Mikumi to Iringa (Thursday, July 23)

Again this morning we went out in our safari trucks into Mikumi National Park, looking for giraffe to immobilize for Dr. Lyaruu's study (and so that group B could get some experience). We saw a few by the sides of the highway on the way in, and a few in the park near park headquarters where we were the previous day, but none that presented a good enough target. Being a cooler morning, Titus thought that the giraffes might have been lingering longer in the hills on the northeast side of the park before venturing into the main area where we were.

Me and Jenny in the Rover, looking for twiga

We drove up into these hills, the Vuma Hills area, and only saw a few animals. The terrain was much steeper, and covered in the miombo forest that is renowned for breeding infestations of tse-tse flies. True to its reputation, as we climbed further into the hills, the flies started to invade our van. Fortunately, the sleeping sickness that they carry is really rare, but we still tried to avoid getting bitten, and kill the flies we saw. The forest around the road looked like it was recently burned, and the trees that we saw close enough didn't seem to have any leaves for the giraffes to browse on. After almost an hour of driving up into the hills, we'd only seen one small group of giraffes, at the very beginning, so we turned around.

Desolation, not giraffes, in the Vuma Hills

The rest of our drive proved fruitless for group B, although Titus did attempt one darting at the end of the day, but misfired and hit the hoof. With a five hour drive ahead of us to Iringa after packing up our rooms at Tan-Swiss, we decided to call it a day around noon.

Acacia tree in the Vuma Hills

The drive to Iringa took us up and over the Udzungwa Mountains and the beautiful baobab valleys in their midst. The road was well traveled, and we saw two overturned eighteen wheelers with their drivers lounging in the shade of their cargo, waiting for some help to arrive.

Men hanging around playing pool in a village on the way to Iringa

The houses and villages were few and far between through the mountains, but as we descended the other side the villages picked up again, and we saw lots of onion and corn fields, and cows and goats being herded home for the night.

A candelabra euphorbium in the hills outside Iringa

We arrived at Riverside Campsite around dinner time and had time to drop our things in our rooms (and tents) before dinner. I am sharing a stone banda--a small two-room house with electricity and running water, with four other girls, so its definitely a tight squeeze. There were two open tents in the camping area, but they went to two groups of the boys since they couldn't pack them in so tightly to the two stone bandas. Hopefully tomorrow night more tents will open up so I can sleep under the stars in the field by the Little Ruaha River.