In December, seven of us embarked on a journey to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and go on a photo safari. The last essay chronicles the first half of the trip - the attempt at summitting Kilimanjaro. This essay, we go on safari. The text is, for the most part, transcribed from a journal that I kept during the adventure.

Wednesday, December 27

Up and ready to move! No more squat toilets! No more hiking! Just the promise of 5-star hotels and animal sightings.

Prior to breakfast, I got up at the break of dawn and took a swim. It is quite hot in Moshi, and for some reason the fan that was in our room the time before was now gone. When we discovered this, we asked if we could have a fan, and the man said he would check on it. About 15 minutes later, he came back and said, “No fan. But the pool is full and you can use it. No charge!” The concept of needing the fan to get some sleep apparently hadn’t entered his mind.

The morning swim was refreshing – it not only helped cool me down, but it was nice to be able to swim without an audience of local children.

After breakfast, we load up the van that will be our transportation for the next five days. Getting on our way takes far too long – we have to stop for gas, we have to stop to get money changed, we have to stop to buy water, and we have to stop to let Kathy register at the hotel she is going to stay at after the safari. Changing money is particularly troubling – we are instantly seized upon by locals trying to sell us stuff and they badger you incessantly. When at last we were able to get back in the van, I wanted to duck down and get out of town as soon as possible.

Once we finally got out of Arusha, the drive was pretty interesting. As the city gave way, the Tanzania countryside took over. Once again, the Masai could be found just about everywhere, tending their herds. About an hour into the drive, we made a right onto a dirt road, and thing got quite fascinating. Rolling hills of green crops, dotted with thatched roof houses. And just about everywhere people walking. Every so often, we’d come upon village centers, marked by speed bumps in the roads. And while things were quite primitive by US standards, it struck me that in this context, I wasn’t looking at poverty, but adaptation. The people had adopted their way of living (or visa versa) to their environment, and it all seemed to be working. No, they don’t have cars or TVs or indoor plumbing, but were they to suddenly pursue these things, a delicate balance would be lost. Yes, it takes longer to plow a field using oxen, but once you have a need for a tractor you up the stakes as to what you need to sustain your new way of living.

The dirt road was long, and, at times, very bumpy. But after two hours or so on it, we approached our next destination. Perched on a tall bluff, overlooking what is known as the rift valley, was the Lake Manyara Serena Inn. The road up the bluff was windy and relatively steep, and as we got near the top we rounded the corner and come face-to-face with a band of baboons. They were street smart and got out of the way of the vehicle – but it was a strange sight to have such roadside attractions. We were truly in a different world.

The hotel was beautiful – a sort of African “tent” architecture that blended into the site rather than diminishing it. We checked in and then sat down to lunch. It was a buffet with all kinds of things that helped us forget the monotony of the meals on Kilimanjaro.

After lunch, we packed into the van and headed down the hill to Lake Manyara National Park. The approach to the park, and the park itself, was very beautiful – a rainforest bounded on one side by the rift (which I estimated to be about 600 feet of nearly vertical) and on the other side by Lake Manyara, a large, muddy, shallow lake.

Within a few minutes of entering the park, we came across another pack of baboons. This time the cameras were at the ready and we took what, I’m sure, will prove to be far too many baboon shots. The driver/guide (whose name I forgot almost as soon as he mentioned it) popped the top up on the van so that we could stand up and take pictures.

Not long after the baboon encounter, we came across a family of elephants foraging in the woods. It was spectacular to see them in their natural environment, unbound by chain-link fences and concrete barriers.

In rapid succession, we came across more and more wildlife. Zebras, giraffe, a lone wildebeest, warthogs, a variety of large birds – all blissfully living their lives in the environment they were meant to exist in.

We spent about four hours riding through the park, each turn revealing animals. I would have like to gotten out and walked through this forest, but nobody is allowed to leave the vehicles. I’m sure this is for the benefit of the animals rather than purely for the safety of the people, but all the same one couldn’t help but wonder what it might have been like to wander through here 100 years ago.

After the game drive, we headed back up to the inn. Some of our group swam in the swimming pool that enjoyed a spectacular setting overlooking the forest and valley below.

Denise and I choose to take showers, dress for dinner, and have a few drinks by the pool. A splendid ending to a most glorious day. As the sun went down, bugs became attracted to the lights in the pool, and soon the surface was littered with dying moths and beetles. Much to my surprise, there were also frogs in the pool – they had somehow adapted to the chlorine and were enjoying the nightly harvest of bugs.

Dinner was another buffet. After dinner, we watched an acrobatic group for a bit, but that got old pretty quick. And according to Denise, the room got heavy with B.O. pretty quick, so we called it a night.

