My Article about our trip for First News, before editing it down to 170 words

I have just come back from six months of traveling in Africa with my dad, mum and brother. We have visited Ethiopia, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. My favourite country was Malawi because we could wake up and go swimming in the lake every morning before breakfast. My best things in Africa are probably our 3 day kayak trip up Lake Malawi, hiking up the sand dunes in the Namib Naukluft Desert, and seeing amazing animals in national parks.

I enjoyed kayaking up Lake Malawi because I enjoy kayaking, love being on the lake all day, and cliff jumping might be my favorite sport.

I enjoyed climbing the sand dunes in the Namib because I enjoy really extreme things (like after already climbing a sand dune that day going in the middle of the day when it is over fifty degrees and trying to climb Big Daddy Sand Dune which is one of the biggest sand dunes in the world), and I enjoy feeling like you are the only person in the world which is what it feels like looking at the desert from the top of Big Daddy

My favorite national parks are Etosha, South Luangwa and Mafia island. In Mafia Island, I snorkeled with endangered whale sharks, the largest fish on earth growing to 15 meters long, hiked across uninhabited islands to sea green sea turtles hatch and snorkeled in incredible reefs seeing many amazing and endangered fish including sea horses. In South Luangwa, after charging through the bushes knocking down trees and whatever was in our way we finally found critically endangered painted wolves, one of the rarest animals in Africa. After finding the painted wolves, we found a leopard, lions guarding a kill that we watched hyenas steal, and a big herd of buffalo. Etosha is an amazing national park where in the middle of a desert on what seems to be a suicidal salt pan water comes up from underground and all of Namibia's wildlife comes together to drink. We saw 7 rhinos White and Black on our first day of safari there, and one on the second day. My favorite animal is a Black-faced Impala, which only lives in one part of Etosha, and we got to see a lot of them as well.