TAN: Dusty Trail Rides

Up at 6:00 a.m. to keep on fixing our artifacted footage. One segment I have completed before breakfast. The other big one is going to take a while. Immediately after breakfast, Chantal and I join the French group in horseback riding. Chantal gets to talking with one of the gents who turns out to be teaching at a French school in Dar es Salaam. He has been in Tanzania for three years and has just signed on for another three. He has some suggestions for our stay in Dar and even offers a place to stay.

Mmm . . . dust.

By the time we get back, Gabriel has the sequence for Mikumi finished. After some wrangling of the media, I start to compress the video. Two hours later an MPEG2 pops out. To my dismay a section of the video had mysteriously gone offline leaving a second of the Final Cut Pro “Media Offline” warning screen mid-way through the sequence. After some more media wrangling and another two hours of compressing, a pristine clip emerges.

It is going to be hard to leave my office behind.

A beautiful sunset closes the day.

Eight of Geoff’s friends from the area are due for dinner this evening. He is wanting us to show them our DVD project. At the moment, the project is spread out across three computers in three different formats. We spend half an hour getting everything set up for a makeshift presentation. They all seem to enjoy the material, but have complaints about all of them showing the dry season. Unfortunately, we have only been here during the dry season ans most tourists will be here during the same time. They are also critical of the Ruaha section, most of them having been there numerous times over the years. The Ruaha they remember doesn’t exist any more. We all have a good meal and retire upstairs again for drinks and conversation. Most of us tuck in around 11 p.m.