We only had 160 kms to go to get to
Serengeti today so it was a good breakfast and a slow start for all. After
breakfast I wanted to send my blog that I had finished the night before and
knew they would not be terribly happy about going in to the hotel and using
their Wi-Fi without either eating there
or at least having a cup of coffee. We were in a hurry so I thought I would
just sneak up to their side wall which was next to the campsite and see if I
could quickly send and receive....I knew the code from the day before so it
would just take a minute to log on and nobody would be any the wiser. Well I
was standing right under their open air
bar and coffee shop deck, being very sneaky
and trying to log on when one of the waiters, not knowing I was there,
threw a whole pot of old coffee over the railing and missed my head by about 10
inches. If I had been standing just a foot further to the left I would have
collected the whole pot of old coffee over my nice clean hair.... Serves me
right! So I got the silly BB (Blond Bimbo) of the day award.
We had a bit of a problem as we didn't want to
go into the Serengeti reserve to camp, it is very expensive and even more so
with The Queen. She has huge advantages but huge disadvantages too, at a cost
of $200 per day just for the entrance fee it starts to get scary... Last time
we were up here we stayed outside the park at a little camp called Kijereshi
tented camp and this time we wanted to do the same thing. We remembered that it
was owned by the same guys that owned the Tilapia Hotel so we wanted to ask
them to check if they would allow us to camp there again and to get the correct
directions, so Ernest stopped outside and I ran back into the hotel, got
directions, got them to phone Kijereshi to let them know we were coming and
asked if I could download the blog.... A better way to do it and as I had made
friends with the little receptionist he was totally happy for me to do it....
So off the blog went.
Driving out of Mwanza is an entertainment in
itself, as I said before it is a town of the little traders and markets. You
drive past endless markets with each little trader sitting in front of his pile
of goods, ranging from locally grown watermelons, which are the size of a soccer
ball, to the guys selling phone cards, to the guys selling long poles and
cement. Just dozens of people milling around, doing their shopping and in
between them are the Marabou storks. Neither the birds or the people took any
notice of each other, it is really quite bizarre. They are the ugliest looking
bird you have ever seen and they just walk around pecking at any tiny bits of
rubbish that they can find. The real garbage collectors of the town.
It was a great road from Mwanza so we would soon
be at our destination, we first checked out the campsites on the main road
outside the main entrance to Serengeti to see it they were a better bet, it
looked good but in the end we decided to go for Kijereshi which was a bit
further away and again down a very bad little road, but this time only 14 Kms
away, we felt it was worth the agony of bouncing up and down.
As we were going down this little two track road,
the bush opened out and for the first time in a long while we experience the
beautiful open plains of the Serengeti. It is the most wonderful vista and
completely unique to this area. I could just feel my spirits soar at this
incredible space and it is something that everyone should experience at least
once in their lives. In fact I don't think there is any place on earth to equal
the vast expanse of space that you see with this butter colored grass and the
huge umbrella thorn trees dotted around. Steve was with us in the car and
Ernest stopped the Queen, we got out and took a few photos and got quite emotional
at being back at this wonderful place.
The Kijereshi lodge is situated just outside one
of the small, lesser known side gates to Serengeti and it is owned by the
Indian family that live in Mwanza. I must say it is quite charming but very run
down and obviously does not have a very high occupancy as there was nobody but
us in the lodge. The staff are
absolutely great and were very happy to see us. They offered us their Presidential
suite which was away from the main body of the lodge, we could use the bathroom
facilities and at the same time camp and do our own cooking etc. This was
exactly what we were hoping for and it suited us just fine. The Presidential
suite was however a misnomer as it is very far from a Presidential suite but
then our SA standards are very high compared to Tanzania and Kenya. Satrya Raj, the manager is quite fascinated
with the Queen and all our equipment. He came around to have a look at the
truck and our set up and spent some time looking at all the sauces and spices
that I had in the kitchen saying in a real Indian accent" that is very nice, very nice". He has recently arrived from India on a two
year contract so of course everyone asked him to cook some curry for us... All
except me, as I hate curry but I am aware of the addiction especially when it
comes to my husband, it is nearly as bad as the coffee! He was very willing to do so but it all
turned out to be so complicated as he had no mutton... “Never mind” he said – he would go and buy a sheep from the village
and slaughter it but then we had to buy the whole sheep... All this for some
Indian curry. No, not to worry, we could take the rest with us and at that
point I put my foot down. I could see a whole sheep going into the fridges and
that was more than I could confront. Eventually I said that I would supply some
lamb from our fridge and would give it to him to cook and that seemed to be the
perfect compromise. Anyway it was eventually settled, he would make curry for
us, without slaughtering a sheep and using our own meat. Shew! But he could
only do it the next day as he had to go to town to buy the other stuff needed
for the curry! Oh dear so we settled on me cooking for the night! So the crowd had to settle for a home cooked
meal instead of real Indian curry.
It was still early when we arrived so we were
able to set up camp and then spend the rest of the day at the pool doing some
reading. I just don't know what happens with the time. We seem to have loads of
time but it feels we are busy all the time. Don't come on one of these holidays
if you want time to relax, it just does not ever seem to happen. There is
always something else to be done before you can sit down, we always seem to
have our hands in the water doing either the laundry or the dishes. Maybe we
will have to wait until we get home to relax.
They made a great fire for us in their central
braai area overlooking the plains that we love to look at, we spent yet another
beautiful evening under the stars. Just as we were about to go to bed the
heavens opened and it poured with rain, the first rain we have had on the trip.
It was very fortuitous that it happened here as we had the two bedrooms of the
Presidential suite to sleep in aswell as the lounge where we made up a bed for
Kim. Ernest and I managed to get our pillows out of the tent and into the truck
just before the deluge started, so everybody stayed dry and comfortable for the
night.
Until tomorrow!
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