Thursday, December 28

Denise and I are the only ones that show up at 6:30 a.m. for a nature walk. Later, we’ll find out that the others who said they were going to do it did not want to cough up the $10 they charged for the walk. The walk was interesting, but definitely overpriced. We learned that the Masai use a certain plant to pierce their ears because it has a natural antiseptic, that 20-30 million termites may inhabit one mound, that the queen termite can grow to 25 cm long, and that the sour plum is a miserable tasting fruit that had my mouth and tongue contorting in ways I didn’t think possible.

After breakfast (another buffet), we packed up and headed for the Serengeti. It was a long ride, on dirt roads all the way. Again, the countryside was interesting enough to keep one occupied for most of the trip.

Some of the entrepreneurial Masai have come up with a way to extract a few extra tourist dollars by offering to allow the tourist vehicles to take a look inside one of their villages for the sum of $50 per bus. Figuring that we’ll probably never be back this way again, and knowing that it would be pretty difficult to get any pictures of the Masai any other way, we decided to take the bait.

Upon arriving at one of these villages on our way to the Serengeti, we were greeted by a Masai man who spoke good English and who’s job was to collect the money. Like all the Masia, he was dressed in the traditional red and black garment and sported very pierced ears and many earrings, necklaces, and other jewelry.

By this point in the trip, many of us were well into several stages of sunburn, with peeling skin evident on most of us. The peeling was particularly evident on Denise’s forehead, and in an ironic twist of “who is here to gawk at who,” the first words out of the mouth of the Masai man who had come to collect our money was “What is wrong with your face?” as he looked at Denise in what could only be described as a look of horror. Trying to explain sunburn to a people who don’t get sunburned took a little bit of doing, but he appeared satisfied with the explanation and we continued on the tour.

As we filed into the village, a number of the tribe members gathered and proceeded to demonstrate their traditional dancing and signing. I felt very touristy as I crept up towards them and snapped their pictures. But, hey, they had our 50 bucks, so who am I to feign modesty? Following the demonstration, we were shown around the village and got to go inside one of their huts, which are constructed of sticks, cow dung, and grass. Inside, it was smoky and dark, not unlike the native American teepees I had been in.

Not content with a mere 50 dollars, the Masai, of course, had copious amounts of craft items for sale – beaded jewelry, spears, goatskin drinking vessels, and the like. This was the female tribe member’s domain, and they would follow us around the village with their wears, begging us to take a look at their creations. In the market for a few souvenirs, I was easy prey. This led to another episode of “who is here to gawk at who,” as the Masai women were fascinated by the blond hair on my arms and legs. Once one of the older ladies discovered this “curiosity,” she called over several other women and children. I soon found myself surrounded by little kids all vying to rub the hair on my legs. Kind of strange, I must say. I bought some stuff and got out of there.

Having gotten our fill of Masai photographs and souvenirs, we continued on our journey to the Serengeti.

There was no clear delineation when we got to the Serengeti. At least I didn’t think so, but later we found out that the national park is abutted by the Serengeti conservation area, which is protected from development, but which can be used by the Masai for grazing.

Unlike my pre-conceived notions of a bleak, brown landscape, the Serengeti was a lush, green grassland. It seemed almost infinite - a vast green plain evaporating into the hills surrounding it. And then there were the zebras and the wildebeest – tens of thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. The wildebeest number somewhere between 1-2 million in the Serengeti and represent one of the last great migrations left on Earth. The zebra tag along – it is said that the zebra have better eyesight, and the wildebeest have better hearing, so they complement one another. At one point, we stopped to let a large herd of wildebeest cross the road to get to a watering hole. All of a sudden, the herd turned and started stampeding back across the road in a spectacular blur of hooves and dust. A few minutes later, we discovered what led to the abrupt about-face – the dog of a Masai herder was approaching.

Another thing which is different in the Serengeti conservation area than in the national park, is that in the conservation area, the tour vehicles are allowed to leave the road. We discovered this when our driver got a tip on the radio that some cheetahs had been spotted. In the distance, we could see a collection of tour vehicles, and we were soon on the grassland, heading their way. All of the animals we encountered on safari were very “vehicle smart,” and would get out of the way of vehicles no matter how fast they were going. This is an especially useful trait when the vehicles go off-road and essentially bust through the animal’s grazing lands.

About a half mile in, we came across the cheetahs. There were three of them walking quickly, but by the time we got within good viewing distance of them, they had come across a clump of vegetation, and two of them were totally hidden within the vegetation. The third, apparently the dominant male who’s job it was to protect the others, sat outside the clump and vigilantly eyed his surroundings.

