To Lake Eyasi & Kisima Ngeda Tented Lodge

Today we managed to sleep in until about 6AM, bed at 8PM, guess we are caught up on our sleep now. Barbra gives us a tour of the property, this was her retirement dream but it sure seems like a lot of work to me!  She has quite a few young men helping her, but she says that all the paperwork is a real pain, especially when it involves banks.  Breakfast at the camp, and a box lunch for later and we are off again for the day.

Tent where we ate at Ol Mesara, surrounded by beautiful baobab trees

Drive back to town:

Traffic jam!

We saw these dust storms often

Yesterday Felix told us that we have an opportunity to do a cultural walk in what he calls Mosquito town. We had asked him about visiting a market at some point, and he recommended we do this walk. What a great morning. Different villagers volunteer to guide tourists, the town is about 15,000 people and we spend about 2.5 hours walking around. We start near the town centre, many of the houses/huts are built within the banana plantation/farms. We just walked around and got to visit and talk to whoever we wanted to. The first place we stopped was a small hut with a 25 year old woman with three young children. No one here looks hungry, but it is definitely poverty compared to home. Cooking is done outside in a little pot over the fire, but at night they cook over the fire inside to keep the mosquito’s away. The hut is tiny, one small area for kids to sleep, one for the parents to sleep, and the other where the inside cooking and eating are done. Outside is a small covered lean to where they cook, and another small outhouse. 

 

Many homes are built within the banana plantation

Cooking station inside kitchen



Outdoor Bathroom



Kitchen

Young family inside main structure

Kids loved giving high fives!  This little guy was helping his Mom by doing the dishes

 Everyone we meet today is very friendly, even if most don't speak English. The kids love having their pictures taken, and then you show them what they look like. Lots of high fives from all the kids, of course Andre was carrying on that they were hurting him with their high fives, which brought on lots of smiles and giggles. We also visited with the wood carvers, this is the point of tours that I always hate, the great opportunity to buy. I picked out salad fork and spoon set, and a little picture made out of banana leaves, they wanted $57.00US for these, um no. I told him then that we weren't interested in buying. He then said offer him something, I told him no that I really wasn't interested. Then he said offer him anything that maybe we could deal, so I said $15.00. No way, he wanted at least $25, I said no thanks and we were off.

Wood carvers

Wood carvers from Mozambique, this is in the banana plantation, and the only time we were tried to sell anything

 So off we continue on our tour, walking through different areas of town. Saturday and Sunday are the only days you can buy pork, women bring their pots to the butcher, pick what they want, and cook it on the pits right there and take it home I guess, very interesting. 

It is the week-end, so today you can buy pork at the market

We continue on seeing lots of kids, many ask us for pee pee it sounds like, this turns out to mean sweets, I guess many people are bringing them sweets. We go by every trade you can imagine, old singer sewing machines with people outside working, a man hanging fish to dry, a garage where they are fixing an engine, a bicycle shop, really everything. 

Sardines from Lake Manyara hanging to dry

More high fives, the kids loved this!

Two men come up to us on a motor cycle and I realize it is the guy with our fork, spoon and banana leaf, he decided he wanted us to leave happy and would sell us it for $15, can you imagine! I was really not playing hard to get, I am worried we won't even be allowed to take the wood back into Canada, we'll see how that goes. We end our tour going through the local market. Lots of fruits and vegetables, many small mom and pop stalls it seems like. This is the part of cultural tours we both love, seeing how the day to day life really works. Lots of bikes loaded down with their purchases, great fun.

This was a tough stir, they said it needed to be stirred for 3 hours

Following the tour we dive about 55 km down this crazy dusty rutted road to our home for tonight. We arrive at this beautiful oasis on Lake Eyasi called Kisima Ngeda Tented lodge. Because there is so much water here everything is beautiful lush and green. We brought our box lunches and had lunch at the bar, we have just had a very refreshing swim in the pool.  They have also offered to do any laundry we want, they did not charge here as they have so much water.

Drive to Lake Eyasi, so dusty, not an extra spot on this jeep!

I like this picture too, notice the dust storm in the background, this is at about 3PM

In about an hour we are being picked up again for a tour of a blacksmiths tribe. 

Sacred Ibis

Again beautiful view at Lake Eyasi, but the water is very far out, but this does give you a chance to walk around

Our tent at Lake Eyasi - Kisima Hgeda Tented Lodge

Really enjoyed our time at the refreshing pool here, it was so HOT outside!

Catching up on the writing the blog

Hadada Ibis

Beautiful setting for a fire

Another 30 minutes ride over dirt road to go see the datoga tribe. The ladies were all dressed in fancy outfits which I am sure will be taken off as soon as we leave. First the women demonstrated how to make corm flour. Wendy got to try to do it.

Wendy helping out making corn flour

 After we watch the blacksmith make bracelets and arrow heads. We bought a bracelet for a souvenir. 

Making a bracelet or arrowhead

After we got a sing and dance show.

Song and dance by Datogo tribe

We were served a very lovely supper. Zucchini soup, filet mignon and banana with chocolate sauce.

Tomorrow morning we are off hunting at 6M. Internet is decent here, we were able to post a couple of pictures from our amazing day yesterday, some butt pictures for Liam as well.