Arusha airport is bigger than Kegoma, but not a lot, just the one scanner but a few desks plus some market stalls selling local trinkets and souvenirs. We were taken there by my new Instagram buddy, who I will be helping to improve his Hekima House Safari website, as they have a lot of competition from travel companies abroad. We'd been worried about paying extra fees at the airport due to a lack of communication from various people regarding bookings. It wasn't our fault as Glyn had done everything required but we'd been told via email we had to pay an extra $130, which we didn't have in cash and they don't take cards. However, bad communication worked in our favour at the airport as no one knew what we were talking about and we checked ... read more

Seeing the Big 5 all in one trip is a challenge and that is the reason why they are the Big 5. Rhino was the last to tick off the list and Bori had said not to get our hopes up as they're very shy. So even Bori can't believe that we saw a couple of rhino making a new addition to the family as baby looked on, not so shy are they? And in front of the children! Later on, passing rangers thought Bori was winding them up about this sighting - it's so unusual no one believes it! We photographed the sun rising over the Ngorongoro Crater because we'd gone very early again. Two reason for this: the predators are up and active, and the Hungarians are flying home tonight so we needed to ... read more

Waking up in the Serengeti is an amazing experience (unless it was unintentional) and lying in my tent I could hear various birds and animals making a variety of sounds. They were accompanied by the sounds of the rangers and cooks who talk endlessly, I'd love to know what about! In the distance a large herd of zebra were grazing and I'm sure I heard baboons. During the night we were surrounded by the grunting of buffalo grazing around the tents, plus the yowls of nearby hyena. It's still more peaceful than living in Stoke on Trent! At 6.20am it was extremely bright out despite the sun not having risen yet, so we could easily avoid all the buffalo dung when walking to the toilets. We met Molisi there and I proudly bragged how I managed ... read more

Glyn asked me this morning about my feelings on people who brush their teeth whilst walking. No. I do not agree with it. Teeth cleaning only takes a few minutes, so why the need to go for a walk around the campsite? There's also been a severe case of socks and sandals where the lady in question was actually wearing fluffy socks with said sandals. Her companion started singing 'here comes the sun' as the sun rose, then found the actual track on her phone, subjecting all around to it. I can't wait to read Glyn's blog as I'm sure he will go into a lot of depth about this kind of thing. We'd got up at 6.20am to see the sunrise at 6.40am. It was already light and the sky had been pale grey for ... read more

A huge thunderstorm awoke me at around 5am, the room was intermittently lit by bright lightening and the curtains were blowing in like a horror movie. The window was open but we were protected by a veranda, mosquito net and wrought iron bars. I got up to watch it over the lake. I've never seen so much lightening in one storm, it was sheet lightening that lit up the entire sky turning the palm trees into black silhouettes. It flickered like a faulty light at varying intensities as the wind attacked the trees and the lake was totally mad. The thunder too was intense and frequent, being particularly loud at times. This went on for around 40 minutes and what baffled me further was that Glyn didn't wake up. Afterwards, the sky was a dingy grey ... read more