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After a swift 2 months in South Africa, we finally arrived in Qatar! When we first stepped out of the Doha international airport, it felt like we were in a sauna. The average temperature in the summer for Doha is around 39 degrees celsius/102 degrees fahrenheit with high humidity. After the temperature shock, we hopped in an uber and drove to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Doha. The hotel was beautiful and the manager realized that we were tired and hungry from our overnight flight. He offered a free breakfast and I was happy when my parents accepted it! The breakfast was delicious and had everything including Asian dumplings, chia seed pudding, and even Indian foods. The next day we began our site seeing. We knew we would need to keep our activities indoors due to the crazy high temperatures and humidity so our first stop was to the Museum of Islamic Art. We observed ancient Islamic artifacts and read about them as well. As a result of going to the Museum of Islamic Art we bought a 3 in one ticket for the next 3 days, giving us access to all 3 of the museums we visited in Qatar.. After going to the museum, we returned to the hotel and ate a delicious dinner. The second day, we went to the National Museum of Qatar. In this museum, we learned about Qatar as it was millions of years ago and how life was back hundreds of years ago and before the discovery of oil in Qatar. In my opinion, this museum building had the coolest design. The design of the building was based on a desert rose. A desert rose is a rocky, delicate rock which is formed when minerals crystallize into rose shaped rocks. It was a unique design and unforgettable. The following day we visited one of my favorite things we did in Doha was the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum. The sports museum had many interactive and informative games that made going to a normal boring museum much more fun and hands-on. When we finished the museum displays, we walked down the stairs to find more games that tested your agility, reaction time, strength, etc. One of the best games was definitely the zip wire, where you had to grip onto the bar for as long as you could to test your endurance and grip strength. The last location that we visited on our tour of Qatar was a 100 year old bazaar called Souq Waqif. In this bazaar we saw many different kinds of Arabic clothing, food, and animals. We stopped to buy Qatari candies which were great. The market even had a whole section dedicated to selling birds! In the end, Qatar was a good place to visit, just not in the summer!
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After over 1 month in South Africa, we have finally made it to our safari! How was it? Well to start, we drove for over 3 hours from Durban to a luxury game resort called Makhasa Private Game Lodge. When we first arrived we were treated with warm towels and welcome drinks. After we drank up, we were anxious to see lots of African wildlife but only small deer-like animals, called nyalas, were currently by the lodge. Next we were taken to our rooms to relax and wait for our lunch. I was starving! Our lunch on the first day, which was a salad and pita. I thought it was really small and weak and did not fill anybody up for more than 2 hours. After that was the moment we were all waiting for, our first safari! When we went into our safari vehicle at 3:00 pm, we immediately observed loads of hoofed animals like zebras and nyalas, but the most interesting animal we saw on that game drive was a large male leopard. The leopard was really cool to see up close and was also on our list of animals we were hoping to see as apart of the Big 5. As a result of the lack of lunch, we had to stop in a wide open field to snack. When our guide told us that he had snacks we were surprised, but when he had a whole drink bar in the truck we were even more impressed. My family and I enjoyed drinks and sitting watching our first African safari sunset. After our afternoon game drive, we came back to nice warm towels as well as more welcome drinks. We enjoyed nice dinners every single night with delicious, homemade meals. As for the game drives, following the first day, it was pretty boring. Every single day we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to freezing weather and a wave of weariness. To be frank, I passed out for the 3 other days each morning, but luckily we didn't really see much and I was disappointed. .On our last game drive we had a scary encounter with a rhino that almost hit our vehicle. We were driving back to the game lodge after our evening drive and unexpectedly came across a herd of rhinos on the road. They were impossible to see in the pitch black but luckily our experienced guide stopped in time to avoid hitting the rhino. I think we scared them as much as they frightened us! Our mistake was going to a national park before we went on our safari, so we were used to all of the elephants, zebras, warthogs and other animals. On our 3rd day we also saw 2 cheetahs, a mother and child, just relaxing by the road. In all, our safari was fun for 1-2 days and that was about it. I would recommend this place for about 1-2 days and I would definitely not recommend staying at Makhasa game resort for any longer. **Disclaimer: this is the opinion of the author and does not speak for the rest of his family:)** |
