Arusha Naaz Hotel, Arusha

I looked back at my last journal entry and laughed. I wanted to write by candlelight, but I really couldn't see. So, I had writing scrawled in big, messy script all over the pages. Now, we are back in Arusha under mosquito nets (no need in the crater because the elevation is too high for mosquitos). I haven't been sleeping much and I think it might finally be catching up to me. This is the first day of our journey that I am really exhausted. Safari can really wear you out. Oh, and I learned that "safari" means "journey", not "white people in khakis taking pictures of lions". We had another day of animals. We started with a game drive at the Lake Manyara National Park. We saw some of the same animals as yesterday, but also lots of giraffes and many different types of monkeys. Just exiting Ngorongoro in the morning, we came across a whole pack of baboons in the road at the gate! A small group of us also went to a snake park and saw many types of snakes found in Tanzania, as well as birds, crocodiles, and tortises. We learned that the crocodile eggs at the top of the pile get the most sun and will become male crocs, while the eggs at the bottom stay cooler and become female crocs. I think that my favorite snake was the python. We saw pictures of pythons that had been caught and cut open to reveal whole men that they had eaten (the men were dead by the time they were released, of course). The Black Mamba is probably the deadliest snake. Tanzanians call it the "seven-step snake" because after being bitten, you can only walk seven steps before you collapse and die. They also call it the "one cigarette snake" for the same reason, but that also shows just how common smoking is here too. Our snake man, Lottie, helped catch the Black Mamba that is living in the park! He also brought us a non-poisonous snake for us to hold, which was awesome.

We also stopped to buy souvenirs, of course. We are getting to be shrewd bargainers. This was the last day with our driver, Huseein. He taught us a song that we sang ALL day and then when we stopped at an orphanage to pass out toys, the kids sang it to us and we joined in. Turns out that it's a song welcoming foreigners to Tanzania. We are learning so much Swahili. It was night to spend the weekend in the parks. I'm not a huge fan of the city of Arusha, but maybe I will like Dar es Salaam better. Lala salama!