Sun 17th Feb - Stayed in bed until about midday. Packed up our rucksacks and said goodbyes - was very sad, we've made some really good friends at the Hoff. Stanley's taxi took us to The snake park campsite outside Arusha where we met our tour leader Jo and checked in on our month long tour. We were shown our accomodation for the next month - a canvas tent about 7 foot square! Had a BBQ with the 18 people who are on the tour and went to bed quite early,very tired. Awoke having not slept too well mainly due to [View Full Entry]

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Today we begin our break from work and head off on a safari organized by St Jude. Richard, Gemma’s husband, organises safaris for visitors to the school. We set out first thing in the morning in 3 vehicles and headed to the Serengeti which took all day just to get there. It was dusk by the time we arrived at the camp site. We saw a lot of animals on the way in and stopped at every one to have a closer look. We even saw a pair of young male lions snoozing on an anthill about 50 metre from the [View Full Entry]

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Following our relatively relaxing time in Zanzibar, reboarding Pangani and saddling up for more driving along Tanzania's less than perfect roadways wasn't exactly high on my list of "must do" activities, but because we were headed towards Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation area - arguably the climax of the trip - I was able to keep my good spirits as we bumped and lurched our way north from Dar. The "highlight" of what was essentially a travel day was when we stopped in a small village for lunch and to take Janice and one of our other group members, [View Full Entry]

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Finally on the road again cross country through magical and hugely neverending Serengeti Parc. Lots of gnous and Zebras. We saw lions and finally djidas...just amazing !!!! I was again all the time standing up in the car head and shoulders out of the roof feeling like flying. We stoped at the entrance of the Serengit Parc whic means "neverending plains" and sat down on the car: I jumped down so hot was the car and burning my poor bum -:) We had the chance to see gidas, which is really rare, they were hunhting for their dinner and chased a [View Full Entry]

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Last week as we traveled over dirt roads for hours and hours to the Serengeti I looked out of our Land Cruiser over endless flat, brown, plains that appeared to be nothing but dirt, dust, and dead grass. The road was full of rocks and holes, the ride was almost painful as was the scenery. Here I was in one of the great National Parks of Tanzania and I was nothing in the midst of this. All of my seemingly important thoughts and feelings were meaningless here; my needs, my anxieties, all were nothing. I was nothing. It was a very [View Full Entry]

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When I was a child of 4 years old I caused much hilarity to my parents and other rellies by answering the question, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' with a very honest 'I want to be an elephant!' Well this week I almost got my wish. I certainly got the next best thing which was to be close to my spiritual brothers although I think their memories are superior to mine. For the past 5 days I have been on safari and have probably rubbed shoulders (almost literally) with a good 200 elephants. Tom and I [View Full Entry]

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Ok, so a week late, but i am finally at a computer that allows me to upload some pictures! So for those interested in some Kili pictures, ,just go back a few blogs, and you will find some with the entry "I made it" . I am going to let these amazing safari pictures speak for themselves.... enjoy and just know that it was so awesome to see all this wild animlas in their natural habitat! AMAZING it made be wish i had a better camera, but my little sony point and shoot did ok, plus i am using my binoculars [View Full Entry]

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After Mt Kilimanjaro, we spent a night in Moshi, and then 2 in Arusha for a bit of R+R before continuing the travels. Following some shenanigans on the part of Brigid, Simon and Whitley (can anyone fix curtain rails?) and some home surgery on my toe (thanks, Justin!), we said goodbye to Simon, met up with Sarah and went on safari… Our 4-day camping safari of Northern Tanzania was run by a guide called Severin and his trusty cook (why are sidekicks always trusty?), Felix. After making a detour through the suburbs of Arusha to pick up Severin’s sleeping bag from [View Full Entry]

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We had a great time in the crater but we were also very excited to head to the Serengeti. You always hear about the Serengeti as the place to see these amazing creates and "wild things"!! Would we see a lion attacking a wildebeast or maybe a leopard enjoying a gazelle?!?! We headed out from the Sopa lodge at 8 am and we were not sad to say good bye! On the way to the Serengeti National Park gate we stopped at a place called the Udapi gorge. They had a nice little museum about the gorge and what they had [View Full Entry]

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I have been promising a couple of young friends of ours that I would send some animal pictures for them to see the "WILD SIDE" of Tanzania. And we haven't had time here in the last few months to actually go out and see them ourselves, but I remembered that during the campaigns it was so busy with all the visitors and news being reported that I didn't have the time to share pictures I took from our trip to Tarangire National Park and Ngoro Ngoro Crater. So I figured you wouldn't mind a few pictures from back in June, when [View Full Entry]

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