I never knew a 5:00am start would be as hard as this. Dragging myself to breakfast was one of the longest journeys I have had to experience throughout this trip so far. However, it was worth it as it was the day of the safari. 6:15 arrived and our two jeeps pulled up outside the hotel, so we split into fours and set off to Akagera national park. When we arrived at the park we signed in, paid our fees and were off into the wilderness.
The safari was very promising as the route was four hours long, this meant plenty of time for searching for animals. The animals were absolutely mesmerising up close, they were calm and stayed still for the perfect pictures. Thanks to our guide we knew where all the animals were hiding and found out some pretty interesting facts. Did you know, hippos cannot swim but run up to 40kmph underwater? Luckily for us we saw most of the main animal attractions of the park, ranging from elephants to water buffalos.
The only two animals we did not manage to see were the lions and black rhinos, this was not surprising as both species have only recently started to be rebred in this country. My favourite part of the day was when we were up close with an African elephant, I have never seen an elephant up close before so it was pretty amazing. The safari then came to an end and it was time to depart back to the hotel. However, due to our nutty jeep drivers one of the cars broke down and the journey back went from 1 hour to 3 hours long.
The safari took the life out of most the group so everyone went to bed bar me, Grace and Sam. So whilst we were chilling on the balcony we were accompanied by a local Christian. He asked us to lend a couple minutes of our time to him which of course we agreed to. Turns out we were there for over an hour, the man’s time keeping wasn’t the best but he was a very kind and interesting individual.
It was our last night with Joseph so there was nothing better than booking dinner at Eddies happy place, the hotel buffet.
To say thank you to Joseph we bought him a party hat which he had to wear throughout the evening meal. He wasn’t too pleased but ended up manning it out. Dinner was full of laughs and jokes as per usual, with Eddie having a grin from ear to ear as he scranned his massive mountain of food. It will be sad to see Joseph go tomorrow as he has been a massive factor in the success of our Cricket Without Boundaries campaign, it has been a pleasure to meet him and I wish him all the best in the future. Wakanda forever!!!
Dan
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