back to beautiful zanzibar

We got back from our trip to Mikumi and a couple of days later we took off to Zanzibar. Now, if you have been reading my blog you know that I have been there a number of times. It is a regular destination for those of us around Dar. It's so easy to get to and it's absolutely beautiful...a place you just can't resist. It was a trip full of time to do nothing and that's what we did. We laid on the beach, we walked and explored a little, we swam in the clear blue Indian Ocean, we ate, we relaxed. It was time that we needed, especially after we sat in the Dar airport for 4.5 lovely hours because our flight was delayed. Besides all the guys wanting to hang out with us, it was uneventful. Don't worry Dad, we had guards at the hotels who kept them away.

I don't think he was a guard at our hotel, he may very well be one of the guys that hung around wanting to talk to us, but this would be what our guards looked like...they are part of the Maasai tribe, these people live in northern Tanzania but travel around for jobs like being guards.

the roomies...me, whit, and katelyn...for those of you who don't know katelyn has been staying with us for her summer break, she has been helping us with some plans for the coming semester; it has been a blessing for us to have her around, unfortunately she has to go back to school soon and so she will be leaving in a few days, unless of course her passport mysteriously goes missing

definitely not the zoo!

We had some friends come in to visit us and so we took the opportunity to go on a couple of trips. First we went to one of the national parks in Tanzania...no, we didn't go to the Serengeti as much as we wish we could have, but we did go to the Mikumi National Park. I'm sure we would have seen a heck of a lot more animals if we had gone to Serengeti but Mikumi was good for us. So we loaded up into a safari vehicle with our driver Abel and headed out to Mikumi one morning. It was nice to have a driver and not have to worry about anything especially when right before we entered the park area something on the car broke. We made it to where we were staying for our time there and then Abel got the car fixed. And we headed out on safari right on schedule. We were able to see all the usual animals, elephants, impala, zebras, giraffes, hippos, etc, but the best part was that we got to see lions, tigers and bears...haha, just kidding we didn't see any tigers or bears, they don't even exist in this park let alone in Tanzania, but we did get to see lions a couple of lions. We drove out into the field and got up close and personal with the lions. One of them even got up and started roaring at us (I think it was Simba working on his ROAR). Honestly besides the great company of good friends and the enjoyment of the greatness of God in His creation, seeing the lion was the highlight. So I won't bore you with pictures of all the animals we saw.

Here's Simba working on his roar...shortly after he started our driver said, ok hurry up with your pictures so we can get out of here, i think he was scared...well i'm sure he said in a different way but i can't remember his exact words

the beautiful sunset...if any of you know me out there you know that i had to take a picture of the sunset and really you know that i probably took dozens of them

this is us with our driver...we had fun with him, he didn't really tell us much about the animals or anything but he found us the lion and drove into the field for us to see him and he would say the cutest things