Mwali

We are romanticised by the idea of entering Udzungwa Mountains national park from the north-west at Msosa campsite. But our attempts to access the village by car are not successful because of our road turning out to be washed away after a few kilometres. Only motorbikes are able to continue here! As night is approaching we do not have much time left to improvise or search for a detour and thus we come back to our backup plan of checking in on the nearby Crocodile Camp right between the main road and Great Ruaha river. This option turns out to be not too bad even with the road's noise in the background. We are welcomed by friendly staff with a bonfire under a Baobab tree with direct view of the river from our car parking spot. We relax and have a glass of wine while I pan-bake pita bread on the fire for dinner and breakfast.

At night, the river dries out and loudly roaring crocodiles come up the river bank to search for us! Luckily, we manage to survive when Franziska wakes up from yet another of her crazy dreams. We enjoy a veeeery lazy morning with sun on our noses, watching green bee-eaters bathing in the fast-flowing river water and drying their feathers on the trees above us. Also, different weavers and greyish-brown, noisy parrots are around. While we are distorted by a morning workout session, vervet monkeys approach our camp unnoticedly and steal my tasty pan-baked pitas from the breakfast table! All of them 😠! To our relief, the camp owner sells us freshly baked bread rolls as compensation shortly after. Was she the one setting these monkeys on us?? 😛Read more