After extensive negotiations, haggling over safari tour itineraries and making our way through the maze of shady tour operators we finally landed on a company that allowed us to make our own itinerary. We rented a 4WD Land Cruiser and guide (named Audi) for 6 days to explore Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro crater and the Serengeti. This country is amazing and lived up to our expectations. Every scene was a picture out of National Geographic and by the time we were finished Peter was ready to take our camera and sell it for a nights rent....I took alot of pictures! Although we [View Full Entry]

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Prior to returning to Moshi from the safari on Sunday, we had the opportunity to meet the kids at the Shalom Orphanage Centre, which was just down the street from the hotel in which we were staying. Upon meeting the kids, we got to play games, sing songs, and run around. When I walked into the orphanage, one kid ran up to me and grabbed my hand. This was obviously normal. The young children we have met have almost always been extremely excited to see and play with us. But what I found interesting was that the little boy who grabbed [View Full Entry]

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Today was a LONG day! I had some really crazy dreams and I felt weird when I woke up, so I didn't eat much for breakfast. We walked a short way down te road to Zainab's orphanage that she startd, the Shalom Center,home to about 40 kids (almost all orphans and some with AIDS). I felt kind of awkward there at first because it isn't a school, at least not formally, so I didn't know if English was okay or not and it was kind of unclear what we were supposed to be doing and whether or not we should [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from Tanzania! We have just returned from the Safari that we took at Ngorogoro Crater. My feelings are mixed about the whole thing. First off, the Safari itself was amazing. We were able to see so many animals that I had seen previously only in zoos. We also got lucky and saw all of the "Big Five" animals: lion, buffalo, leopard, elephant, and rhino. Although it was so amazing to see all of these cool animals in their natural habitat, I have to say that the days we spent safari-ing were the most depressing yet. This is for two reasons. [View Full Entry]

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In the morning we drove to through the park and saw a lot more monkeys as it was heavily forested in places. It was very lush and green and pretty and it was on the edge very high cliffs that went on forever and was known as the Great Rift, which runs all the way up into Kenya forming the Great Rift Valley. We went back to the lodge and had lunch before driving back to Arusha. We got home around about 4pm, but our truck got a flat tyre just as we got into Arusha. We drew a large crowd [View Full Entry]

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Joseph, our safari guide, picked us up at the Key's Hotel after breakfast and we departed for our first day of safari at 8:30am. In the truck were the four of us and Joseph. We asked how many more people would we be picking up? We were amazed when he said this was it! We would be getting our own semi-private safari for a week. We get along with Kim and Steve very well, and were excited they were our only safari partners. We drove through Arusha to our to Kirurana, our tented lodge. We would be staying here for one [View Full Entry]

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Finally Lake Manyara and again a great safari in this huge parc. We saw lots of rhinoceros, birds, pelicans spending the winter here instead of Alsace. Much nicer I admit. We saw my favorite animal the dik dik, impalas, buffaloes, and finally we met our challenge of the Big Five. (Big five: Rhinoceros, lion, jida, leopard, buffalo) We saw a leopard, hard to see in one's life. They are mostly hidden. This one was hidden on a branch looking at its food freshly hunted (an Impala, poor one)...well that's life. David, our great driver told us there on the branch: we [View Full Entry]

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We found Elephants! Yesterday at Ngorongoro Crater we saw one or two elephants REALLY far away and no Giraffes. Our guide told us Lake Manyara is the place and sure enough we drove in the park and saw fresh elephant remains immediately followed by elephants everywhere. The best was the baby elephant that was just learning to walk. It would take a couple steps and face plant into the dust. Here comes the Star Wars geek in me with this analogy, but watching him trying to walk reminded me of the Imperial Walker things from Return of the Jedi in the [View Full Entry]

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LAKE MANYARA ANIMAL PHOTOS We just wanted to share a few of our pictures with you from our venture out to lake Manyara this last week. As we traveled towards mtu wa Mbo... Lake Manyara is just a little past the church building.... the National Park there is actually the nearest clean "flush toilet" around the area. (which reminds me I have a funny story to tell about that particular bathroom and a life threatening incident with a lizard, but I'll share that later on) We decided to go out and see the animals last Wednesday morning before going to church [View Full Entry]

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Lake Manyara Lake Manyara is the only place in Eastern Africa with lions that fall asleep in trees. While we were not privileged enough to witness this phenomenon, we did see lions, baboons, more monkeys, elephants, hippos, zebras, gazelles, giraffes and many new birds. So it was good fun and a pretty low key end to our last safari. The lake Manyara area is quite affluent and fertile. There is lots of rain and agriculture and it shows in the homes, shops and roads. People are not quite as desperate and needy. They seem to have a reasonable standard of life. [View Full Entry]

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