This week, Monday through Wednesday, I went on a safari to Tarangirye (sp?) National Park, the Ngorongoro crater and Lake Manyara. I went with two girls I met in my neighborhood, who are volunteering at a hospital (they're med students). I've become pretty good friends with them here, and it was nice that I liked the people I spent those three days with. Our guide, Mussa, and our driver, Halide, were also amazing. On the way to Tarangire we passed the most Maasai I'd ever seen. It was like driving through rural America and passing Amish people in buggies, except these were maasai shepards in red shukas, who were living in dung made huts with grass roofs. Tarangire was amazing. We drove into savanah grass filled with zebras. However, after you see a milliion zebra, like I feel like I did in those three days, the shock wears off, but they are still amazing. We passed giraffes, fighting male impalas, the most beautiful birds (I wrote down their names if your interested) and wildebeast. We approached a dried up pond and saw elephants! I don't know if you all know this about me, but I love elephants. This first day of elephant spotting doesn't even compare to the other two though. Everything about this area is amazing. If we weren't seeing animals, we were seeing huge balboa and acacia trees and thorny bushes. That first night, we went to a Maasai village. A real one. Not a tourist one. I was a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing actually. They sang for us, let us take their picture, danced and gave us a tour. We were in what's called a Boma. In a boma, there is one husband in one hut, and in the surrounding hut, each one of his wives and their children. He rotates each night which wife he wants to sleep with. The women make the homes, cook, do all the chores and the children tend to the cattle. What to the men do? They go out and drink all day. They actually told us this information. The women also, as we soon learned, bring in a lot of the money from selling crafts, and soon bombarded us with "karibus" or welcomes to their tables to see their merchandise. It was very overwhelming. I wanted to support them, but at the same time, I didn't want the money to go to the husband and the hunting men that lived in the Boma and their drinking habbits. After that cultural experience, we camped at Lake Manyara. Well, kind of. The tents had beds in them, we had hot showers, western style toilets and a cook who made our dinner. We did have a campfire though, which I guess makes it camping.

Tuesday we went to the Ngorongoro crater, which is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. When we first drive into the park, we're on the rim of the crater, which is cold, very lush and green and misty. Out of the mist, we see an elephant walk by our car. It was magical. When we drove into the crater, the geography and weather immediately change. The bottom of the crater is massive. You can't even see from one end to the other. The topography is more like a desert or a savannah. The first thing we see? A cheetah. From a distance but still a cheetah. We also saw a lake covered with flamingos, more zebes (as we started to call the zebrah). We saw a ton, but for the interest of time, the highlight? A male lion that walked out from the field to our car as we were sticking our heads out the top, I think just to show off. He was clearly older, but huge. It was incredible. We saw another lion later in this part of the crater that was a bit jungly and had yellow acacia trees. This lion though was in a tree. I didn't know they did that! We also had a vervet monkey jump into the top of our car and steal a banana.It's scarier than it sounds.That night our campsite, our guide surprised with us a bottle of champagna. Like I said, it wasn't real camping.

The third day was my favorite. Lake Manyara is so underrated when compared to the ngorongoro crater and the serengeti.We saw hippos, a lot out of the water, baboons, including babies, and everything else I mentioned before minus lions. I'm running out of time! But the highlight of the day and perhaps the trip? At least 10 elephants including 2 babies, surrounding our car and crossing the street. We watched them for a good 15-20 minutes. They were incredible. We couldn't make any noise because we were already basically outside, we were sticking our heads out the top, but if we wanted to, could've touched them. My internet time is out! This was my favorite part of the week! I'm sorry I haven't been updating this more. I'm busy!