I came, I saw, I conquered

The May Experience is now over.  Overall, the trip was amazing.  I met many people, experienced new things, and gained a new appreciation for the culture here in Tanzania.  Over the past week, our group finished off the trip with a safari with a group called Klub Afriko, based out of Arusha.

The weather in Arusha is much cooler than in Zanzibar.  We departed from Zanzibar in a small puddle jumper plane sweating profusely, and arrived in what felt like the Arctic comparatively.  It took quite a bit to get me to come back to the hot weather here in Zanzibar.

The Safari was an incredible experience.  We traveled in three Safari Vans, with the crew from Klub Afriko.  The drivers, Julias, Elias, and Samuel were all Maasai, and all very nice.  Over the five day trip, we stayed at three locations.  We first stopped at Lake Manyra.  Here, we took a drive through the lake park and saw Dig Dig, Elephants, Babboons, and several bird species.

As we were ending our drive, one person in our car noticed elephants right next to the road, and we promptly drove up to them.  For about ten minutes, we observed a baby elephant and another more mature elephant walk around and eat.  Our eyes were wide and filled with excitement as we looked upon these massive creatures so close.  Then, out of nowhere a third, much larger elephant appeared out of the trees right next to our van.  That excitement quickly turned into fear as a quite large, seemingly upset elephant came rushing out flapping its ears walking directly towards our van.  It was at this time everyone slowly sank back down into their seats, and our driver Julias turned on the van and we quickly drove on.

After the lake, we traveled to the Serengeti happy to be alive.  We spent two days there.  Our first night, at around 9 p.m. as everyone was geting ready for bed, we noticed some sounds rather close to our tents.  We looked around for a bit, and quickly realized there were three giraffes literally in our campsite eating out of the trees.  My first thought was, if something as large as a giraffe can get into the site...what else can make it through?  It was at this time I hastily went back to my tent, took a few sleeping pills, and zipped my temporary haven of safety shut.  Luckily, nothing else made it into the site, despite the Black Mamba snake some others saw on the way in...In the Serengeti, we saw many Zebras, Wildabeast, Giraffes, Hippos, Gazzelle, Hyenas, and Lions.

One evening, our van actually got to get up close and personal with a Lion Pride of about 17.  All three of our vans stopped and watched in awe for about thirty minutes.  My van was the last to leave, which turned out to be both a blessing...and a curse.  As we started to leave, we noticed the pride began to move, so we slowed down.  At first, the pride seemed to focus on a watering hole...but then we found our van was their end goal.  Suddenly, our van was totally surrounded by the Pride of Lions as they circled around it checking us out.  Nothing bad happened as it seemed they were just curiousabout us, but it was quite scary nonetheless.  After about ten minutes of this, we were ableto leave, that is after the Lion that sat down in front of our tire got up.

Our final destination, Ngorogoro crater, was spectacular.  The crater is so vast, that it actually formed its own ecosystem.  The drove down into the crater was breathtaking.  Driving inside the crater, we saw many of the same animals from the Serengeti, (without the whole surrounded by a Lion Pride thing), plus some Maasai people who were allowed to utilize the land for their goat herds.  It was amazing to see the Maasai people using the land walking with spears amongst the Buffalo, Lions, Zebras, Lions, Elephant, Wildabeast , and Hyenas.

After leaving the crater, we traveled to a Maasai village, and had the opportunity to actually get up close and go inside the village.  The people began with a welcome song, as the men gruntedand chanted, while the women sang.  All the while children were dancing in the middle of the dirt between us and the villagers.  After the singing, we went  to the childrens schoolhouse, and then took a look inside the Maasai homes called Bomas.  The experience in the village overall was positive, but some people did have some reservations about our time there.  Some felt we were intruding, others felt it was a very touristy, constructed, and heavily commercialized experience (after touring the homes they had alot of beads and jewelry ready to sell us).  Personally, I felt the experience was a good one.  Although I do agree it seems todd to use these people as somewhat of a commodity, we still got to see inside their village, and looked into a small window of what their life is like.  Additionally, in the world we live in today, it is very difficult for the Maasai peoople to live stricly how they used to.  Now, much of the land is off limits for their use, and must pay around 400 dollars a month to ship water to their village.  Yes, they can use the Ngorogoro crater a bit, but no doubt there are many restrictions on its use.  Because of this, the Maasai people  need new outlets for making money, and tourism is their way to do it.  Through groups such as ours who pay to enter their village and enjoy hearing their songs and seeing where they lived as well as purchase their jewelry directly, instead of from the markets, they are able to afford new livelihoods such as sending their children to schools in the city, and paying for villagers to travel the world and bring awareness to their community.

Now, we are at Hotel Kiponda in Zanzibar preparing to begin our research, and I am very excited for it.  I will do my best to continue posting blogs, but the internet access is sparse, as one might expect.