Jubilee to Safari to Zanzibar

It has been a busy past week since we have posted any new pictures and now we are in our final days of this trip of a lifetime to Africa. Since there isn't enough time to explain all of the wonderful adventures we have been having this past week, We will simply give a taste with select pictures from the big events from the past week.

Our last pictures were from our trip to Songea town over one week ago on Saturday. The following Sunday the big even was a dance party that we organized at St. Laurent's primary school. This is the school that Ben taught at when he lived in Hanga so he still has good connections there and the headmaster offered to get one of the local DJs to bring his speakers and equipment to come set up a dance. A great time was had by all! The kids especially liked Erik's moves.
The crew walking back towards the monastery through Hanga village after the disco...
Monday was the final day of preparation before the big feast on Tuesday. The big event on Monday was the arrival of nearly 30 bishops including the cardinal to Hanga! All students from the schools in Hanga lined up along the entrane road to welcome the caravan of bishops. It was quite the site to see so many nice cars with a detail of security leading them into Hanga!

Tuesday was the feast. What a party. We came early to get our seats (sat down at 8:30am...the Mass was supposed to start at 9:30am) Mass didn't start until about 10:00am and it got over about 1:30pm :)


Here is a picture of the bishops during the procession. There were a lot of them!



This is the whole group of bishops that were there. Again, this feast was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the bishops being a BISHOP. After he retired from being a bishop almost 25 years ago, he became a benedictine monk of Hanga Abbey and has been living there ever since. This is why the celebration was in Hanga.

From the road...

The day after the Jubilee we left Hanga for our safari! It was difficult to say goodbye to Hanga, but also good to know the fun that was ahead! We drove all day to reach Udzungwa Mountains National Park where we stayed in a beautiful hotel for one night and then hiked to a mountain waterfall to go swimming the next day. B-E-A- Utiful.

After the hike we drove about 2-3 hours to the town of Mikumi where we stayed for two nights. After a restful night we woke on Friday June 10 to head into Mikumi National Park! There are many pictures from this day (including pictures of LIONS that we saw just as we entered the park!) here are just a few samples...

After our second night in Mikumi we traveled on Izzy's birthday to Dar where we stayed at the benedictine guest house in Kurasini again. After Mass on Sunday morning we caught the ferry to Zanzibar!

Walking around stonetown (Zanzibar's main coastal city) I saw this kid jumping off of the ledge into the water. I asked him if he could do a flip for me and I would take his picture. As he jumped he held both hands out to his side and screamed, "SPIDERMAN!"

We had breakfast on the roof our our hotel on Monday morning and then started our day of adventures. Izzy specifically mentioned that she doesn't want all of our adventures shared before we get home, so we will simply say the morning was spent swimming with dolphins off the south coast of the island and the afternoon was spent visiting a spice farm and taking a tour of the different plants that have made zanzibar famous! quite the day.
From our spice tour...

Here is the beach at the hotel we are staying at for two nights to finish off our stay on Zanzibar. Pretty out of this world. If you are finding us on a map look to the northern part of the island-Nungwi Beach.

All for now. tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday) at 3:30pm we catch the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam where we will spend the last night at the monk's guest house before catching the flight to America at 11:00pm on Thursday, getting into MSP at 3:30pm on Friday if all goes well.

What a trip. we will be talking to and seeing you all soon!

Breakfast overlooking the Indian Ocean. Paradise.