February 5

Our flight out of Nairobi was supposed to be around 7:30 but ended up being closer to 9:00. 8 hours and 50 minutes later, here I am on February 5th, typing in the Air Canada "preferred" lounge.

We've bought books, are charging the Ipod, and I can't wait to use one of their private rooms for a snooze. We're almost home, and looking forward to seeing you all. Everybody I showed my Calgary Zoo pictures to (on my IPod) LOVED them, they loved seeing African animals in Calgary :) And some had heard of, but never seen, bears/cougar/etc.

Oh. Dad. One of our guide's, Justin, LOVES old-time country. His glove-box was filled with Kenny Rogers, Emmylou, Hank Williams, a couple others I recognized as people you like but don't remember the names right now.

The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is unpack, pass out gifts, and take Bosco for a walk. The first thing Trent is going to do is call his mom & dad and grandma. We both have to clear out our emails - not looking forward to that!

Alright, well, it was an amazing trip, and Les was an amazing leader. I'm looking forward to someday leading a trip to the same area, if given a chance.

February 4

I was up at 03:45 to get ready for our hot air balloon ride. I took one look outside at the pouring rain (it was coming down so hard you couldn't see anything outside) and thought it wasn't going to happen.

But, the drivers picked us up at 4:30 as planned. Trent and I had to rush through packing, so while we were out hot-air ballooning, the other members of our group could take our luggage to where we would meet up later that morning.

It was supposed to be a 1 hour drive to the launch site. We were supposed to be at the launch site by 06:00, in the air at 06:30 after a brief instruction period, and back down before 08:00 when the "thermals" started developing.

Wellllll at 07:00 we realized we just weren't going to make it. The drivers made a herculean effort, but the roads were just too bad. We almost tipped over once in our Landcruiser, and the water was still coming down. The road they had used previously for take-offs was under 3 feet of water. The road they were going to use for our takeoff was impenetrable. We kept moving, slowly, only to find the trucks pulling the hot-air balloon stuck perpendicular on the road - and not moving. So, no chance to go hot-air ballooning. The amount of rain this area has seen caught everyone by surprise. They apologized profusely, and the pilot said we'd get a full refund (which Trent recorded on his camera:)). He said he HAD to be in the air by 07:30, and down by 08:30, or else the unpredictable thermals will take us places they don't want us to be.

Add that to the fact that with how many rained-out roads there were, the "chase vehicles" didn't stand a chance of actually following us.

We were quite behind schedule at this point, so we headed back the way we came. We were heading back to the Serengeti Serena Lodge to liaise with our group, when who should we see driving (sliding) down the road? Our group! So we loaded into their trucks and off we went.

We drove to KIA Lodge, which is an AMAZING lodge just a 5-10 minute drive to the airport. We had the afternoon to ourselves, and were assigned day-rooms. They have AIR-CONDITIONING! And a TV! Heaven. Yet, the TV remained turned off, we were too exhausted and frankly didn't even care if it was in the room. Trent and I caught up on much-needed sleep, then we all lounged by the pool. We had a very early dinner (4:30) compared to what we've become accustomed to (7:30), and were at the airport by 6:30.

We had a 45 minute flight to Arusha (billed as "The Geneva of Africa" because that's where they held the UN War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda), a couple-hour bus ride from Arusha to Nairobi, and a flight from Nairobi to London.

We visited an orphanage in Arusha - again, SUCH amazingly cute kids. Trent and I have decided to send a monthly donation to the orphanage we went to first in Kenya, guess we can't get Kevin off our minds.

February 3

After breakfast at Ndutu, we departed for the central Serengeti. Timing was impossible to estimate - what we thought was a 2 hour drive turned into 4. But we're getting used to that :)

We're staying at the Serengeti Serena Lodge tonight - AMAZING. It has the most amazing view over the Serengeti, and a great pool! We only did one game drive and only the "keeners" participated (3 people - me included). We figured this would be our only game drive on the true Serengeti plains, so we'd best take advantage of it! We didn't see very much, probably because we were too busy killing Tsetse flies! We saw baboon, hippo, Topi (an antelope I've never heard of before but is really quite stunning), some hartabeast, impala, wildebeest, and mating Cape Buffalo! That was... interesting.

We had been warned the Tsetse flies were bad around the area, so we we were ready. Insect repellant lotion all over our bodies, hats, longsleeved shirts, pants, socks, shoes. The jerks STILL got through our clothing and bit a couple of us. So, we got smarter than the flies. We would take turns on "kill duty". 2 people would take pictures, one would kill tsetse flies. We'd switch every 5 minutes or so. Thanks to Tilley (we used my hat as the killing machine), we got every Tsetse who dared fly into our vehicle. I'm sure Rashid, our guide, had to sweep out his truck after.

Trent and I don't have much planned for tonight, because we have to get up so early for the hot air balloon ride tomorrow! We're so excited. The amount of rain this area has seen is amazing (they haven't seen this much rain since 1998), some of the roads are completely washed out, so we'll see if the hot air balloon ride even happens tomorrow.