parque nacional da gorongosa

So until now, no sight of elephants, or lions for that matter... none whatsoever... where were these beasts? Weren't they supposed to just walk around amongst humans all over Africa? It's not like they can hide, can they??

After arriving at Gorongosa National Park, already after dark even though it were only 5pm... my goodness can night be dark in Africa... we ate and went into our cabin, but because after 9pm the park shuts off its generator, lights must be out, so all you can really do is either be inside sleeping, or outside looking at that amazing sky. It's hard to take pictures of such a sky, but I guess that's what and african sky must be like, it's only for those who look up and stay there staring... for those who take time to try to count how many stars there are, because here there are a lot more, so much more, you don't know from which to start wishing.

It tooks us about 20minutes to realise that we were still there, standing in the darkness, with our necks hurting from looking up... we were speechless, tired, exhausted, and speechless. no words in my vocabulary could start describing it... and the most beautiful thing of all was remembering something my daddy use to always tell us to make us confused "girls, the moon in Africa is always smiling!"

Again, he wins... the moon smiles every single night. It stays there for hours on end with the biggest smile... he was right, he was lucky to have seen it for so long... he was able to make us jeaulous, but I was able to see it for myself.

Life at the Gorongonsa starts early... be it because you sleep so early with the lights out, or be it because those freaky monkeys wake you up with their wild parties right at around 4am... you know... I thing I like them better in the zoo!

They tell us not to feed the animals that might come near the cabins... and I thought monkeys would only come for food if they were taught to get it from humans... not really, it's in their instinct to smile and do funny-monkey things to steal food from you... so in reality, in the zoo, when they steal stuff from your hand it's not a trick they've learned from the zoo keeper... it's in their blood!
Anyway... enough about monkeys. We decided to do our first SAFARI. Yeah... I never thought I'd do such a thing, kind of makes me feel ridiculous sitting in a jeep with a lot of people trying to spot animals... all I wanted was to see an actual elephant.
The jeep was empty, just Jonathan the driver, a blond blue-eyed Zimbabweian, me and A.T. It looked even more weird to be in such a big "car" where you basically jumped from side to side whenever you drove through a tough road... ALWAYS!
We saw a lot of birds, Joanathan tried, but sorry birds aren't really my thing, but I did spot a lot of different ones, sometimes I did it on my own... nevertheless I was just looking for elephants. Bambis were also all around us, they get scared of turists, so out of the 200 I saw I was only able to photograph about 90.
Also Pumbas (well it's not my fault you haven't seen "the lion king", just the best walt disney old-fashioned movie ever) were following us, also scared of turists, but I was able to photograph them more... but boy, are these creatures UGLY!!!! really, besides being actually of a dark gray color, with long rat-hair, they also walk around with dry mud all over their bodies to capture the bugs that live on them... they also run like girls shaking their hair out of their eyes, and they should go to a dentist... really, such a dissapointment... I really thought I would get an autograph from the Pumba in the movie, but I was glad we were far away.

Crocodiles... yes, I did see one... well I saw one, and then next to it I saw another pair of eyes, which probably would mean there was another one next to it, but because I'm really scared of crocodiles, I like to think it was just 1.
Monkeys, of course... so many it was almost too much, I made a few movies, and really these animal are very funny at times... there were a lot of mommies with tiny babies on their backs. good to know they're keeping themselves busy out here.

Lions? none
Giraffes? not even one
Buffalos? there aren't any yet
Hippos? ...
Zebras? do they actually exist?

"...I really just came for the elephants. Jonathan could you please call one to show up just for the picture, really it's a bit embarassing going back to europe and having no pictures of my favorite big animal...
by the way, what's that gigantic hole in the ground, has there been a meteor shower here lately??? ah ah ah ah"
"that is an elephant footprint"

"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH RUUUUUNNNNNN!"

Ok so I panicked, you should've seen the size of that thing, I don't care if I never see an elephant, I'll just tell my kids the only elephant they should see is Dumbo.
...a few days amongst the wild creatures of Africa. So all I actually got to see to be proud of, were 2, I mean 1 crocodile and too many monkeys for 1 human being... and a giant Dumbo footprint.
Not bad. I guess it takes 2 trips to Gorongosa to see more.
The Carr Foundation is making sure anyone who ever visits this beautiful place will one day see what they always dreamed of seeing, the real wild life of Africa. They have 30 years to do it, we have all our lifes to make it happen, and why not even help them. Just going there and learning of the amazing work they're doing already helps so much.
Plus, the 1rst class treatment you get at the CHITENGO lodge, is worth all the rest, such as monkeys in your front yard, Pumba's breaking through the fence of the lodge pool and the funny flat tire I found on my jeep the morning I had to drive 600kms to Vilanculos.

I guess in Mozambique, you can't really predict too much, we wanted to leave at 5am, we ended up leaving at 8am... I didn't even have to sweat and lift a finger (which just basically means I still can't change a tire, I'm one of the best woman-driver parking ;), but don't ask to change a tire... I didn't even see it was flat!), there were about 6 men doing it for me.
Ah the beauty of holidays!!!

...little did I know that holidays sometimes have very non-beautiful moments... i'll see you in Vilanculos.