Elephant Caves and Happy Days

Non-program day! We finally had a day off to relax! The morning started off great with breakfast being at 8:30 instead of 7:30. I still had to wake up at 7:30 because I was on cook crew, but it was much better than having to get up at 6:30. After breakfast we had to pack our lunch since we’d be gone all day. We headed over to the elephant caves to take a hike and see a waterfall near by. It was a moderate hike but it was really interesting to see the caves that the elephants create. It’s a clay hillside that the elephants carve out and eat the dirt because of the nutrients found in it. Other animals, such as baboons and buffalo come and eat the dirt also after the elephants carve it out. We then saw a waterfall looking over the valley. The view was amazing and not like anything I expected to see in Africa! It was more like a South American rainforest. After our hike we ate our pack lunch near the start of the trail. We then headed to a large curio (shop) on the side of the road that had a lot carvings and it also has tanzanite jewelry. Tanzanite is pretty rare and only mined in one spot in Tanzania. It was all really pretty but it was pretty expensive and I’m terrible at bargaining, so I didn’t purchase anything. We then headed to Karatu to shop around but after stopping at a few fabric stores, I decided to grab a beer with a couple of other students instead of continuing to shop. The whole group then headed to Happy Days, a bar owned by a British couple. I ordered a pizza and it was nice to eat something besides our usual selection. Everyone had fun letting loose and having a few drinks to celebrate one of the girls’ 21^st birthday tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll have to work on our research paper all day, but it was nice to finally have a day just to relax and enjoy Tanzania.