November 19 - Travel to Ruaha and Tandala Tented Camp

 We left at 7:30 after breakfast.  Tan Swiss Lodge packed us a lunch for on the way.  We went through lots of mountains and it was just like we were a train with transport trucks.  Mostly we drove no faster than walking speed. We had paved roads until just after the large City of Iringa.  We stopped there to fill up with fuel and to go to a bank.  Then the gravel roads started.  You would not believe the roads!  We bumped and shimmied our way along, even tapping the bum of a Maasi cow that was on the road.  Shortly after that we stopped for lunch in a farmer's field.  A goat herd, herder and dog walked through the field and we shared some lunch with him.  We also brought food to the farm family across the road.

We finally arived at Tandala at 3:30 p.m.  It's unbelievable how long it takes to drive 320 km.  It said on google maps that it would take 3 1/2 hrs.  

Here we all have a tent 8 feet off the ground with a bathroon on the back and a large deck on the front.  The deck has 2 very comfortable chairs and a coffee table.  We have to look carefully from our deck before we come down in the daylight and at night we may not walk around at all unless we are accompanied by one of the maasai.  They spot us quickly when we need to go somewhere and come to walk with us.  

We have 2 single beds in our room as well as a set of shelves, a desk and chair, and a cedar chest.  The linens are crisp and beautiful.  Ours have elephants on them.  We have lots of screened windows and at night they roll the covers down for privacy.  We rolled them right back up again once we had our pjs on as it was still very warm.  

We swam in the pool after unpacking and then returned to our room to change for supper and read for a while on our deck.

There is a man-made water hole here in camp, that we can see from the bar/lounge and many animals come all the time to drink.  We had several giraffes and about 17 elephants before supper.  

We had a beautiful supper outside in the centre of the pool, bar and kitchen at a super long table with very comfortable chairs.  The moon was full when it peeked out from behind the clouds.  

Off to bed.  Around 2 it really cooled off and we got under our sheets and blankets.  We slept quite well listening to the stillness all around us and quite a few animal sounds.  
















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