Yesterday was a very lazy day for us... So last that I can't remember what we did and it's not worth writing about.

Today however, wow, an eventful trip! Arnold's cousin Suzi is coming with us on safari, she is 13 years old and lives in ohio but is visiting family in Tanzania for 5 weeks. So we left for Mikomi National Park at 5am, the journey takes around 5-6hours depending on traffic. At 7:30am the driver stopped to say that we had a puncture, we all got out of the car to see a completely burst tyre, not a puncture at all. He was very lucky to control the burst! Three men scurried over to help, they out the warning triangles in the road and also snapped off some branches to put in the road as a deterrent for drivers and to male them drive wider and miss the car as we were stopped right on the corner! We didn't have all of the equipment to Jack the car up and so they were trying to fit tree branches in to where the pole would normally go, this obviously didn't work. They stopped a man driving along and asked to use his, which worked but we couldn't open the boot in order to undo the spare tyre from underneath, such a nightmare!

They were stuck for ages trying to figure out how to open the boot. Five men trying to open the boot, definitely a funny scene, even at 9am in the morning! Eventually they realised they were not gping to open it, so we all had to get in the car and they tried to drive the car to a shop 200m away for them to change the tyre, you cpuld hear the alloy grinding on the road, it was hurrendous . we all got out of the car and went into another one so that the driver could drive the car, looking at him drive it was uncomfortable, you could see the alloy bending underneath the car.

After another few naps, the car was finally ready, they put a spare on. By this time it was 12:30pm and we had been there for 5hours! Mum said that I'm definitely jynxed with my travelling, I probably am, or atleast I seem to be on this trip!

We drove another hour and a half before stopping in Morogoro for another hour to change the spare as it was knackered! We bought another spare tyre just incase the same thing happened as we couldn't get the tyre from underneath the car.

After an eventful and tiring journey we arrived at Mikomi National Park shortly after 4pm, just over 11hours! By this time, we still needed to check into our hostel nd so it was too late to start the safari. Driving from the entrance to the hostel we saw elephants, giraffes, buffalo and babboons as you have to drive through part of the park to get to the lodges. It was amazing to swe the animals almost chilling by the road side. We went to genesis lodge which is where Arnold wanted to stay but they only had one room left. Rich and I had told him to book a room but he said there is always rooms available. Sods law there wasn't! Arnold and the driver went off for around 30 minutes and managed to find some lodges for $100 per person, pretty steep! Arnold did some negotiating and got it down to $80 per person, I mean it was nice, really nice, and we were the only guests there!

We ordered some food and ended up with a three course dinner, a member of staff cycled into town in order to get us so.e red wine to go with our steak. Whilst waiting for dinner we were given complimentary juice and popcorn, I felt like a lady of luxury! These lodges were definitely up there with one of the nicest places that I have stayed. The bedrooms were immaculate, the bathrooms were massive and they even gave you slippers! The wine went down so nicely! After dinner they made a camp fire and so we drunk the remaining wine in front of the fire and gazed at the stars, it was a perfect evening and just what we all needed after such a long day!

Tomorrow we have to be up and leave the lodge by 6:30am for the safari, another early start!

H