We awoke even before our early wake-up call. Both of us had sore quads, either from the steep downhill, the scrambling on the Western Breach, or both. It was cool, but not cold, outside. We headed out of camp around 6:40am. Justin told the group "Kwa heri" ("goodbye") before heading out, which everyone seemed impressed with. We would have been using more swahili words all along, but didn't realize that the Kilimanjaro book we had on our kindles had an appendix with some swahili phrases until the night before, i.e., the last night of our trek. What a bummer. The trail was much better than the day before, compacted down with drainage areas on either side. We were in fairly thick forest, but every now and then we could get a good view of Kibo over our right shoulders. The forest was much thicker than our first day on the Lemosho trail. In fact, it somewhat resembled the Hawaiian rainforest near our place in Pahoa.

Joseph and Crystal saw a turaco, which is a very territorial bird in the forest that makes a racket whenever anyone goes into its territory. Further down, we saw some blue monkeys, a giant butterfly, and an enormous colony of ants. These were the first animals we'd seen in a week. The further down we got, the more slippery the trail got, as the ground was saturated, either from rain or just from water accumulation over time. The last 30 minutes was on a 4x4 trail, used for situations where someone needs to be evacuated. In addition to Joseph and Alexi, Zachio and Franco were also both with us. At the bottom, a Land Rover was waiting for us, and it was Aaron driving again. We filled out our final paperwork, and when we returned to the truck Zachio had some champagne and champagne glasses waiting for us. We drank some champagne (well, the two of us and Joseph, since Zachio told us he didn't drink alcohol), said our goodbyes, and then got moving.

The drive back to Arusha was uneventful, other than we had good views of Kibo that we didn't have on the drive in. We got to our "day room" at 11:40, but needed to leave for the airport by 1. So Crystal got in a quick shower, and Justin transferred all the pictures to the computer. We then re-packed, putting all of the stuff we knew we weren't going to use again into a single bag that we could leave in Arusha while we were in the Serengeti. After re-packing, and after donating a fair amount of gear (including Justin's giant boots) the day before, nearly all our clothes and gear fit in one bag. The camera bag and laptop bags were separate, but the backpacks were basically empty.

Aaron drove us through town to the airport. After the big rush we had, we were actually quite early, so we had plenty of time to sit around and do nothing. Stupidly, we didn't eat, didn't drink, and Crystal waited too long to look for small hippo trinkets. Perhaps the weather was to blame, as it was nice sitting outside, in sunny weather probably in the upper 70s. We were sitting in the "departure lounge" for quite sometime with dozens of other folks waiting for their flights. Our plane landed, and one of the agents signalled us to come forward. We were the only ones on the plane, so it must have looked weird to all the other folks in the departure lounge, seeing two backpackers get up by themselves to hop on a plane.

The flight to Lamai was a bit bumpy, but not too bad. We kept looking for animals, but didn't see much other than green grass and some trees. There were a couple of volcanoes that looked kind of cool, but by the time we got to the Serengeti it was pretty flat. At some point we realized that not all the "trees" we had seen earlier were trees - they were wildebeest. We knew there would be a ton of them, but there had to be tens of thousands just in our view coming in to land. When we landed, we saw that there were a bunch of wildebeest just on either side of the runway. After getting off the plane, we were greeted by Adam, who would be driving us to the lodge (Singita Mara River Tented Camp), stopping occasionally to check out the wildlife we saw.

The airport was a good distance away, and the drive took quite awhile. On the drive, we saw some water buffalo, elephants, lots of wildebeest, and lots of derivative wildlife based on the wildebeest. Because of the huge migration, and all of the death involved, there are tons of vultures, maribou storks, and flies everywhere. That never makes its way into the promotional materials. We got to the camp just as it was getting dark, and the Camp Manager Kevin escorted us to our "tent." It went slower than it should have, because our sore legs were at their most sore from the climb down, and we were having some trouble walking. A couple people asked if we were injured. As usual at these safari camps, it was totally over the top, with all sorts of luxuries we didn't need, but probably had to be included to help justify the cost per night. After unpacking a bit and getting cleaned up with a proper shower (Crystal's second in six hours), we went to dinner. Well, first we went down by the firepit and had drinks along with some pupus the chef had put together. There was some sort of wonton/samosa thing that was quite good. We had dinner, and then went back to the room for a good night's sleep in a proper bed.