Gorongosa Park

While we were traveling to Gorongosa Wild Life Reserve, the roads were absolutely unbelievable!! There is no way I can explain what I was traveling on. Passing by the villages young girls and boys would come up to the car and want to sell you wood items and food. Sometimes shrimp the size of your hand! They are unbelieveably big here.

Driving up into higher ground the roads are terrible with holes the size of 5 gallon buckets. The main road travel took about 1 1/2 hours and then it took almost an hour to travel about 8 miles! Between the dust and the holes and the washed out road, I thought that the truck was going to fall apart. Of course I was much more fearful with the travel to the park than I was with the drive home. I knew what to expect on the way home.

At one point I met another truck in the road and so I passed to the side of the road as much as I could and the sand was soft and it pulled me right into the ditch. I was able to get the truck out but with the speed of the tires turning it only threw us into the other side of the road into the ditch. I slammed on the breaks just before we went totally down the side of the ditch. I was able to back out much easier. Then on to another several miles of the road continually worsening. Finally we reached the entrance of the park and I felt a sense of relief only to find there was still another 6 or so miles to go before reaching our sleeping destination.

Once we reached the actual grounds where we would stay, the campground was absolutely breathtaking!! I don't have any pictures yet but the team we took will have some so I will eventually. It was so peaceful and tranquil, just as God has created it. The birds there were amazingly astounding. The brilliant colors and sounds were like none other that I have ever experienced. The sleeping quarters that Janine my team leader and I had were great! We had electricity from 5pm to 8am and hot water with a shower. It was great! There also was a place where we were served good food. A couple from Wisconsin lives there and the wife works for the park in the park shop and the husband is a scientist who is doing research on the environment and wild animals, lovely couple.

We got up early the next morning to go out on a drive through the park to see if we could capture any sights of wild animals, I had a flat tire. What a blessing that the tire did not blow out while we were on the road while traveling. The rangers advised us not to drive in the park without a spare tire, and I was under their authority at this point!! No way Jose was I going in there without a backup! The park maintenance men took care of everything, changing the tire, fixing it and at no cost. It was a God thing totally.

About 8:30 we were on our way into the park so capture any sights of animals we could find. Gazelle, water buffalo, storks, really cool looking spiders webs that were enormous, wild bores, baboons, lots of really cool looking birds. No lions, no elephants, no zebras. Lots of poop! So we know they are there. We also found elephant prints in the mud and fresh poop:) hehehe I couldn't smell it but everyone else was complaining. I said, "what the heck, at least we know they are here!" There was a truck we met along the road and they said they saw the back end of an elephant going into the jungle.

There have been fires in the park and that has driven many of the animals back into the jungle on the north side where there are not any roads that travel into the area. We were also told that during the war three army's fed off of the animals in the park so the numbers are down considerably as to what they were in the 70's. Mozambique is trying to rebuild the park numbers and adding more animals.

The week before we were there, a couple driving through the park got stuck in a mud hole and their cell phone would not work from the area that they were in. Because of the hour of day the rest of the visitors were already in for the night. 6pm is closing time because it is winter here and it gets dark. They slept in the truck and could hear lions all night long roaring and roaming in the area where they were stuck. YIKES!!!! The next morning they started their walk back to camp, they said they ran most of the last leg to try to get to safety.

On the way home along side of the main road there was a man and his son who had built some furniture and because my house doesn't have anything yet, we stopped and bought a loveseat, two chairs and a lamp table. The last team had left 60.00 for something nice for the house and guess how much the furniture costs? That's right 60.00! A God thing. As people visit they are helping me make my house a home. A God thing, He provides.