The sight of these cheetahs was somewhat bittersweet. Although it was exciting to see the cheetah up close, this was the one time in all of the safari that I felt we had infringed upon the animal’s habitat far too much. Cheetahs are the only cat that hunt during the day, so if they aren’t given the opportunity to do so, they go hungry. And here we were, in the midst of five or six other tour vehicles, almost completely surrounding these poor animals. And as soon as we left, there was another tour vehicle to take our place. This sighting just wasn’t worth it.

Eventually, we got back on the road and continued our journey towards the national park. Along the way, we saw plenty more zebras and wildebeests, along with the occasional hyena, many guinea fowl, and lots of gazelles. And our sharp-eyed guide even made a stop to point out the dung beetles rolling a large, perfectly shaped ball of dung by the side of the road.

Although there was little difference, visually, between the Serengeti conservation area and the national park, it became quite apparent when we got to the national park because the driver had to spend a good 20 minutes or so getting paperwork taken care of. Apparently, bureaucracy is alive and well in Tanzania.

One of the interesting things we discovered during our drive in the afternoon was that even with 1-2 million wildebeest and tens of thousands of zebra, you could still find vast stretches where you’d look out over the plains and see nothing. This was true even though the grasslands were lush and plentiful. But that, it turns out, is precisely what drives the wildebeest migration – they stick to one area as long as the food is plentiful, and move on when its not. What we were witnessing were the areas where they had not yet been. It all made sense, of course, but it was surprising to see areas where there were no animals after experiencing what seemed like endless animals all morning.

The day proved once again to be very fruitful as far as animal sightings went. In addition to the zebras, wildebeest, and hyenas, we saw elephants, giraffes, another couple of cheetahs (these ones were in the national park, so they were not harassed by vehicles), ostrich, storks, vultures, hippos, and even a crocodile, which was much larger than I had expected. The one thing we did not find on today’s safari was the “king of the jungle” – the lions were nowhere to be seen.

The Serengeti was spectacular not just for it’s animals, but for the landscape in general. The sky was always vast and alive, offering different backdrops every way you looked. The clouds were magnificent. And the trees and brush were straight off the canvas of those paintings you see of “how the Earth looked millions of years ago.” You almost expect dinosaurs to make an appearance.

After a long day of driving we headed back to our new “home” – yet another wonderful 5-star hotel that fit perfectly into it’s environment. We would be staying here for two nights, and it was good to go to bed with the knowledge that we didn’t have to pack up everything in the morning. After all the driving and moving around of the past few days, a little stability was more than welcome. This hotel, too, had a beautiful swimming pool, although the view from the pool was not as spectacular as at the previous hotel. And despite the fact that the weather was a bit on the cool side, I decided to take a swim this time.

Friday, December 29

Having distanced ourselves a bit from the Kilimanjaro climb, and having been sitting in a vehicle pretty much all day for the last couple of days, Denise and I were getting a bit restless over the lack of exercise. After breakfast, we decided that a nice, long walk was in order. Although the hotel was outside of the borders of the national park, they cautioned guests against straying too far from the hotel because there was nothing keeping the animals within the confines of the park. We took this advice in stride, but were determined to get some exercise and rationalized that the Masai were out in the countryside all of the time herding their animals, so things couldn’t be that dangerous.

So, we gingerly headed down the hotel access road. The hotel had living quarters for the hotel workers about a half mile down the road, and on our walk away from the hotel, we passed many workers who were coming from the living quarters and heading into work. As was usual, we gave, and received, the Swahili greeting of “Jambo” as we passed. About a quarter of a mile down the road, we encountered a worker who stopped and proceeded to engage us in a more lengthy conversation. Well, a one-side conversation, anyway – he spoke only Swahili and he was saying plenty of words we’d never heard before. And he was waiting for our reply. We smiled and nodded, but still he spoke and awaited our reply. Finally, Denise said “Okay,” and that seemed to do the trick – he smiled and went on his way.

We, on the other hand, became rather concerned. It was clear he was trying to tell us something. And it was clear we didn’t understand what it was, but we suspected he was telling us not to walk beyond the hotel grounds. So we decided that the prudent thing would be to cut our walk short and head back to the hotel.

I had memorized a good chunk of what the man had said to us, and when we got back to the hotel, we ran into Joy, who knows quite a bit more Swahili than we do, and I asked her what the man was trying to tell us. As it turns out, he was simply being sociable – wishing us a good morning and asking “what is the news of the day.” So, our walk was cut short prematurely for nothing.

