Safari

This past weekend we truely experienced something incredible. Where to begin...on Friday we left our placement at the Tumaini school a little early to head out on our adventure. All eighteen of us piled in to our fancy Safari vehicles (the top comes off and you can stand up and look out) and were off. We drove for a couple hours and made it to our camp site, which was very nice and had a lodge on the grounds. After a quick stop there we headed to a Messai Village. It was sooo interesting! The people there live in little huts made out of cow dung and straw. They have no electricity or modern ammenities of any kind. The do not believe hopspitals and still have a medicene man. It was so interesting to get to visit their village. They sang all these tribal songs and did dances (Catherine joined in). It was sad because the kids were dirty and had flies on them, but it made me feel good that we visited them and bought some braclets. After that we went back to the camp site and had dinner and watched some traditional Tanzanian dancing. I got out an danced and attempted to shake it.....it looked ridiculous but it was funny!
We got up super early the next morning we dressed in our safari gear and headed to Lake Manyana National Park. It doesn't look anything like I pictured. Instead of flat grassy dessert this was beautiful green jungle surrounding a huge lake and mountains. It looked a bit like rainforest minus the fact that these plants and trees looked different. We saw so many animals! Elephants, giraffes, a ton of baboons, zebras, hippos, and we drove under some lions sitting in trees. It was amazing and I thought the trip counldn't get any better until we got to the Ngorngora Crater. It is not actually a crater but that is what they call it because it looks like one. It is a far and bumpy drive to the rim which is around 7000ft and very cold!!! Oh wait the internet cafe is closing so I am going to stop my post here, but I will continue where I left off. I miss you all!