Three days of sun and fun

Its been a busy busy 3 days, so every time I’ve arrived back at camp I’ve been too tired to blog. This has probably been the most exciting 3 day streak yet.

Monday we went to a Maasai Boma and they danced for us and showed up their house. Its such a different way to live but its really cool. All of their jewelry is really awesome so I made a couple purchases in the little shop they had set up. Then we headed to an orphanage to paint the boys room and to play with the kids. They were just happy if you were holding them which was kind of sweet. A lot of them had lost their parents because of AIDS which was really sad. They had songs they sang to us in English but we aren’t positive that they actually knew what they were saying. After the orphanage we went to s store and looked at some Tanzanite. It is running out so I think I am going to purchase some and make it into a ring when I get home. 

Tuesday we woke up extra early and we hit the road at 7 to go to Tarangire National Park. We started our safari at about 10 and we drove around until 1. As always the park never disappoints  we saw Giraffes, Elephants (like 150 of them!), and a tone of other grazing animals that are way to many to count. The elephants got slightly too close for comfort at certain points. One male elephant was very angry with us and looked like he was about to charge so that was pretty stressful. We had to inch our way toward him and he was sticking his trunk out at us which is a defensive mechanism. We also made a bunch of elephants stampede in the opposite direction and we heard two make noise! Surprisingly giraffes are a lot darker then I thought they were once you see them up close. After the safari I found the destination of my honeymoon.... We went to the lodge to go swimming and have lunch and a beer. We walked in and saw the most amazing view ever. From the balcony you could see elephants eating and walking. So we all laid out and enjoyed the view and the pool, it was paradise. Then we went on another hour game drive but everyone was pretty worn out from the mass amounts of sun. I only got burnt on my hand, which is good besides the fact it is so painful! That night the cooking staff made us a cake for Valentines day which was a great way to top off the day.

This morning I unfortunately had to get up at 5:45 A.M for breakfast crew because we were leaving camp at 7:30. We drove to Lake Manyara National Park and we road bikes through town and then to the lake. I can’t even explain how beautiful it was. We were surrounded by mountains, the dried up lake, and we were riding through the grassland. There was a herd of zebras about 30 feet from us and they had to move so we could ride our bikes through, it was incredible. Then a herd of wildebeest stampeded right in front of us, again, slightly terrifying. We rode over to the hippo pool, and then a banana plantation and we looked at some art. Besides the fact that it was tiring and I can hardly sit down, it was an amazing experience. Then the jeeps drove us to a pizza place where I had the best chicken pizza I have ever had and a coke. From there we drove into town to do some shopping and I found I have a small talent for bargaining. The first thing I bought was 65,000 shillings, I talked him down to 25,000. Next I bought another piece of fabric which I’m going to make “genie” pants out of. Its purple tye-dye and awesome. The guy asked for 25,000 shillings and I got him down to 13,000. The last thing I bought he asked for 35,000 shillings and I got it for 10,000. So overall I made out like a bandit and I’m pretty proud of myself, if only I could do that in America. I may have a problem getting things home but I’ll figure it out. They all gave us cheaper prices because we are student and they are happy we are learning their culture. Since I had breakfast crew this morning we also have to wash dishes at night and since I’m a big baby and hate dirty dishes I just dry. Which consists of like 150 dishes with one towel, so it is soaked by dish 20 and its kind of a waste of time Hakuna Matata

Also while driving along the road we see all kinds of animals including, baboons (which are like rabbits here, cute when you see them just not to exciting anymore) elephant, giraffe, and I may or may not have seen an ostrich. So sorry for the long post there were just so many exciting things that happened!