What happened after the disaster

So after that horrible time in London, I finally went to Africa after those miserable two days. The rest of the trip was pretty great. I was exhausted though when we got there, because the past two days before that I had no sleep and was basically pissed the whole time. We also got there and it was about 10 in the morning, so my clock was all off. We got to this first hotel place, which was as much of a hotel as we were going to get. It was a really nice place. The rooms were tents, but almost houses. It had a floor and it had doors, unlike the other luxury tents. It also had this place where people sit and eat snacks and then watch wild animals come up and try and get your food. I just relaxed that day, and slept half of it.

There were all kinds of animals at this place. They were somewhat wild, or more like they weren’t in cages like at a zoo, but they were stuck in the same property so they have been used to seeing and interacting with people. It was nice for the first day. We were all pooped.

The next day we got up and got in our huge safari jeep and got ready to go. There are NO roads in Africa, so the two hour trips here and there from place to place throughout the trip was horrible. I was in the back, because I was the smallest person. The back made me almost throw up because of all the bumps. Ugh. I got so car sick. But anyways, the next place we went was a town. We got to rest a little bit, and have a nice lunch. Then afterwards we went on a safari.

The safari was amazing. We went to a place where it was a lot of different scenery. There was a part of the drive where we went up a mountain and it felt like we were traveling through a jungle. Then we also saw open areas where there were a bunch of animals. We saw giraffes, antelope, and cape buffalo. I was amazed at everything! My eyes were probably so big because of the sights. It’s really indescribable. This day I really thought I was going to see an elephant. But, I didn’t… so it was almost disappointing. O but that didn’t last very long.

The next place we went was in the middle of this huge park. Parks in Africa aren’t like the parks here. They are legit hundreds of acres of land where wild animals roam for the rest of their lives. This isn’t like the first place. I was literally scared. The place we stayed was an actual tent that could be ripped up by any animal that wanted to rip it up. We slept on beds, and had actual toilettes, but we had a zip-up tent door and a mosquito net over our beds. The first night we were there, I got so spooked because a warthog came by snorting really loud right by our tent. I peeked outside and saw these eyes looking at me. I almost screamed! I looked over around the back of the tent and I swear I saw about 20 eyes looking at me. I imagined they were harmless gazelles, but seeing anything like that looking at you in the complete dark was creepy.


The next day we went on a safari in the park. This place was so open, that in the morning we couldn’t get to our truck, because there was a herd of 12 elephants blogging our vehicle. They climbed up this steep hill and started charging at workers on this “campsite’s” property. Coming out of my tent around 8 A.M. and then seeing 300-2,000 pound elephants right in my face was not a great feeling. It was so cool though. I will never experience something like that again. Try waking up to elephants.

Finally, when we got out, we went into the rest of the park and saw so many animals. I think we saw close to 200 elephants and all these weird birds. My grandfather was really good at recognizing what kinds of birds they were, but I could have cared less. I think his favorite was this one called a lilac-crested roller. It was the funniest looking bird. Another funny looking creature was called a dik-dik. It honestly looks like a miniature deer that’s about two feet tall.

That day was the first day we saw lions. It was so cool. They were only about 20 feet away from our jeep, chilling in the “bush”. The “bush” is what the tall grass/bushes are called. Then, after seeing all those animals, we went to the middle of the park and ate a box lunch that they made for us. Eating with the animals was interesting. Baboons would come up to us and throw berries at us. They actually started attacking this one family. We parked right by them, but our driver warned us about these mongrels and told us to roll up our windows. This other family didn’t, and then went to the bathroom. When they got back, there were about five baboons running in and out of their truck. They happened to go into their stuff and grab their food out of their lunch boxes. They then started eating the food and chucking rocks. It was so hilarious; my mouth dropped in amazement.

After this day, we drove to another part of Tanzania and did a few different things. We went to an orphanage one day, and that was something special. These kids had nothing, and it was so sad. Their “toys” were flat soccer balls, and pieces of wood. Their idea for fun was chasing each other outside. The lady that was running the orphanage crammed 10 kids into three tiny bedrooms. It was so unsanitary and dirty, but that’s all she could afford. One child wasn’t even there because he had caught malaria and was dying. Another little girl had aids and was an orphan because of it. Her parents both died and she is expected to not have a great long life. Seeing people like that made me really take my life for granted. When I got back to the states, I appreciated everything a lot more. This wasn’t my whole trip, but this is a lot to read, and nobody likes reading these, so I’ll just stop writing! Haha.