Africa

Our first visit to the Dark Continent was a tremendous success. But, I must admit that we took a "road much traveled" than one "less traveled" as Nonie and I are more inclined to do. We usually have a real desire to not only want to see the pretty tourist sights but also those areas where tourists are not usually found. Where the locals live, work and play. For the first time we made a conscious decision to play it safe. Africa is definitely a place to play it safe but I must admit that it may have something to do with the aging process, our aging process. Not as adventurous as we were a decade ago. From the moment we arrived in Tanzania, we had guides and guards looking out for our well being. All our hotels had tall walls and tough looking Masai guards patrolling the grounds at night. On the Serengeti, we slept in tents, no walls for protection but each tent was provided with a whistle. Lions, no problem, tweet, tweet, tweet. I would have preferred a gun or even a tough looking lady gym teacher.

Our first stop, Tarangire National Park. More elephants than we could count. Did you know that elephants are on the move over 20 hours a day, traveling tens of miles in search of food? That doesn't surprise me as they always have their trunk packed.

Ngorongoro Crater. A 250 square mile volcanic crater full of critters. Home to black Rhinos who were transplanted from South Africa. Sadly, most of Tanzania's rhinos were killed by poachers for their horns which some believe have the power to make you a better lover. Poaching is still a problem which I find hard to believe in this day and age when Viagra can be bought on the Internet.

The mother of all game parks, the Serengeti. Just it's name evokes images of lions, cheetahs, leopards, zebras and wildebeests. 65,000 square miles of park. We caught just a small glimpse of the annual migration of wildebeests and zebras which number into the tens of thousands. We saw a line of wildebeests that stretched from horizon to horizon. They were unbelievably quiet, just the plaintive muling of the baby wildebeests crying "are we there yet"?