*The opinions in this blog are Garrett's and not Peace Corp's*

Yo. The trimester ended pretty well. I was satisfied with the end results of the students in general, though they seem to have gotten lazier this year in general. I wanted to assemble the students in my Life Skills (anti AIDS) club and present them with the red ribbon which they can pin to their shirts, showing they're experts on HIV/AIDS. I didn't get to do that though, I was too sick to get out of bed after I ate some bad tomato paste, go figure. But that's all done.

Last Tuesday, I went to Ouaga to prepare my epic adventure to Arly National Park, my holiday vacation I'd be taking with my friends Zach and Caleb. Arly's a fairly big park that was quite popular a few decades ago for it's safaris and hunting. You can hunt lions and elephants there (albeit for a lot more money for the permission than I have). Zach and I took some long car rides to the far east of the country to meet up with Caleb in his site. He has a bit of a desolate little village (sorry, I just had to be straightforward about that one) that was nevertheless quite welcoming. His neighbors made us lots of spaghetti for every meal; Caleb's not much of a cook. At nighttime, we got to watch a video in Gourmanchabe (the local language) about Jesus. It was interesting seeing Jesus walking around speaking in an African language.

The next day, we continued by transport to a nice little town called Diapaga in the east. Over there, I felt completely at home with all the huge trees with shades encroaching on you wherever you go. I also found the best rice and peanut sauce in the country in that town (I'm making a list of the 'best of's in the country). Little things like that make my day. The ride to the eastern edge of the park was a slow, leisurely ride of 75km. I loved it of course. Caleb and I climbed almost to the top of a cliff to the south. There's a range of cliffs lining the park and they're awesome to look at (I'll get some pictures up soon). For lunch, we found this high class hunting encampement that offered food that was presented more fancily than anything I've seen in Ouaga (and I was in the middle of the bush, I mean, the middle of nowhere). Just after, a group of European hunters showed up. Of course, being in scraggly, sweaty, dusty clothes of the commoners, I got the feeling of being at the bottom of the totem pole when next to them. lol. We weren't going to stay there for the night there, we're not classy enough for that. We continued to a forestry post just inside the park that has a hotel I've been told about. It is a series of these little Swedish style houses that have been abandoned by their original owners and kept at minimum maintenance by the locals. Inside, there's the ruins of former air conditioners, showers, and electricity, none of which work anymore. It was the perfect place for Peace Corps volunteers to stay at. The forester tried to deny that the place existed to us, wanting us to stay at the fancy place so we don't feel insulted. Oh well.

Coming into the park, we got to see lots of gazelle (they're a common one) a massive bird that I was in too much awe of to describe. The whole time, we're deathly afraid of lions. Early on, I heard a rumbling sound in the bushes nearby. It's when your in these natural places that your ears become attuned to/paranoid of all the natural sounds. It was quite an enchanted number of days, I'm always wondering what type of animal is off in the bushes and if it wants to eat me. I had quite a thrill. In our first morning, we thought we'd take a bikeride to the next point. But, some guides took us on a little bike safari to a hippo lake to the south. At first, we saw a pack of baboons that were playing around. Some were on tops of rocks making themselves look powerful, some were running away, some were having sex in front of us, but disappointingly, none of them looked like Rafiki. Continuing on, we heard loud, deep rumbling in the grasses to the side. We stopped and heard the ranger whisper what we were suspicious of: elephants. They were too far away and I only caught a glimpse of one running, I wasn't happy again. Elephants leave these big footprints on the path that make biking difficult. They could at least be courteous enough to show themselves for a picture! Oh well. This whole time, we're becoming fascinated by all the poop on the road. We ask the guide: what type of poop is that? Some were porcupine, some were elephant (those were huge), some were monkey. But, there was a light yellow one that was the most fascinating of all, LION POOP! I wish I took pictures of it. We continued to the lake not seeing more than some monkeys. AT the lake, we got to the tops of lots of hippos. They don't bring their heads outside of the water when it's that cold. We got to see a young one on the other side of the lake eating leaves, but it was quite far for a good picture.

Well, the super nice foresters who gave lots of free food also gave a free ride to the next section of the park. They took us to another hunting post for really rich people. But, we negotiated getting to camp out on the grounds outside of the sight of the rich tourists alongside the commoner workers (we felt totally at home there). The workers of the camp were quite generous in the good old Burkinabé way, giving us food and keeping us company. Again, we felt outclasses by the hunters. We didn't have any clean, nice clothes to go into the restaurant. After a very cold night, we continued on bike to civilization (or you could say we left it getting out of that fancy place in the bush). Now, I'm just hanging out with Zach and Caleb in Fada N'Gourma for a last time. Well, I hope you guys didn't get bored by the story. It was a long one, good job getting this far.