Floating Over the Serengeti (And Why I'll Never Be the Same)

Tanzania  •  Serengeti National Park  •  September 2016

The drive from Ngorongoro to the Serengeti was five hours of constant vibration, deep crater-like dips that dropped the car like an elevator, giant rocks to dodge, and windows slamming shut every time a passing vehicle created a cloud of dust that would fill the interior in approximately half a second. The roads that had felt rough in Tarangire were smooth highways in comparison. We saw three broken Land Rovers with snapped axles in one stretch. Babenga drives either very fast or very slow over washboard roads because either extreme is safer than the middle speed, which causes the car to start skating sideways. He chose fast.

We entered the Serengeti and started a game drive. In the first hour: a cheetah under a tree, two leopards (one with a fresh kill up in the branches), and a male and female lion lying in the grass. We drove the road right past them. As we rolled by, the male turned his head and let out this enormous roar that neither Matt nor I was remotely prepared for. We both physically jumped. He then went back to lying in the grass, completely unbothered. The lion is boss out here and he wanted us to know it.

Rain came in that afternoon, first in months, so we shut the roof and headed to our lodge on top of a hill with a spectacular view. The buffet dinner was one of the better meals of the trip. Early night. We needed it.

4am wake-up for the balloon ride. The drive to the launch site was dark except for full moonlight. I was half asleep staring out the window when I registered zebras on the road running right alongside the car headlights. Just running, not getting out of the way. My brain briefly forgot where I was, then remembered. That keeps happening here and it never gets old.

Captain Frank was our pilot. Canadian. We climbed into the balloon basket astronaut-style, lying down to swing your legs over, which is its own adventure. And then we were lifting.

I'm going to struggle to describe this adequately. Floating silently over the Serengeti at dawn, watching the light change the landscape from grey to gold, understanding for the first time just how vast and untouched this place actually is... it felt like the answer to a question I didn't know I'd been asking. "Life at its best," I wrote in my notes. "This is why I live. This is why I travel." That sounds dramatic and I mean it exactly.

The landing was not elegant: we hit the ground, dragged, lifted back up, several more bumps. Then we drove to meet the other two balloon groups for a champagne toast, a tradition with a history Captain Frank explained and which I've since forgotten but which was interesting in the moment. Breakfast followed in the open bush, sitting outside in the morning sun. Well executed from start to finish.

That afternoon Babenga found the same two leopards from the day before and then a full lion pride on the move: females and three cubs impossibly small and adorable, just trotting along with the group. We watched them for a long time.

For the last two nights we moved to Kirowira camp in the western corridor. This is what I'd imagined when I first pictured going on safari. Glamping in the proper sense: large canvas tents on elevated wooden decks, closets that look like old travel trunks, floor-to-ceiling wooden vanity in the bathroom, a lounge tent with a phonograph and upholstered chairs and a telescope and a fire pit. 1930s and 40s aesthetic. The kind of place where you keep half-expecting Robert Redford and Meryl Streep to appear over the next hill. We arrived to cold champagne and the best fresh-squeezed orange juice any of us had ever tasted.

The western corridor had been hit hard by drought, so wildlife was sparse. What we did have was the tsetse flies of the western corridor, which were somehow worse than Tarangire. Babenga was trying to outrun them and they were chasing us in his side mirrors. From the back seat I could see Matt and Tom swatting and stomping up front while Babenga sprayed and smashed. I had to pause and laugh. There is literally nothing you can do about tsetse flies except accept them and use some words you'd rather not. They do bring out some very unladylike language though, for the record.

That evening the staff surprised Tom with a birthday cake and serenaded him in Swahili. A wonderful way to celebrate 70 years on this earth.

Our second-to-last day: we exited the park and drove to a fishing village on Lake Victoria. Very poor, representative of how much of Tanzania lives and how much of the world lives. I've said on other trips that I wish everyone with a life of privilege would find a way to spend time in a place like this. Not to gawk, but to walk through, to watch the daily life. Women collecting water from the lake. People bathing and washing. Kids just being kids.

The children ran up to hold my hand almost immediately. Big bright smiles walking me through their village. Tom made his own little group of friends. Matt was too busy taking pictures to hold hands with anyone and I think the kids instinctively knew they wouldn't make it into a photo if they grabbed his hand.

