Safari and wedding celebrations start

19th April,

We are now in Moshi (Its Saturday 18th) and fully into wedding preparations. The table plan has been a nightmare, but seems it is now done, and hopefully it will work.

Last night Hilary & Peter (my sister and her husband) came to Honey Badger for a meal and it was lovely to see her and to catch up with everything. Unfortunately when they arrived in Tz their luggage didn’t and so they have had to get what they can from wherever – and this included Sagar & Ruth (Joey’s best man and his wife) sorting through their clothes and a trip into Moshi to buy some things. I believe Hil has had an outfit made for her, and understand that there is quite a story around the purchase. Anyway, they are now off on safari for a couple of days and return to Moshi on Tuesday, when hopefully their luggage will be waiting.

In the meantime, Donald and I have had a wonderful few days on safari ourselves. We hired a car (no driver) and we two set off for Ngorongoro Crater Lodge where we met up with Brenda and Ian (friends from home who are coming to the wedding). The Lodge we stayed at there was amazing, every detail thought of, we had our own butler, the bath was run for us and full of hot soapy water with rose petals around the bath and candles lit – forget the rose petals and candles – HOT SOAPY WATER and A BATH!!!! What bliss! There was a fire lit for us in the evening, and it was an absolutely fabulous lodge to stay in – if anyone of you ever gets the chance then go and visit it, really worth a stay. There were buffalo roaming around the grounds, and you have to be escorted by an askari once it is dark – I actually wouldn’t have minded being escorted during the day light as those buffalo were bloody big! But think they were ‘relatively’ tame, or at least used to people walking around them. They often went under the lodges too – the rooms being in individual round lodges on stilts. They were not bothered about hitting the stilts, I was, as they did bang around (snort and fart a bit too) as well as being covered with flies – but I wasn’t going to argue with them.

Anyway we had a wonderful two days there with B & I. Donald and I went along to Oldupai Gorge – the place where the oldest known skeleton was found. Really interesting and a lovely drive to it from the lodge.

We parted with B&I and they went on to further luxury in tented camps and our accommodation seemed to go downhill from there – having said that it would have been difficult to improve on Crater Lodge. We had two nights at Lake Manyara and drove thro the park, which is lovely. Saw loads of game and wonderful birds – no cats unfortunately, but it is difficult seeing cats when the grass is high (and you have no guide who uses the radio to find out where they are!) Saw loads of elephants and giraffes, which is fabulous and spent time just watching them and taking photo’s of course. There is a wonderful feeling of space here in the parks – the sky seems to be endless and the views are just amazing.
We next went on to Tarangire Park, which is known for its elephants, and boy did we see them. Our room looked onto the park from a ridge (part of the Rift Valley) and we were elephant spotting from there. Also felt a small earth quake – which often happens in the Rift Valley apparently – just the plates moving a bit. Brilliant.

Unfortunately we were bitten to hell there – loads of flies in part of the park, so itching like mad at the moment and taking anti histamine, so a small price to pay – just hope that the bites disappear by the wedding day!

So now we are back in Moshi and getting into wedding mode. The travellers are homing in, just heard that Ad and Helen are in Dubai awaiting a transfer and also just had a text from Dan and Vicky who are in Amsterdam. Hil and Peter, as I said are off on Safari and Mark and Tina and their crew have been in Zanzibar for a bit and are coming to Moshi today and then they are going off on Safari for a few days too.

So that’s a quick catch up
Love to all
J