Or so we thought. Today was day two of our Serengeti safari, and we all piled into the safari vehicle to seek out this day’s adventures. About two miles down the road, we unexpectedly came across our first lion sightings of the trip – two beautiful males who were perhaps 50 feet from the road. Although our African friend wasn’t warning us about leaving the hotel grounds, it turns out that it was a very good idea we thought he was – had he not stopped to talk with us, we would have easily walked out this far and unknowingly walked into these beast’s territory.

Day two on the Serengeti turned out to be a major “lion” day. A bit further into the park we came upon a pride of lionesses and cubs sacked out around a very small tree near the side of the road. Being all together, it was difficult to see just how many lions there were, although I think we finally agreed that there were five lionesses and three cubs. There was very little movement, except for the occasional restlessness of the cubs. Our guide told us that lions sleep up to 20 hours a day, and from the looks of it, these ones were no exceptions.

One of the hopes of any safari, I am told, is to witness a “live kill” – be it a lion, cheetah, or leopard doing the killing. From what we were seeing of the lions, killing was the farthest thing from their minds. Lions typically hunt nocturnally, and I wondered how those nature shows ever managed to capture a daytime “kill” on film. We would see no kill on our safari – we were grateful just to see the dang cats move once in awhile.

That’s not to say that all the animals were as sedate as the lions. Indeed, we had a number of unique encounters on this day that made us feel like we were in the midst of our own nature TV special. It was fascinating watching two juvenile male gazelles practicing their “fighting” – lowering their heads, bounding towards one another, and clashing their horns together with a loud bang that resembled the sound of bone hitting bone. Equally as fascinating were the three giraffes which were engaged in their own form of dominant “play.” When we first saw the giraffes rubbing their necks up against one another, bobbing and swaying, and attempting to rap their necks around the other giraffes, we mistook it for signs of affection. But our guide assured us that the only affection these males had were for the nearby females. The fighting could only be described as graceful and almost ballet-like. So involved were these three in their “battle” that these normally vehicle-shy creatures didn’t seem to realize that had wondered into the middle of the road. Their inattention was our gain, in that it allowed us to get the best giraffe pictures of the trip.

And of course, what nature special would be complete without a little sex? Very little sex, it turns out, but it was still quite the experience to see a male giraffe attempt to mount a female. The female was much smaller than the male – in fact, it looked as though she was too small and/or young to mate at all. After a few fitful attempts on the male’s part, the female decided she had had enough, and that was that.

All in all, the Serengeti proved to be all I had expected, and more. Despite all the tragic stories you hear coming out of Africa, be it civil wars, genocide, starvation, poaching and more, it was enlightening to see that these things appeared to be the exception rather than the rule. There are still places, vast places, that these beautiful wild animals live as they have for millions of years.

Saturday, December 30

Our respite from packing and unpacking is over, as today we leave the Serengeti and head to the Ngorangora Crater. On our drive out, we spot some more lions just off the road and our driver asks if we want to get closer to view them. Unanimously, we decline, having had our fill of lion sightings. Funny how what, just two days ago, was a highly anticipated treat was now a “ho-hum” event.

Ngorangora Crater National Park encompasses the entire area of a crater of a long-extinct volcano. Geologists estimate that at one time, many millions of years ago, the Ngorangora volcano was taller than Kilimanjaro, topping out at somewhere around 23,000 feet. However, at some point the volcano collapsed under it’s own weight and left what now remains – a huge circular crater surrounding a flat plain that is the home to many wild beasts. Geologists speculate that the vast, flat expanse of the Serengeti was created from the settling of the dust from Ngorangora when it collapsed.

After a morning of driving on dirt roads, we arrive at our next hotel. This hotel is perched at the top rim of the crater and has a spectacular view of the entire crater. The exterior of the hotel is made of stones from the surrounding land, so it blends into the hillside so much that it is nearly unnoticeable. In the lobby, they greet us with glasses of passion juice – a nice touch after a morning of driving.

We check into our rooms and then head to the restaurant for lunch. Unlike the last couple of hotels, the lunch is a sit-down affair rather than a buffet. Huge picture windows in the restaurant overlook the crater below – a most spectacular setting.

Immediately after lunch, we head back to the lobby to board the vehicles to take us down into the crater. Unlike the rest of the safari, in which we rode in van-like vehicles, we are now transferred to very sturdy, 4-wheel drive vehicles. Apparently, the drive down the crater wall is a bit of challenge, and these 4-wheel drive vehicles are a necessity.

And, indeed, the road down into the crater is a steep, windy, dirt (sometimes mud) road. It’s easy to see how vehicles could get stuck. Thankfully, the road is one-way, so we don’t have to deal with vehicles coming up.

