We packed up Friday afternoon and headed into town to the bus station. In order to get to Saadani, you have to travel to Pangani and hire a jeep to drive you to the reserve. If you remember, the road to Pangani is unbelievably uncomfortable. We were on a big bus this time instead of a van, so I had my hopes up that a larger vehicle would mean a smoother, more pleasant ride. Oh boy could I have been more wrong. This bus ride was the worst experience I have ever had in a moving vehicle. After sweating in the bus for 45 minutes waiting for the bus to leave the station, we finally pulled out of the station. It wasn't even ten minutes before the three hour ride of doom began. We pulled onto the road, if that's what you would like to call it, an immediately began shaking in our seats. It's more like a path of large rocks made to look like a road. My stomach was in my throat the entire ride because of the constant movement of the bus. I think I may have lost some hearing as well from the incredibly obnoxious rattling of the glass windows.
Remember when I spoke of how they fill vans to capacity...and then some? Well they apparently do the same with big busses too. There were about 30 people crammed into the aisles as they stood trying to keep their balance through the horror. Halfway through the people in the aisle left the bus when we stopped at a small village. I had been accumulating sweat in some uncomfortable places so I decided to stand..which turned out to be a bad idea. I had to hold on to the sides of the bus for dear life. My feet went numb from the constant vibration of going over the rocks in the road.
After the three hour ride of doom, we finally pulled into Pangani and met Mr. Hot Hot. Mr. Hot Hot is the tour guide that took us on the Pangani River last week. We had him arrange our safari to Saadani for the weekend. After going over some final details, he took us to our hostel for the night. I usually get excited for weekend trips because that means I get to take a hot shower. However, the hostel did not have hot water, but I could not have been happier taking a cold shower after all the sweating I had done.
The next morning we were supposed to leave at 8 am, which meant we need to get up at 6:30 to have breakfast at 7. I somehow must have accidentally pushed the wrong button on my alarm clock because I woke up at 5:30 am. I went to wake Chloe up, and much to my disappointment, she informed me that it was only 5:30. We tried going back to sleep for an hour, but failed. So, we decided to get up and walk along the beach and watch the sun rise. I have seen the sun rise more times in Africa than I have ever seen back home in Nebraska.
After watching the sun rise and eating breakfast we met up with Mr. Hot Hot and began our two hour drive to the nature reserve. For some reason, only the road from Tanga to Pangani is awful, because our drive from Pangani to Saadani was relatively nice. The minute we drove through the gate my eye were glued to the window looking for my first African animal. We continued driving through the reserve until we reached a little village. I was not aware that people actually lived in the reserve with wild animals roaming around wherever they please. But, after filling out some more paperwork, Mr. Hot Hot took us to our hostel along the beach.Chloe and I had a few hours to spend on the beach before we began our game drive. I must be a bad judge of how much sun exposure I receive because I got a little too much sun once again. Finally, at 4 pm, Mr. Hot Hot picked us up with a safari guide and we headed out into the wild.
It wasn't even ten minutes before we spotted our first animals...a family of giraffes. They walked across the road as we slowly drove by watching them reach for the leaves at the tops of the trees. We continued driving and saw several types of deer prancing through the bushes. We also saw heart beast, which look like large deer. They are called heart beasts because the males have antlers that resemble the shape of a heart. We also saw many different types of birds flying in the flocks over the plains. As we headed back to our hostel, we saw several more families of giraffes grazing among the trees.
Mr. Hot Hot gave us a couple hours before coming back to pick us for dinner in the village. I mentioned before how power outages and internet outages are very frequent around here. The internet stopped working on Thursday and then the power went out on Friday. Needless to say, Chloe and I really wanted to check our emails, so we came up with a plan to walk down the beach to a lodge that had internet access for its guests and borrow some WiFi. We got to the lodge and just as we were checking the WiFi connection the receptionist asked if we needed anything. So, I said we were looking for the bar. He took us far from the reception area with WiFi-mission failed. However, Chloe and I sat at the bar and ordered a cold drink instead. We started talking with the staff and learning about their jobs in Saadani. Another gentleman sat down next to us, so I asked him where he was from. He was from Greece, but he was the manager of another lodge nearby. He began telling us the most fascinating story about his four-year travel around the world. He and his wife spent four years traveling around the world writing stories for magazines about his travels. He had quite the adventure.After 45 minutes into our conversation, Chloe and I needed to get back to the hostel so Mr. Hot Hot could take us to dinner. As walked along the beach in total darkness, I remembered that animals often come to the beach at night. I of course started getting worried because lions hunt at night. We were also told that a gunman patrols the beach for the safety of the guests. Really comforting to know when you are alone and can't see anything on the beach. Chloe and I are pretty sure we heard a rather large something moving in the bushes, but we didn't stick around to find out. We made it back safely just in time for Mr. Hot Hot and the drive to pick us up. As we were leaving the hostel the driver slammed on his brakes and pointed out into the bushes ahead. Mr. Hot Hot and the driver began speaking in swahili, but I heard him say the word "simba," which means lion. I got super excited and searching for glowing eyes in the bushes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. When the driver backed up and pointed the headlights on the animal, it was a rabbit. How anticlimactic. I wanted to inform the driver that rabbits are a very common animal in America and it is not necessary to point them out...but I didn't. We had a delicious meal of rice and chicken in the village. We were then dropped back off at the hostel to get some rest for our early morning game drive.
This time we were actually supposed to get up at 5:30 am so we could start our game drive at 6 am. As the sun rose, we drove through the reserve watching the animals. We saw many of the same animals-giraffes, hornbills, deer, heart beasts, and many birds. The safari guide told us that Saadani has four of the big five animals, which are lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos, and water buffalo. Only rhinos are not found in the park. However, I'm not sure how convinced I am that the other animals can be found here either.
After our morning game drive, we headed to the southern boundary of the park to the Wami River for a river boat tour. We were told this is the river to come to if you want to see hippos and crocodiles, and it did not disappoint. As we turned the first bend, we saw these heads popping out of the water looking at us. As we got closer to the hippos, they disappeared into the murky waters. We continued around the second bend and again, there was another bloat of hippos. Hippos are the number one killer of people in Africa. Don't let the large, slow moving body, or their shyness fool you. Hippos are very fearful creatures, so they seek refuge in the water whenever they sense danger. However, if anything gets in the way of a hippo and the water, it's a goner.
We stopped for breakfast on a sandbar on the river. As I got out to explore the sandbar, which had two hippos in the water right next to the sandbar, I scared a crocodile into the water. I can be pretty intimidating. So, we dined on the sandbar surrounded by crocodiles and hippos. Pretty awesome way to dine.
We continued up the river after breakfast. I was getting tired of only getting pictures of the head of the hippos from a distance. That all changed as we turned another bend and saw five hippos basking in the sun on a sandbar. Like I said, they are very fearful, so the minute they saw us coming they began to make their water to the water. We watched them from 30 feet away was they one by one plopped into the water. It was quite an exciting experience.We turned around and made our way back down the river and passed the bloats of hippos and the crocodiles basking in the sun. Spending the morning with the crocodiles and hippos certainly made up for not finding an elephant.
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