Last Week in Africa

Today I will be boarding a plan and biding farewell to Tanzania, Arusha, and all of the friends I have made while I was here.  In lead up to this day I had one of the best weeks I've had my whole time here.  For our final week, Arcadia took us on a two day Safari of Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater.

On Wednesday all of the Arcadia student woke up at 6:00 am and piled into our Safari jeeps that were going to take us to Lake Manyara for a Game Drive.  Everyone was ready to see some elephants, which none of use had seen yet.  We were definitely not disappointed.  As soon as we entered the park we started seeing animals.  Probably in 10 minutes we saw a family of three elephants.  Shortly after that we saw one elephant that was right next to our car.  I literally could have reached out and touched the elephant if I wanted to.  It was so amazing seeing this wild elephant up close like that.  They are such beautiful animals!  After see the elephant right next to the car we went to the hot spring in the park.  The hot spring came out in little trickles downs the rocks.  The water was all sorts of weird colors because of the plant life that grew in the spring waters, and it was really hot.  It was a little hotter than you would want the temperature of your shower to be.

After the going to Lake Manyara we spent the night in a nice lodge.  The next morning we had to get up at 5:00 am to go to Ngorongoro Crater.  All of the students were grumpy and sleepy.  None of us are use to getting up that early and we were not happy about it, but then we got to the Crater.  The Crater was amazing in the early morning light.  It was one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen.  By far the most beautiful thing I have seen in Africa thus far.  Inside the Crater there were barely any trees so spotting animals was easy to do.  I saw water buffalo, hippos, lions, and more wildebeest and zebras than I can count.  It is hard to put into words how amazing that day was.
 

Last night we had our farewell dinner with all of our friends here in Tanzania.  It's hard to express what my time abroad has been like.  Africa is full of the most beautiful and horrific things I have ever seen.  Now it is time for me to come home so I can make since of it all.  I don't want to jump the gun on anything, but I think this trip has change my life in a significant way.  It would be hard to go home,  after seeing what I have seen, and not be changed in some way.  How this trip will inform by life in the future has yet to be seen, but for now all I can do is look back with wonder at everything I have experienced as I fly back home.