7 April: We arrive early in Arusha where we stop off at the local heritage and culture museum where we can also buy some tanzanite and crafts. Then on to our camp site with snake park attached! There were also massai markets and a massai museum just outside the camp site. The snake park was cool with lots of different venomous snakes and other animals including owls, baboons and even crocodiles. Gordon was very brave and held both a snake and a baby crocodile. Dinner was a goat prepared on the spit and afterwards Steve sang us some songs on his guitar before the strings broke. Lovely evening.

8 April: We made our way in four jeeps for our tour of the massai region, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater. Our jeep was small with just Mark, Alex, me and Gordon and had a pop up roof so we could see both the views and the animals. As we drove further away from Arusha and into the national park we came across many more Massai tribes people going about their daily tasks. The massai are a weird tribe where the men are elevated to a position of greatness and therefore do not do any work. The children tend the animals (cows and goats) while the women build the houses, feed the children and look after the family. The husband has more than one wife and the greater the number of wives, the greater the man. We passed one village which had one man and his 40 wives. He had over one hundred kids and there was a school just for his children!! Each wife builds a home for her and her kids. The husband decides which wife to sleep with each night. When a massai man visits another village the chief allows him to pick any woman he chooses and sleep with her, regardless of whether she is married or willing to. The man just places his spear in front of the house in which the woman lives to signal his intent. Both female and male circumcision are practiced on children in the tribes and this has led to a number of fatalities. Males must train and enter an initiation period in order to become a "man". This training includes having to kill a lion and surviving in the bush for three months. This practice is having a detrimental effect on the lion population in the area and is forbidden by law. However it is still practiced in secret and marks on the massai shoulders indicate the number of lions each male has killed. The massai tribesmen are more integrated into society and the majority of kids attend public school and some even go to university.

We visited a massai village where they sang and danced for us as well as showing us around their homes. Our guide had one wife and one child but was on the look out for a second wife. I offered my services but it didn't quite work out!! We then we shown around the shop where they sold bracelets and necklaces and earrings. Was very interesting to see.

We then made our way into the Serengeti doing a four hour game drive. It was amazing. The flatness and vastness of the Serengeti as well as all the animals was amazing. We saw zebras, giseles, a male and female lion with their cubs, elephants, pride rock on which the lion king was based, jackals, buffalo, hippos, dancing giraffes, hyenas and the highlight of the evening, a leopard which walked past our jeep. The leopard was much smaller than I thought he would be.

We spent the night in a campsite in the wildness of the Serengeti where the lions and other animals were free to roam. Scary but cool. We had soup and spag bol for dinner before hitting the tent with the sounds of nearby lions roaring and hyenas howling bring our nightime lullaby!

9 April: We set off early for our morning game drive which was equally as impressive as the previous nights. We watched the sun rise before coming across the amazing site of a lioness and her two cubs just beside the road inches from our jeep. The lioness checked everything was safe before calling for her cubs to come out and cross the road. The two cubs came out right beside the car and started playing with each other. Was amazing.

Our evening game drive was just as special and we saw lots more animals. The Serengeti is famous for the wildebeest migration which takes place every year. We were lucky enough to see the start of this migration where the wildebeest and zebras were moving in their thousands together to the massai mara reserve in Kenya. They always move together as the wildebeest provide protection for the zebras and the zebras have great memories. Was amazing to see the herds of wildebeest and zebras all plodding along together. We saw another leopard in a tree and lots more animals including flamingos, mongoose and baboons as well as ngong rock which gongs when you knock it, before setting up camp in another wild camp site. This was our last evening and we set up a camp fire and spent a while around the camp fire tipping and thanking the guides while they told us stories about the massai people and the national parks. Then the most amazing thing happened - a huge elephant came into our camp site and started drinking from the water fountain. Was amazing. We were so close and he was so big. Cool! That night we dealt with wild buffalo in the camp site as well as a few stray warthogs. Very cool experience.

10 April: We spent the morning in the Ngorongoro crater - an amazing ecosystem which always has fresh food and water. Animals that are in the crater never leave. We drove down to the crater floor and viewed nearly every animal apart from giraffes who are too tall to manage the deep descent into the crater. Our viewing of the "big 5" was complete when we saw a number of rhinos in the crater. The rhinos are protected and there are conservation guys in the surrounding hills following the 25 rhino's movements. Rhinos in Africa are nearly extinct due to illegal poaching where the rhino tusks are exported to Asia and used in herbal medicines which help with men problems! We also saw a cheetah which was being followed by two jackals which was really cool. The animal viewing collection was complete. As a final highlight we drove through the forest where we saw a large pride of lions protecting their half-eaten recent kill - a large buffalo. They had hidden it in the bushes and the lions lay around the kill protecting their food. My safari experience was complete!

We drove out of the crater and back to Arusha for our final night as a group. We had a special dinner where we all dressed up as Massai men and women and Dave gave out special awards to us all. I got the also amnesia award for my mysterious black eye. Gordon got the infector due to the massive amount of mosquito bites he accumulated! Was a great last night.