It's one week since I arrived here in Moshi and last night Michelle, Michelle, Katie and I returned from our four day safari. It was absolutely incredible and better than I could have ever imagined.

On the first day we drove to a place called Lake Manyara which is an animal preservation an hour from Arusha. We were driven there by our chain-smoking guide Juma who drove in typical Tanzanian style (like a maniac). On the way we stopped in Arusha for some African breakfast which is essentially a normal English breakfast dropped in a deep fat fryer. You know you're in Africa when you bite into your squidgy toast and grease oozes out the sides! After being thrown around in the back of the jeep (there's no swahili for seatbelt) for 3 or so hours we eventually arrived at Lake Manyara. After popping open the roof of the jeep we headed into the dense forest on our safari (= journey in swahili).

Lake Manyara is absolutely beautiful and packed full of some of the most incredible wanyama (animals). We saw a whole herd of tembo (elephants), lots of twiga (giraffes), some kiboku (hippos) and a dozen or so punda milia (zebras). The animals were so close that we could have stuck out our hands and touched some of them (I've heard this isn't such a good idea though...especially with the mardy hippos). That night we stayed in a safari lodge and we made the most of the hot showers knowing we'd be slumming it in campsites for the next 3 days.

The next morning we had our breakfast of toast and pancakes (unfried!) and headed off to the Serengeti. However amazing the Serengeti sounds, being there and seeing it for yourself is a hundred times more amazing. It spans over two and a half thousand kilometres squared and you just jump in your jeep and drive. Even without seeing any animals the scenery is absolutely spectacular and you can see for miles and miles and miles. That afternoon we found more giraffes, zebras, buffalo and monkeys but most importantly - two pregnant female simba (lions). They woke up at the noise of the jeep and started prowling around us as we ducked down inside the roof. Our guide thought it was pretty funny indeed.

We headed back to the campsite before sunset to set up our tents. The campsite is right in the middle of the Serengeti so you spend all day looking at these huge lions and elephants from the safety of your jeep and then go to sleep right in the middle of it all. Juma spent the evening telling us stories about legs being eaten by bushpigs and brains sucked out by lizards...which was nice.

We got up the next morning at 5am to get some coffee and jump in the jeep ready for the sunrise. I don't think I could explain how incredible the sunrise was so you'll just have to look at my pictures but it was breathtaking. That day we drove around in the blazing sun and found, amongst other things, a whole pride of lions (about 12 or so including the cubs), a chui (leopard) in a tree and a duma (cheetah). As the sun was setting we headed up to our second campsite at the top of the Ngorongoro crater. To say that it was cold up there would be a serious understatement. We ended up drinking Konyagi, the Tanzanian equivalent of moonshine, just to stay warm!

We woke up in the morning in a cloud (literally), surrounded by zebra poo. After a breakfast which consisted mainly of hot chocolate (an attempt to inject some warmth into my shivering body) we headed down into the crater. The drive down was, by far, the scariest ride I've ever had. The clouds meant that the visibility was about two feet and the sheer drops on either side of the road were about sixty. This combined with a driver who we found was prone to falling asleep whilst driving made for a less than enjoyable half hour.

After surviving the Tanzanian death road we were greeted by elephants, giraffe, zebras and even a black rhino. However, this couldn't have prepared us for what we found later on. We drove around a corner to come face to face with two sleeping male lions about 6 feet away from our jeep. The noise of the jeep woke them up and one jumped up and roared at us. I just about jumped out of my skin and dived into the truck. (Unfortunately this meant that what should have been an amazing photo is, instead, an orangey-brown lion-shaped blur.) We headed back to the campsite and started packing up our stuff to start the trip back to Moshi. We were just filling up the jeep when Michelle, who has a certain way with words, screamed 'my god, it's no wonder I've got the s***s!' and we turned around to see a giant elephant drinking out of the water tank no more than ten feet away. What an amazing way to end our safari!