see her again.

The total travel time for the day ended up being 11 hours, which was an hour less than I expected, thankfully.  We stayed the night in a bar/lodge just outside the game preserve as planned.  We were planning to leave at 6:30 the following morning to be in the park just after dawn.

Nine boys and Brian stayed in the main area of the “resort” near the bar, and 2 boys, Cassian, the drivers, and I stayed “a little ways up the hill”.  I made plans with Brian to come back down for a beer after the boys got settled into their rooms, and headed off to find mine.  However, "a little ways up the hill" turned out to be about a half mile up a completely unlit hill in a little house-thingie.  That was fine, except I’d hoped to taste the local spirits, and we were a little far.  I thought it over for a minute and decided there was no way.  I was not sufficiently interested in drinking that i was about to walk all the way back down there in the dark.

I’ve had to man up a lot on this trip, but I was not going to walk a half mile, through the woods, in the pitch black, in in rural Africa, in a game preserve, where lions and rhinos roam free.  Call me a sissy if you like.

The house-thingie was hysterical though.  it had a kitchen, but no stove.  it had showers, but they didn't work.  it had post-modern 80's style black velour couches with smashing gold trim and glass tables in the living room, and amazing zebra striped sheets on the crappy bed with the foam mattress.  it had fluorescent lights that had a purple hue to them, making me wish i had some Huey Lewis albums and a members only jacket (kids, ask your mom & dad what those are)...