Jer slept fitfully, probably as a result of sleeping so much on the plane, and decided to just get up at 7. Jess had no such problems, and slept soundly until 8. Showers were short and cold (we later discovered the switch for our water heater!), but we were both extremely happy to be clean. Jer limbered up with kung fu while Jess got ready, then we headed off to breakfast. River Trees puts on quite a spread: fresh fruit, pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, coffee, tea and fresh juice.
Once our bellies were full, we met Exaud and Shange at the Land Cruisers and set off for Arusha National Park. We marveled at the views of Mount Meru (the home of Exaud's tribe, the Meru; Shange is a Masai) and Mount Kilimanjaro, before settling in for our first day on safari. The landscape is quite lush and green, in part due to the altitude (the park is nestled in the hills, with the bottom at 6000 ft. above sea level) and also to the short rains, which ended only about a week before we arrived.
Among other things, we saw giraffes, zebra, cape buffalo, warthogs, a hippo (well, its head, the rest was submerged), waterbucks, colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, baboons, lesser flamingos, a hammerkopf stork, grey crowned cranes, an ibis, an egret and some type of hawk. As it is summer in Tanzania, we were lucky enough to spot a number of baby animals (warthogs, baboons, colobus monkeys, waterbucks and cape buffalo). The monkeys were a particular treat, as we got to see them jump from tree to tree right in front of us (and, in one case, over our heads), and we witnessed a brief skirmish between baboons over a preferred seat on a branch.
We stopped for a picnic lunch, and Shange and Exaud put on quite a spread: bread, cheese, tomatoes, cukes, peppers, avocado and chicken, with moleasses oatmeal cookies and local sodas, including ginger ale and tasty ginger beer. It was a very nice respite from driving around on the bumpy, dusty roads.
Around 4 pm, we headed back to River Trees to rest before drinks and dinner. We ended up resting quite a bit more than we had intended, and slept through drinks and the sun setting on Mount Kilimanjaro. We managed to wake up for dinner, which was lovely. We had spinach and feta samosas with wonderful red onion jam, pumpkin cinnamon soup, pork filet in puff pastry with potato croquettes, and a raspberry cream omlette. After dinner, we wandered around the living room of the main house, looking at the owners' old family pictures. Then, we went back to our room to find it had just been sprayed with insect repellent. We decided to hang out on the porch with the geckos for a bit while the spray settled out. Back in the room, we discovered that we were still hanging out with geckos...there was a tiny one inside the mosquito netting on our bed! Jer transferred him to the outside of the netting, then we crawled in and went to bed early.