Day 13 Selous Last day :(

Sad that our last day is here for safari.  Exciting morning this morning though because the monkeys slept in the trees above our tent last night, so we woke up this morning to them coming by for a visit again.  So many elephants go by again at breakfast this morning again, we think they have come to say goodbye.  One reason I am happy to be leaving is when I pick up my bag there is a huge spider hiding under it, yuck, it can stay in Africa, I’m not bringing that back to Canada.  The cute monkeys that came down from the trees above us this morning also caused a little problem with our jeep.  Kamkumba our driver was early to pick us up and talking to the Masai then we see him take off running, a monkey was in the jeep helping himself to our boxed lunch! 

Good morning monkey visiting our tent this AM

Using the tent next to us as a trampoline as well

Climbing down our tent

This was waiting for me when I lifted up my bag, it did not come home with us (I hope)

 

We are trying to get a video of the Lilac breasted roller bird, but I don't think I am nearly quick enough on the phone.  We have about 5 hours of game drive to do today, and we are pretty quick to check off all of the animals that we want to say goodbye to, so may came to see us off.   So many giraffe, I think we travelled along giraffe highway, tried for a few videos, but not sure how well they turned out. 

European Roller

Savannah Lizard

Lilac Breasted Roller

Finally a decent picture of the lilac breasted roller in flight, equally as beautiful in flight!

African Hawk Eagle

African Hawk Eagle kill

Love this picture, exactly how I picture Selous, if you like giraffes and impala this is a must visit area

Almost like a giraffe highway today

As we get closer to the airport we are all getting a little sad and think the guides are just driving us around a little to kill some time as we are still quite early, but you never know what you will find!  We are going through an area not too far from the main road, we can see jeeps heading to the airstrip, but we are in the bush a little.  We are about 10 minutes from the airport and surprise, Nancy spots the pack of 8 wild dogs again.  Such a fitting ending, we were greeted by the dogs when we arrived, and now they are here to say good-bye to us.  We are about 15 km from where we saw them earlier in the week, it is really lucky for us to see them again, really much like looking for a needle in a haystack!  While at the dogs we see a plane fly over heading to land, we know we now must move on, even though the plane is 30 minutes early.  One more note about this dog pack, from day one we were told it was a pack of 9 dogs, sadly each time we have seen them there have only been 8. 

Amazing that we find the dogs one more time!

 

We have now taken the 35 minute flight from Selous to Dar, we are very happy there were no stops this time, so only once up and down, so neither Ron or I were green this time.   I think it was the female pilot that made it a much smoother trip for us :)  We have been picked up at the domestic airport by the same hotel that we stayed at first night.  We have a few hours to kill, had planned on doing a little city tour, but we are all so tired and it is so hot decided to just go by the hotel and relax. The hotel is also going to feed us supper, could be quite the surprise.   Wifi is not so good, so we have not been able to do much there, except put on facebook that we are safely out of the bush.  Our flight tonight leaves just before midnight, Ron and Nancy have successfully checked in, Andre and I don't even see our flight online urgh, we'll see what happens when we get to the airport.  Off for showers after spending the morning on safari, and sweating a lot, then 20 hours of flights to go and we will be home.

I like the animal under the tree. Buffalo?

Not too much head room in these planes if you are over 6 feet

DAR from the air, so many blue roofs

The 4 of us are sharing the same 3 bedroom room that Andre and I had the first night.  Lots of room to spread out and get our bags organized for the trip home.  It is Saturday and this hotel sells passes to locals for day use of the pool and grounds.  I don't think you could have paid me to use the pool.  Maybe it would have been fine, but the colour is just something we had never seen.  There are some guys shooting baskets, Ron decides to join in after he has had his shower, not a wise choice, another shower needed.  The music is playing, and everyone is having a good time.  A wedding party comes by while we are having dinner to get their pictures done in the gardens, what entertainment!  Dinner was chicken, lots of potatoes, and 3 little dishes of veggies each.  One of the veggies was eggplant, another some kind of spinach, and no idea what the 3rd was.  First off we were brought a bowl of water with a bowl with flower petals and a pitcher for us to wash our hands, we didn't even get that at our fancy camp in Ruaha lol. 

Great form Ron?  Even gym equipment in the back, can't imagine using it in this heat

This guy was taping them throwing baskets

Ducks and chickens at our hotel, not sure if we had one for supper

Getting ready for wedding pictures

Kitchen for pool area

This family wanted Nancy to hold their baby so they could take a picture

We've seen these sandals before, but not decorated like this

Supper is served

Drive to the airport, market still open at night

The end, I think Ron has 50 pairs of readers, this is his new trend...

Because of us not being able to see our flights online to check in we decide we better get to the airport even earlier than recommended.  There is a traffic jam at exactly the same spot when we leave as we had the other morning, no panic as we are now experienced with this and know it won't take long for it to clear up.  There are traffic lights here, but police are at this intersection and do a fairly quick clean up of the traffic.  We are at the Swiss counter about 30 minutes before the counter even opens, we are first in line, and surprise we are taken off to the side when the rep does arrive.  Our return flight in their system shows Zurich, Toronto, Moncton.  No idea how they thought we were going to get to Zurich.  It takes about 1 hour for them to sort it out, they had to call a ticketing office somewhere, but all was sorted fine in the end.  Standing in line for 1 hour means you see lots of people checking in.  Least favourite site are 2 hunters that are checking in their guns and ammunition.  We heard from different people on safari that the hunting licenses have now been pulled in Tanzania, wondering if this is really true, certainly hope so. 

A couple more fun things re security on the way home.  In DAR Ron is pulled out of security line as he has 3 little stones in his carry on, they asked him where he got them from.  He turns to me and asks me where he got them, how am I supposed to know lol.  He told security they are not diamonds, security had a laugh and let him go.  Then in Zurich Ron again is pulled out as he has none of his liquids in the little plastic bags they have, he told security he didn't think he had any liquids, then security started pulling out one thing after another saying this is liquid.  The entire line is now informed to take out your liquids.  Good for a laugh.


Back in Moncton, we have left our car at Ron & Nancys, luckily it is +13 so not as bad of a shocker for the weather as it could be.  We have had an amazing trip, and fun reliving it as we put this blog together.  

Final Thoughts:
Another amazing safari, and I don't think we would change much if anything at all if we had it all to do over again.  We tried to take advantage of every option we had as far as safaris go and it did not disappoint.  It would have been nice to visit a village somewhere along the line, but it is hard to build this into a southern visit.  Ruaha and Selous are a great combination, they are so different, yet so close together if using the flying option.  North vs South, both were simply amazing.  We loved the south due to much less visitors and the different style of jeep, but we also loved our experience in the North 4 years ago.  It was also a lot of fun sharing the experience with great friends.  I'm not sure it would have worked so well in the North, but it was fabulous in the South to share.  I think we were just spoiled in the North with only 2 in the smaller jeep, 4 in the jeep in the South was no problem at all.   Can't wait for our next safari, who knows where it will be to next time, but it is going to be tough if we try another country for them to make us feel as welcome as the Tanzanians do...