The Mystery of the Half-drunk Bottle of Pinotage

I like to have a glass of wine or two in the evening after a long day of safari or city touring or beach and my workout.  Tanzania is so easy going, they will sell me a bottle of wine, uncork it (yes, South Africa still uses real corks, good for burning and making mustaches) and take it to my room.  I drink half or so each night, cork it and drink the rest the next night.  It's good fun.

Elaine only drinks rose.  I like it, too.

Chipper, fun, ex nursery school marm, nautralpath retiree Elaine from Leeds, England, on our trip loves rose, and so do I, of course. (I am drinking it now waiting for them to arrive for dinner.)   So I like to order a Stellenbosch pinotage for myself.  I had one on my Ngorogoro terrace last night after tai chi, and it was like South African heaven.  I re-corked it after a shower and stuck it in my suit case for the long haul off the extinct volcano to the surprisingly more remote and sedate Tirangire national park.

The room is so dark, I had to unpack and pack with my always handy maglite torch.

I had a beautiful swim today in a unique doughnut shaped pool and five poses of tai chi in the hot African lowland sun and then Elaine and I went with our driver Mmbaga (is he really named Hassam in arabic?) on a slow and careful birdwatch during which we were just eaten alive by awful tsetse flies which inflict excruciating bites.  Birdwatching was lovely though, and we saw 25 or so new bird species, including a cluck of ostriches.  Mick was back at the lodge sleeping off his African stomach bug.

I love the plush bed with thick duvet and mosquito net so I can leave the screen doors open at night and hear African birds, insects and animals going about their night business in a cozy place.

Before my shower, i boiled a kettle and used the hot water to rinse the mango residue from last night from my glass, so as not to spoil my gorgeous red wine.  I poured very hot water in the glass, almost dropped it, but no issues. The room was annoyingly dark this afternoon, I think perhaps because the hotel relies on generator power and microwave communication (and lightning fast Internet!) since the herds of elephants would knock down any power or phone lines. 

How dark?!  That's with the lights all on!!

I poured the beautiful South African prize in my glass, but drat, I didn't get all of the leftover mango pulp, and it  floated to the top.  Should I strain it out or just drink it? 

On closer examination, the pulp was plump red-wine-stained drowned drunk tsetse flies.   And sickeningly, there were a lot more in the bottle.  How did they get there?!  I really cannot explain it. The bottle was never left uncorked except high in the mountains, and I don't think it was for too long.  The locals do say tsetse flies love wine.

Our driver Mmbaga catches a tsetse fly during our intimate low speed two-guest birdwatching safari.  I'd consider this a bird, right Taronga Zoo colleagues?

Then came my decision of civility: do i strain out the Sleeping Siickness carrying bugs and drink the beautiful half bottle or pour it out?  Hmmm.  I am in the middle of nowhere, and a fly in my wine rarely bothers me, but a swarm?  Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of the stream of red bugs glugging out in to thewhite porcelain sink.  So now I am drinking a fresh bottle of rose in a cavernous Disney wildberness adventure like high African decor bar lounge writing this..  I guess the Disney hotel decor simulates this not the other way around.

Taking 45 minutes to fill out renouned attorney Philip Leider's contract for pursuing my US Social Security benefits at the opulent lounge at Sopa Lodge in Tirangire

Elaine is curious about Everything, a lot of fun on safari.  She helped me record every species we saw, hard work with the hundreds of species birds

Readers can see that Mick already feels much much better after a light dinner and my forcing him to drink a ton of water, and the lucky guy probably lost a few extra kilos in the process.

The Mystery is still not solved as I reive the next day.  How did those buggers get into a sealed bottle?