I left Bermuda on Wednesday, December 19, to go on safari in Tanzania, Africa.

My whole family went on the safari — my mom, dad, brother, grandparents, and uncle — travelling to Tanzania via London and Amsterdam.

The first day we went on a nature hike around the lake by the hotel and to a local market. The market was jam-packed with people, and everyone was trying to tempt us with their goods. There were a lot of things for sale in the market including bananas for eating, bananas for making beer, fruits, vegetables, food, clothes and shoes. We walked around the market for about two hours before we got tired and left.

The next day the tour started and we got in a Land Rover and headed out. We had to go on the highway for about an hour to get to the first national park in which we were staying. It was called Tarangire National Park.

On the drive in, we saw lots of animals like elephants, zebra, ostriches, impala and warthogs. That afternoon we went on our first game drive and were lucky because we saw lions. Our guide radioed to all the other guides in the park that there were lions, and within ten minutes there were 15 trucks all along the road trying to get a picture of them. The next day we went on to more game drives but didn't see any more lions.

At one point, I thought I saw a lion, but it ended up being a rock!

On the third day, we drove out of the national park. During the drive out we saw a pair of lions 50 feet from the road, just lying down. After we got a few good pictures, we were off again.

On Christmas Day, we visited an orphanage. Most of the children there had lost their parents due to Aids. We gave them gifts like colouring books, pencils, pens, stickers and crayons. We also gave them the Christmas card made by the students of my Saltus Form class, 9D, in which my classmates had written festive messages for the children at the orphanage as well as telling them a bit about themselves and life in Bermuda.

We then went to our second hotel, which was in Lake Manyara National Park. It was Christmas, but it didn't really feel like that because it wasn't cold and we didn't have a big Christmas dinner or presents. We saw lots of animals there too, including some hippos and some buffalo running on the horizon.

After that, we went to a hotel that was on the ridge of the Ngorongoro crater. We took a safari into the crater and saw lots of things including flamingo, buffalo, a few elephants and our first male lion. The male lion actually came right up to the truck and lay in the shade from the truck. After that we saw a rare black rhino (there are only 22 in the crater) and two rare serval cats. After spending time in Ngorongoro crater, we went to the Serengeti where we spent four nights.

The first two nights we spent in eastern Serengeti and saw tons of lions. After two nights there, we went to western Serengeti to spend our last two days of the safari. On the first day, we went up on a balloon ride above the Serengeti. It was really cool as we saw a herd of buffalo and we flew right over a group of hyenas. We went to an airport to go to Arusha.

The airport's runway was made of dirt and a giraffe walked across it just before the plane landed.

We took a small 18-passenger plane to the international airport. We had time to go to a snake museum where I got to hold a snake before flying back to England and then to Bermuda.

I think the most memorable part of my trip was either when the lion came right up to the Land Rover or when the elephant charged us.

In the Serengeti, we were in the Land Rover and saw an elephant on the other side of some bushes; just then another elephant started chasing the first elephant and it came charging through the bushes and we drove off in a very big hurry!

If I ever get the chance to be able to go back to Africa, I would definitely go! It was certainly a Christmas I will remember!