Amy had severe stomach pains and was unable to sleep much of the night and was unable to wake me as I slept right through it. This morning she was feeling much better so we decided to go ahead with our last day of safari - off to Arusha National Park! Just to go along with the rest of the safari's theme the car was 45 minutes late picking us up. The drive to the park was half over a nice paved road (east towards Moshi), and half on very rough dirt track (north towards the park). The drive was pleasant passing through incredibly green fields of coffee, corn, and others carved out of the dense forest.
Driving along the boundary of the park we saw a small herd of buffalo, zebra, warthog, giraffe (Masai), and baboon. The riot of green showed that there was no lack of food! At the ranger station (Momella Gate) our driver (Robert, new for us today) arranged a ranger to take us in on foot. Amy was starting to feel a little questionable so we shortened the planned hike to two hours, then again to one. The ranger, David, was cheerful and had the enthusiasm that the best guides seem to have. You could tell he loved his job and was looking forward to another hike. We set into the bush talking about the park, his family, and his work. About fifteen minutes in Amy had a relapse and couldn't even stand. We returned to the car and had the driver take us back to Arusha.
On the way out of the park we saw blue monkeys and black-and-white Colobus monkeys - the two animals we'd specifically hoped to see in the park. We also saw a natal red Duiker which we hadn't seen before. Amy was in pain all the way back to the paved road, but as we approached Arusha started to feel better. Back at the hotel we begged and then bribed to make a call to her dad (a doctor) and woke him up at three AM - we'd done the math backwards. Armed with a list provided by her dad I set out to find a pharmacy open on Sunday (most of Arusha is closed - hence not being able to call from a tele-botique) while Amy rested. After about five failures I was directed to an open store where I was able to buy Cipro.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting talking with Amy or working on my journal while Amy tried to sleep. She had one more episode and then the symptoms settled to a strong pain in her lower back. We're afraid that it might be a kidney infection - if she's not feeling a lot better tomorrow we're going to have to risk a doctor. Either way we're not going to catch an early bus back to Dar.
