Safari in Tanzania

I was pretty lucky because my parents decided to come meet me in Zanzibar after my program was over. (I'm planning on staying here in East Africa till at least the end of April, so they used it as an excuse to come and check out this place!). My family. Came ALL THE WAY TO AFRICA. Because of ME! It is doubtful that they would have ever come if not for my participation in the CFSIA program, so it's kinda cool that I'm pushing my family members to step out of their comfort zone, in addition to my own.

After 2.5 months of living in the bush, I was treated to some first-class Safari adventures and clean flush toilets with toilet paper! (I'm not sure if y'all are interested but here's a link to the story of the worst toilet that I encountered on my program).

Anyways. the toilets are not that important (even though they kind of are), but ya so I got a real treat, getting a visit from my parents and being able to travel with them in "luxury". I forgot how much I missed them and I guess I got used to being on my "own" (with 37 other students all the time) and it was just really exciting but strange to see my parents turn up at my hotel in ZANZIBAR.

It made me think about how cool travel can be! Someone can get on an airplane and fly across our planet... are huge, large, planet, and end up in the exact same spot as you. Aka, the tiny little Marine Hotel in Stone Town in Zanzibar, Tanzania.  Safari in Tanzania was AMAZING. Although it consisted of the same animals and what not - being in a smaller 4 Wheel Drive vehicle with a pop-up roof, rather than a MASSIVE truck, made a big difference! We had some pretty cool encounters, like having a huge elephant cross the road in front of us!

But obviously, just like a lot of things in East Africa, our trip did not go as smoothly as one would hope. On our way to Dar from Zanzi, our flight got canceled and we ended up being delayed by two hours, causing us to miss our connecting flight to Kilimanjaro, therefore causing us to miss our first game drive! When we stopped in Dar, we were told that my bag had gone missing (my diva bag :( ), only to find out that it hadn't been checked all the way through to Kili and was making a bunch of revolutions in the baggage claim.

And then, to make matters worse, we got on the truck and drove into the park for 1.5 hours, as the sun was setting and came across a full on RIVER separating us from our hotel that was only another 4 km away. Over the course of the afternoon (while we were stuck in airports), it had POURED. As a result, many of the seasonal rivers had filled up. Our driver (named Moses, how ironic) took a look at the river and almost considered crossing it - but thankfully turned around. At that moment I was convinced we were going to have to sleep in the truck overnight so I was getting a little scared. Lucky for us, Moses had been in the business for 25 years and took us to a hotel that didn't require any river crossing.... and we were rewarded with a beautiful view in the morning after our very trying day.

The first place we went on REAL safari was Ngorongoro crater, which is kind of like this pristine area - a volcanic crater, that has trapped all these animals - perfect for our viewing. it was cute to see my parents get excited about giraffes and elephants and zebras and lions just like I had, on DAY ONE of my trip, back in Nairobi National Park. Then I got to seem really intellegent by telling them all the stuff I new about the animals that I had learned - like how hyenas eat bones, which is why their poo is white (thanks Tay...), and how a zebra's tactic to avoid being eaten by a predator, is to gather in a group so that their stripes confuse the predator, and the individual is less likely to be eaten.

Happy parents and Moses!!

All in all - Ngorongoro crater made us all pretty happy....

Andddd... I saw Pumba!

From there on we traveled to the Serengetti which u will hear about more laaaaaaaaaaterrr.
Good luck with all of your exams (to those of you at McGill), and good night!