Fallen completely in love with Africa

Well is been a few days since my last post. Great days. So done with camping.
 
Happy Belated birthday to my grandma. I was thinking about her, I'm pretty sure I saw some elephants on her birthday (its hard to keep track of the dates), and was thinking of her often.
 
Before leaving Nairobi, we went to pick up the new "tribe" at a hotel, had breakfast and a meeting and got on the road. We made it into Arusha that afternoon and set up tents.
 
The next morning, small safari vehicles came and picked us up and we headed out to the Serengeti National Park. The scenery is beautiful. Wide open plains. Sunshine on the tall grasses. There were only four other people and our guide in our serengeti vehicle, so lots of room. The roofs pop up, so you can stand up and view wildlife easily. The first night driving into our camp in the Serengeti we saw a pride of lions lounging on top of a grassy knoll, watching the watering hole for dinner. We saw two leopards, quite far away in a tree. But amazing. A family of elephants crossing the road. We saw another leopard, closer, sleeping on a hil. It was great. A beautiful sunset.
The campground was very basic, long drop toilets. Not a fan. They cook for us in a big mess hall. A moth drowned itself in my wine. Lesson learned, drink wine first.
Early the next morning, I decided to pass on the hot air balloon, because it meant I would have missed the game drive that day in the Serengeti. It was a tough decision, but I knew I would enjoy either option.
The game drive was good, lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes. Cant remember too many particulars now, without my photos to remind me. In the afternoon we drove to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. It was an amazing drive. Beautiful, endless plains. I just fell in love with the beauty of Africa. Watching wildebeast, zebra, impala, giraffe, run alongside your vehicle was breathtaking. I loved it.
The camp at Ngorongoro was basic as well, though the toilets were slightly better. A huge beetle ran across my foot while I was making my hot chocolate. But, I finished my wine before any moths got it. They gave us a blanket to use during the night, because it is notoriously cold. I bundled up, socks, toque, two long sleeved shirts, two pairs of pants, and was warm enough.
 
The next morning we did a game drive down into the crater, which was awesome. A beautiful lake filled with flamingos. Zebras. Wildebeast. A pride of lions. A couple cheetahs far off in the distance.
 
It was a couple of amazing safari days. We got back to Arusha at 3pm, and luckily our tents were left up from when we left, so my first stop was the bar for a cool drink (or two). I had a shower, since the last couple of nights there were very basic facilities, and there was a huge spider incident. I survived though. That night we had dinner in the bar, which was great because it means no prep or cleaning up for us. It was one girls birthday, so we got a bit of cake as well.
 
The next night was rough. At about 1am, it started pouring rain, and all our tent windows were open, so I had to run outside and close everything up, but by then my pjs and hair were soaked, as was much of the inside of our tent. I shivered for the next two hours, and at 3am the alarm went off. We had to pack up and be on the road by 4am. This was a rough day. Packing the truck was hard. All of the tents were muddy and awful. I was sick of the bugs from the past few days. Done with this overland trip stuff. We loaded up on the truck, with a 13 - 19 hour drive ahead of us, depending on traffic and road blocks. I got a few hours of sleep in, before we stopped for breakfast and to make a packed lunch. We did two more quick bathroom breaks along the way, and 14 hours later, we arrived at our camp in Dar es Salaam. It was a miserable day. It had been so hot, and was like a sweatbox on the truck. I barely managed to get the tent set up, and staggered down to the bar for a well deserved drink. There was a decent pool there, so I went for a swim, which made me feel much better. We got to have dinner in the bar again (yay, no prep or dishes!).
 
This morning wake up time was 6am. Packed up the tent for my last time! Then we headed off on little tuk-tuks to the ferry to Zanzibar. We've arrived in Zanzibar now, we are in Stone town. Spent the afternoon lunching on the beach and shopping. Tomorrow morning we are heading up to the north end of the island, where the beaches are better, but I dont think there will be internet again until I am back in Canada.
 
Thanks so much for your notes and following along, I will do another post of pictures, hopefully from Vancouver.
 
Love you all so much, it has been amazing. And I've learned, 15 nights of camping is my limit!