Here is an update on the last four days! On Thursday we had a kind of unexpected relaxation day. We were supposed to finish up the Terrawatu computer lab but because the builders needed to finish some wood structures, we were unable to work there. Instead we spent some time fixing the computers at the Terrawatu office and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing with the children at St. Thomas. On Friday we went to the teacher training college to finish the lab and to provide some lessons for the students on how to use the computers. Only one or two out of twenty students had ever used a computer before, so we spent three hours showing them how to open and use the programs on the laptops as well as how to save, retrieve and delete files. We spent another delicious lunch with the students where we had more wonderfully deep conversations. After lunch we returned to St. Thomas for some down time before we headed to dinner with our Tanzanian family; Sululu and his daughter, Angella, and Adam. We had some great pizza at the Masai Café which is Sululu’s favorite restaurant in town! After dinner we went straight to bed so that we could be ready to leave for our safari at 6:30AM. The drive that Saturday morning was beautiful as we got to enjoy four hours of the Tanzanian country side. We are right in the heart of Masai land so we saw many Masai villages, people and cattle on our journey. We arrived at Ngorogoro crater (the 8th wonder of the world they say) early in the day. The national park begins high up in the jungle but we soon found ourselves descending on a very steep road down into the crater. On our safari we saw almost every animal including lots of zebra, elephants, hippos, wildebeests, buffalo, gazelles, and 12 lions! We took off the roof so we had an awesome panorama view of the area while driving. We also had the best guides in the world (Frank and Adam)! We were the second to last car to leave the park that evening as we continued on our way to a nearby town for the night. We were lucky to stay in a beautiful little town in a cute locally owned hotel. I think local places like this often get overlooked by safari tourists but I will say it was so much better to be staying in the friendly town than in those huge foreign owned hotels in the park. People were so friendly in this town we even got invited to dinner by some woman on the street, but had to decline because we already had dinner arrangements made by the hotel owner. The restaurant she picked out for us was great and they sure know how to feed us well here! Once again, we made it an early night after an exciting day. Sunday morning we woke up to a nice hotel breakfast before embarking on our final safari. This time we headed to Manyara national park which has more of a jungle feel. We saw a giraffes, hippos, elephants, impala, monkeys and a whole bunch of baboons! Both safaris were so incredible and it was amazing to see all of these animals so close and in the wild. We have now returned “home” to St. Thomas safe and sound after a long journey.
Safari means “journey”
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