March 20, 2025

Namiri Plaines Camp, Bariadi, Tanzania

Happy Birthday Grace! 18 Years!

There is a low fog hanging over the Serengeti this morning. It is cool outside as we walk to breakfast in the main lodge. Wanda made me a cappuccino this morning – not bad at all, or perhaps it has been a long time since my last one.

After a quick breakfast we head out to the Land Cruiser to meet Alessandro and begin our game drive. We look out over the Serengeti and see nothing except gas’s and a few trees. He sees all types of activity and animals.

He shows to elephants, fairly east to spot, giraffes, zebras, impalas, wildebeests, African buffalo and then spots a cheetah with four cubs. We sit with a couple other vehicles and watch them for nearly and hour. Mama is looking for breakfast for her brood. We look, even with the field glasses, and see nothing. Alessandro is able to spot a herd of gazelles in the distance.

Apparently Mama sees them as well, but she didn’t consider it an easy opportunity. After observing her and the cub for a while we head back to the camp. Along the way we see a troop of baboons playing in the trees.

Bank at camp we clean up and Mary heads to the spa for an African wood massage. An African wood massage uses heated wood rolled across the skin to penetrate the deeper layers of the muscle tissue. Shea butter is used to nourish the skin. All of this is supposed to leave you feeling relaxed and your skin regenerated.

She returns an hour and a half later looking quite refreshed. We go off to lunch in the main lodge. My lunch is cut short because I have Nanyuki Hot stone pedicure at 14:00. This was followed by an African wood massage at 14:30. Both where wonderful. I finished up at 16:00 and headed back to the tent.

At lunch, the main lodge, we saw a beautiful lizard. It is called the Red-Headed Agama Rock lizard. We have seen two other lizards near the camp but they weren’t nearly as beautiful - they were the common agama. Aprently they were introduced to Florida in the late 1970’s as part of the pet trade. Now they are an invasive pest.

At 18:00 we headed over to the lodge to play cards and have dinner. It has been a beautiful and relaxing day. We get back to the tent a little after it had gone 20:00. Mary played word on her phone and I worked on uploading photos to the blog. It take a long time to upload a single photo. It had gone 22:00 before I knew it, then it was off to bed.

Dinner was chicken and lamb curry, rice, beans, vegetable and salad.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria