Safari

The safari started on a terrible note. While we were sitting in traffic in Arusha someone ran up to the car, reached through the open window to where I had my camera in my lap reviewing pictures I'd taken, grabbed it and ran off. So there went my camera and the almost 3,000 pictures I'd taken over the course of the last month. I won't lie - if someone had offered me a plane ride back to Seattle at that instant, I would have taken it without hesitation.
But life goes on. The camera is gone. The pictures are gone. I'm fine, and everyone else in the car was fine. The tour operator got the police report filed so I should be set to make an insurance claim when I get back. That won't give me the pictures back, but nothing can. Life goes on.

The safari itself was pretty amazing. We stayed in "luxury tents" and I was fairly concerned after driving mile after mile on dirt roads that were so bad we literally off-roaded for better driving conditions, that I'd be pulling out my smelly kili sleeping bag and sleeping on the ground in a hovel. Couldn't be farther from the truth. It was like a tropical paradise, with the bar looking out over herds of zebra and palm trees. Amazing.

http://www.tanganyikawildernesscamps.com/camps/maramboitentedcamp/accommodation/



The safari covered Lake Manyare, Tarangire, and Ngorongoro crater (though there was some sketchiness regarding whether they were going to take us to Ngorongoro or not that worked out fine in the end). They each had their ups and downs. Tarangire was amazing for the masses of animals we saw. Herd after herd of elephants, and hundreds of zebras and wildebeests amassing at the river for water. We actually got out to eat lunch, and there was something surreal about eating lunch on a tree root looking at a herd of elephants 200 feet away going about their business. Ngorongoro is an enormous crater (I couldn't believe the scale when I saw it) with tons of animals in a confined area that just can't get out. I was expecting to see maybe a lion or two if we were lucky, but not only did we see multiple groups of lions, we were actually lucky enough to see a lion take down a wildebeest, which was pretty wild.
There was something freeing as well about being on Safari without a camera. You just have to sit there and take it in and not worry about the pictures you could be taking since you can't take any.

All told, I'm ready to be done. Not sure I'd do another safari but it was certainly an interesting thing to do while I'm here.

Today has been lazing by the pool. The hotel they took us to back in Arusha is in a shady part of town. Basically they said don't leave the compound. After the camera incident and being told that if we'd given chase we might have been killed, I'm pretty ready to take that advice. I changed my tickets to not have an additional day tomorrow, so when the ride to the airport gets here in a few hours I'll finally be on my way home!