We began our adventures together by driving north from Dar es Salaam to stay near Arusha and use that as a base for then going on safari. We spent a day at lake Manyara about an hour and a half's drive from Arusha and then headed on to the Ngorongoro crater. Both of these places were just incredible and we saw some beautiful wildlife. Although the crater was very impressive, we loved lake Manyara as we were so close to the animals. At one point our car was almost charged by an elephant which seemed to make our guide a little bit nervous, but we were just so overwhelmed and excited to be so close to a real life, wild elephant!
On returning to the island, we dragged James and Anna around while we did all our jobs and tried to get back into our usual routine. They did brilliantly and even attempted an outing on a dala dala (local mini bus) all by themselves!
Rich loved having someone to play with and gad about with. It gave me the opportunity to get on with some reading, rather than being called upon for entertainment!!
Anyway, enough of all this talking, here are some photo's from our time together for you all to enjoy!
We saw loads of hippo's at both of the parks we went to. They are such weird looking animals!
This is the elephant that started to get a little bit too close to our car (there's no zoom used in the picture, he really was that close!)
This is the car that we spent the better part of 48 hours in driving round lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro crater trying to find exciting wildlife.
We had hoped, but hadn't really expected that we would see any cats on our safari, so we were very happy when we saw thes lions lazing in the sun!
We came across another car with a group of tourists all intently looking at a big stretch of grass. When we asked them what they were looking at they informed us that a Cheetah was lying down in the tall grass. So we waited and our patience was rewarded by this glimpse of a Cheetah.
One of many giraffes at lake Manyara.
Our day in the crater was really cold! We were in our element wearing thick jumpers and even wrapping up in warm blankets!
The best cake in Tanzania! We found this amazing little patisserie/coffee shop which served incredible food including these yummy cakes. At the top is chocolate cheesecake, carrot cake on either side and an eclair at the bottom.
Once we were back home we went to the south east corner of the island and went out on a boat to go swimming with dolphins which was AMAZING!! This is a picture of Rich with a group of dolphins. They were incredible beautiful, graceful and somehow peaceful to watch.
After we saw the dolphins, the boys all went off snorkelling and as they were coming out of the water, James fell on a sea urchin. The whitey/purple areas on his thumb and first two fingures are where the sea urchin spikes broke off in his hand. We estimate that he had approximately 30 or so spikes in his hand.
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