my new career

Well, I’ve found my fallback career.  If the nurse thing doesn’t work out in the future, I think I may try being a safari driver.  

Ok, not really.  But I did it for a day and it was pretty fun.  Arusha National Park is about 30 minutes from my house and has a lot of game viewing opportunities as well as hiking safaris.  This past Saturday my roommates and I, along with an out of town guest, decided to go hiking on part of Mt Meru in Arusha Nat’l Park.  The only problem was that the hike we wanted to do required a 4x4 vehicle, with capabilities beyond what our little RAV4 could offer, to get to the starting point of the hike.  So we borrowed a Land Cruiser and were off for a fun day of hiking.  I ended up in the driver’s seat and found that I really quite enjoyed myself.  Once we got into the park and made our way to the ranger station to pick up our armed guide/guard to hike with us (a requirement for hiking in this particular area where wildlife is present) the sky started to look a little grey.  We were not deterred.  After crossing a small river and engaging the 4 wheel drive for the first time we made the ascent up the winding dirt road to the starting point of the hike.  Just about the time we reached our destination the skies opened up.  After deciding that waiting it out was not the best option we very slowly made the descent down the steep, winding dirt road along with the water that was now rushing down the mountain.  We made it safely to the bottom about the same time the rain lightened up.  We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the park looking for wildlife and got a great view of Kilimanjaro as the clouds broke.  So the day wasn’t a complete bust, and I got some good 4x4 experience!  

We'll give it another shot on another day, maybe after the rainy season passes . . .