Once in the crater, the first thing we come across is a jackel picking at a water buffalo carcass. This is the first carcass we’ve seen on the safari, and it is a bit disconcerting. Up to now, the life and death reality of the African countryside hadn’t stared us in the face. I asked our driver if a lion likely took this water buffalo down, and he said no, that it more likely died of disease or old age.

As it turns out, the floor of the crater is a veritable bone yard. Mostly water buffalo carcasses, but there were other, less-identifiable bones lying around as well. The crater floor is wide open and almost treeless due to the composition of the soil, so the high visibility of bones here may be primarily due to the fact that they have nowhere to hide.

As we continue our drive, we come upon the first hippo that we have seen out of the water. It is grazing on grass near a large mud puddle. I would come to find out later that of all the animals in Africa, the hippo is the most dangerous to man and is responsible for the largest number of human deaths by wildlife in any single year. Hard to believe for such a serene-looking animal.

The Ngorangora Crater also offers us our first look at a rhinoceros. There are several of them off in the distance, barely discernible from elephants or hippos except for the obvious horns on their snout. Rhinos have been devastated by poaching throughout Africa, and the population in Ngorangora Crater currently stands at 11. A distant glimpse was all we would see of the Ngorangora rhinos.

We also come across three lionesses and six cubs lounging comfortably in the mud and grass. We pull up to within about 15 feet of them, and they pay no attention to us. The mothers are fly-covered and lazily attempting to sleep. Three of the cubs are attempting to sleep as well, although their “sleep” involves a lot more movement than the adults. The other three cubs are busy nursing off of their mother. This is fun to watch, as they climb over the top of one another to get a better position. Occasionally, their climbing or nipple sucking gets a bit too boisterous for mom, and she lifts her head and growls at the youngsters.

Although we have seen elephants throughout the safari, we didn’t get anywhere as close to them as we do here. Our driver spies one massive beast making his way across the plain and positions the vehicle within the course of the path the elephant is walking. Unfazed, the elephant does not change his chosen path because of us, and walks right by within a few feet of the vehicle. He is an impressive old male, which our driver estimates to be about 60 years old. One of the unique aspects of the crater is that only male elephants live there because the females cannot make it down the rim of the crater with their young. Similarly, there are no giraffes at all in the crater because their tall, gangly bodies cannot make it down the steep crater rim as well.

The crater contains a number of shallow lakes that are full in the wet season, but dry up during the dry season. They are soda lakes and are quite an attraction for flamingos. It is quite a site seeing acres and acres of lawn ornaments spread out before you. As we drove by one collection of the birds, they all flew away except for one which, upon closer inspection, had one mangled leg and apparently could not break into flight using its one remaining good leg. It was a sad sight to witness, and we wondered how long it would be before the bird became someone’s meal. On the brighter side, it had managed to escape from whatever it was that had it’s leg in its grip, so, for now, it was a survivor.

There were also more water buffalo at this park than we saw anywhere else, which might explain the somewhat large number of water buffalo carcasses we also saw.

In all, the Ngorangora Crater seemed to have the highest concentration of wildlife within it’s given space, but seeing how it was much smaller than the Serengeti, and much more wide open than Lake Manyara, the actual numbers of animals were no doubt smaller than in the other parks.

It was an incredible four days of wildlife viewing, but we were all somewhat relieved to have it come to an end, having had our fill of riding in vehicles for nine hours a day. Our trusty 4-wheel drive vehicle made it back up the crater wall, and soon we were back in the comfortable confines of our hotel, feasting on yet another buffet.

The Long Road Home

The end of the safari was not the end of our trip, of course - it was just the end of the fun part of the trip. On New Year's Eve, we spent the night at a hotel in Arusha, Tanzania and ushered in the New Year at a party the hotel had. It was strange to wake up at 7 a.m. the next day, turn on the TV, and see pictures of people in Times Square getting ready to ring in the New Year.

From Arusha, we once again took the bus back to Nairobi, where we once again stayed at the Nairobi Hilton for the night. The next morning, it was off to the airport, where we flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We had a 9-hour layover in Ethiopia, but the airline was kind enough to put us up at the Addis Hilton during the wait - not that we had a choice, since they took our passports to ensure that we wouldn't wander anywhere else.

Thirty hours later, we were back in Boston and back to winter. After the 4-hour drive from Boston to Northport, we pulled into the yard, opened the garage door, and were greeted by water gushing down the back wall of the garage. It seems that sometime during the trip, the power went out, the boiler never came back on, the house froze, and a pipe burst. Not quite the welcome we were hoping for.

And so an extraordinary trip ended - but the pictures and the memories remain.