Africa Day 2

Up early at 5:30 for the long drive to Gibbs Farm in Tanzania, west of Arusha. Due to extensive road work we often were diverted onto miles of dusty, rutted, slow going gravel tracks. Thus our hoped for 8 hour drive took 11 hrs!
But all was not lost we made 4 stops for birding and were pretty successful at birding from the van. Altogether we saw 57 species of birds, 35 we had not seen the previous day. Mammals were more limited, we saw giraffe and baboon again, as well as Blue Monkey. But mostly we saw many small herds of goats, donkeys, and cattle moving about under the watchful eyes of masai boys (all in traditional colorful wraps of flowing clothe). The land we drove through was very dry and according to our Tanzananian driver, Tanzania has been sufferring from a 4 month drought. It seemed hard to believe the land could support even 10% as much livestock.
Everywhere we went the Masai children gave us big smiles and waved as we drove by, so we did the same.
We finished the day with dinner at Gibbs farm a 70 year coffee farm, which operates as a tourist lodge, with many huge individual lodges and serves and excellent dinner.
Along the way I've seen many iconic Baobab and Acacia trees, as well as many huge termite mounds, I should be getting good pictures later on the tour.
Tomorrow we will do morning forest birding on the Gibbs farm land, our first birding away from the scrub and grassland habitats. After lunch we will head down to Norogondo crater.