Last Day of Safari

1/24/2016

Today is Day 2 of our Safari at the Ruaha national park. i was woken up by the very polite staff member of the Mwagusi Lodge who stood outside our tent with coffee and tea and softly kept repeating "Helloooo, Hellooooo!"  It was definitely not hard to wake up when you are waking up to the beautiful Banda of the lodge and a guaranteed hot shower. Plan for the day was to have one last game drive on our way out of Ruaha national park and head back to Ilula.

We started off with a delicious breakfast and then quickly headed out on our game drive, our guides Vincent and Godfrey asked us what we wanted to see today and we all agreed that male lions was a must before we left. Sure enough we saw a male lion with his pride! One male lion with about 5 females, all feasting on an elephant carcass. Saw lots of giraffes, elephants, and even hippos as our last sighting before actually exiting the park. After a delicious lunch we get back up with Abu our driver and started the long bus ride back to Ilula.

After a long day of game driving in the sun we were all looking forward to falling asleep on the bus although to everyone's disappointment the ride was very bumpy and even if we did fall asleep we were quickly jolted out of sleep every time the bus passed over a rock. The trip was supposed to be about 3 hours to Iringa and then about 2.5 hours back to Ilula. Just about 30 minutes from Iringa our bus came to halt as it was trying to go up a very steep hill. There was a lot of waiting on the side of the road, trying to push the bus, and praying. Finally 2 hours later, poor Abu with the help of a couple of locals got the bus up an running and we made it safely to Ilula by 9 PM hungry and tired from the long journey.

After a delicious dinner prepared by Ana we fell asleep with plans of waking up nice and early for a morning run, and getting back to reality of wards after an unreal couple of days at Ruaha. 

P.S. Due to internet problems submitting this late entry!!