Monday we departed for our safari!! Lara and I were a little nervous about making it to the hotel on time, since we had to be there by 8:00 am, but it ended up working out perfectly. We took a dala-dala to Ubungo and then walked to the hotel, and still had plenty of time to spare. Our tour company picked us up at the hotel and we were introduced to our driver: Amani. He was a very nice guy and spoke pretty good English. The drive took us about 4 hours, but then we drove on a little game drive through the park for another couple of hours. By the time we got to the lodge it was close to 3:00 pm! We ate lunch at the lodge (it had such American food, it wasn’t even funny). We had vegetable pancakes and dad had a burger and fries. I also got a real salad! We went on a game drive that afternoon and saw a variety of animals including impala, giraffe, elephant, red buck, bush buck, marabou stork, saddleback stork, hornbill, lilac breasted roller, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, and hippos. We returned around 7:00 pm and had dinner at the lodge. I had fish and rice while Lara and mom had beef kebabs and dad had spaghetti. Lara and I went to sleep in our wonderful lodge (which we had all to ourself) and slept soundly.
Breakfast the next morning was a huge plate of fruit, toast, and eggs with sausage and bacon. We left at around 8:30 am and did a game drive until noon when we came back for lunch. Lunch was tomato soup and a salad for me, a sandwich for mom and dad, and roast chicken for Lara. We hung out and played cards until 4:00pm when we went on another game drive. We returned for dinner and then headed off to bed.
Wednesday morning we woke up super early for an early morning game drive at 6:00 am. It was the perfect temperature out, not too hot and not too cold! During the first hour of our game drive, Amani spotted two lions off in the distance and we drove around to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a male lion and female lion sitting in the grass. We watched the lions for about an hour-my dad was so excited to see them! We continued on with the rest of our drive and then went to breakfast at 9:00 am. We departed MIkumi National Park at 10:00 and started off back towards Dar. The drive took longer than usual since we stopped at an ATM and at a woodcarver’s market. Plus, there was a huge traffic jam! We didn’t get back to the hotel until around 4:00 pm. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and went to a little café to eat. Dad and I had beans and rice while the others had meat and rice. From there we went to the Godde’s and watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty, which my dad had brought on DVD from the states. It was weird watching the movies on DVD and in the sweltering heat! Carla and Zoe stopped by and we said our goodbyes to them (they left that night) and Hani and Lauren also departed. It was yet another day filled with goodbyes.
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