Big Teen Update

Hey everyone,
It's been a long time and you've probably given up on me writing on here anymore but surprise surprise, I'm back. Okay well so far I've finsihed volunteering. It was great and I'd do it again in a heart beat. The people out there were so amazing and so much fun. On our last night there they threw us a big send off party with traditional dance and music which was so fun. We ended up finding a really crappy radio and dancing around a huge camp fire until about midnight. I know that's not late by normal standards but in camp we were going to bed around 8pm most nights so 12 was really late for us. And I was one of the very last ones up, I was dancing with this really great and really good looking guy named Saleem, he was one of the local workers that we worked with a lot on the project.

The next place we went to was Arusha which is up in the northern part of Tanzania and we first climbed Mt. Meru, the second highest mountain in Africa. We had decided to climb Meru instead of Kilimanjaro from home because we read that it would be easier. We found out when we started climbing that it is actually much harder. Even though it's not quite as high as Kili it's much more steep and a much harder climb. We made it to the top but I felt like I was going to die. That was deffinetly the most physically challenging thing I've ever done and I think it's safe to say that it's the last mountain I will ever climb. My legs were so sore and you wouldn't think so, but because it was so steap, coming down, was in a twisted way, just as hard as going up. My legs and knees were so so so sore that once we got down I couldn't walk up or down stairs for about 3 days without being in sevre pain!!!

Then we went on to a more relaxing adventure and did 4 days of safari. We first did one day in the Ngorongoro Crater which was really cool. We got to see a Rhino and a Cheetah for the first time. Unfortunatly it was from quite a distance and we forgot our binoculars back home so we didn't get a great view of them. We also saw a bunch of hippos and wildbeast and a bunch of other things which I will show you pictures of later. That same night we went to the Serengeti and we saw 2 female lions with 4 cubs. They were soooo cute!!! We then did a full day of driving the next day and saw pretty much everything. In the evening we saw a Leopard hanging out in a tree and she jumped down and ran off. It was close to the car too so we saw her quite well. We also stopped later on and were watching a bunch of baboons in a tree (they were all up there because there was a small pride of lions down below) and they were apparently not happy with us being there so they peed on the car and I got the brunt of it. It was really not funny at the time as I had baboon pee all down my back and arm but shit happens and I was laughing about it soon after.

We then spent a few days in Arusha and flew to Zanzibar. We are currently in Zanzibar on the East coast and are staying in a cool resort owned by an Italian couple. We have visited the North coast and I went snorkling there yesterday. It was lots of fun, but unfortunatly Richard swallowed a bunch of salt water and got sick so he couldn't stay out with me. I felt bad for him, he was literally "sick" off the side of the boat. We are going to stay here for 3 days and then we are going back to Stonetown, which is a neat place, for 3 more days then it's back to the main land and catch a flight to Europe. I am going to miss Tanzania a lot but at the same time I'm read to leave. I miss home a lot and can't wait to get back, mostly to see my dog. Anyway I'll update this again in Europe I promise. I'll probably have it done by the 24th. Miss you guys and I hope to hear from you soon.