Start: Drive to the airport in Arusha and Kilimanjaro gave us a proper send-off in all her glory with Kibo and Mawenzi peaks both visible.
En-route: drawing by Anderson somewhere over Iceland
We arrived at Chuck and Jen’s after 35 hours of uneventful travel. We went for a short walk after dinner and were almost killed by golf-ball sized hail. Uncle Chuck having the kids chant “Hail No!” – priceless.
Happy to be here.
We celebrated our winter solstice on safari. Matt was out in the bush with some TNC folks last week, so we decided to meet up with him at the tail end of his trip for a weekend safari. We spent one night at Maramboi tented camp just outside of Tarangire National Park and then we splurged and spent a night at Tarangire Safari Lodge. Did you hear that Tanzania was rated best safari destination in Africa? Come visit us!
Watching the sunset at Maramboi
Some of the many animals that we saw: impala, elephant, lion (after a tasty zebra meal), baobab, giraffe, zebra, and a super cute rock hyrax.
Hanging out at Tarangire Safari Lodge. There was a stand-off between the boys and a pesky baboon after Matt chased it out of the boys’ tent. And later the kids had a stand-off with some vervet monkeys that were following them hoping for some of their dried fruit.
The views from the lodge top just about anyplace we’ve been. We watched a herd of elephant and about 300 buffalo come to the river to drink. At night we heard several animals including a lion. So great!
And I love this picture that Anderson drew of a giraffe with a wildebeest.
The best of friends!
Matt’s at the tail end of a really bad couple months of travel; I think he’s been gone for 5 of the past 6 weeks. This makes both of us tired. School is done next week and Matt has one more trip before we head back to the US for the remainder of the summer. We are all looking forward to some time together as well as time visiting with our families and friends (as well as some warmer weather – I just added a second blanket to our bed…brrrrr).
Last weekend Matt was home for a full day and a half, so we went to the Karibu Fair for some Khan’s bbq chicken and camel rides.
Since the afternoon/evening was so lovely we decided to head out for some gorgeous views and sundowners. Sundowners might be one of the best traditions that we take away from our time here.