We walked to Zariki School, started by a foreign family who paid to build three classrooms and which has since grown to five through visitor donations. Teaches only in English so the children have a better chance at employment and a higher quality of life. We brought school supplies. We watched classrooms of kids greet us, ask us thoughtful questions, and sing their school song. 

The last morning. I'd asked for an early wake-up call because I wanted the deck before anything else. Matt and I sat there with our coffees in the dark and waited for the light to find the Serengeti. Slowly, softly, the gold appeared. Birds started. The smell of the grasses and the fire from the night before. I tried very deliberately to stamp all of it into my permanent memory. I'd been emotional the last few mornings. Standing there I understood this was going to stay one of the most significant experiences of my life.

The last game drive. Two female lions taking down a fresh wildebeest. The last time our heads stuck out of the roof with the wind making our hair into something structurally unsound. The last warthog butts scurrying away with their little tails up. The last of the hippo grunts.

Serengeti International Airport is a dirt runway where a chase car has to drive circuits to scare the animals off before a plane can land. Sit with that image for a moment. We said goodbye to Babenga, who'd been with us for ten days and had become genuinely important to the experience. He says "for example..." as a verbal tic the way Tarek said "OK" in Egypt years before, and I know I'm going to miss it.

Back at Lake Duluti Lodge. The same place we'd started. Full circle.

Africa accounts for only five percent of the world's tourists. Five percent. For what it offers. The amount of wildlife we saw in the first fifteen minutes of our first game drive was more than all three of us had seen collectively in our entire lives. No Hilton Serengeti at the park entrance. No fast food chains. Unpaved roads not just for lack of funds but because paved roads mean faster driving and more animals killed. They've chosen the animals. This continent feels genuinely preserved in a way very few places on earth still are.

I'll be honest: this is not a trip for someone who needs to be comfortable. You will be dirty constantly. The roads will bounce you so hard you'll have bruises. The bugs are relentless. The heat is real. But take all of that in stride and what you get in return is one of the best experiences a human being can have. One of the best of my life. I'd put money on that.

Everything in Africa bites, but the safari bug is the worst of all. Kwaheri, Africa. Asante. Goodbye, and thank you.

White Men Can't Jump: The Maasai, the Market, and the Volcano We Descended Into

Tanzania  •  Maasai Villages + Ngorongoro Crater  •  September 2016

On departure day from Camp Kikoti we drove through the park one last time to exit, which nobody was sad about. Warthogs running with their little tails straight up in the air will never stop making me smile. Never. We also stopped at the Day 1 watering hole to find the zebra carcass reduced to bare bones in three days. The circle of life, right there in front of you.

Before the Maasai village we stopped at a workshop specializing in ebony and rosewood carvings. Matt was "hired" as a helper for the demonstration portion of the visit, which he took very seriously. Ebony is remarkable: so heavy, so dark, so different from anything you expect wood to be.

Now. The Maasai.

I want to give you the real version because it's not all picturesque. Babenga had been telling us about the Maasai on our drives and some of the traditions are genuinely difficult for western ears. Women are responsible for everything in the home, including building it. Women build the houses, cook all the meals, collect firewood every day. We saw several women walking with enormous bundles of branches strapped to their backs on the road. Female circumcision still happens. When men are circumcised (every seven years, establishing their "generation" within the tribe), the number of cattle you own determines your wealth and how many wives you can have…up to seven. And here's where it gets truly mind-bending: the first wife is essentially shared within a man's generation. If a man from your same generation wanders into your village, the chief sends him to your home, and he can sleep with wife number one. Wives two through seven are off-limits for this particular tradition, which somehow doesn't make it better. I had to hear Babenga explain it twice.

The village itself is real but set up for tourism: the Maasai rotate families in and out to share the income fairly. We were greeted with a welcome song and then Tom and Matt were invited to join the men in their jumping dance. The highest jumper gets the most girlfriends, they said. I will just say "White Men Can't Jump" and leave it there. They're both lovely and neither is getting any Maasai girlfriends. They showed us how to make fire the old-fashioned way, which was genuinely impressive. We were invited into the chief's son's tiny round home, about the size of an American bathroom, with two sleeping areas and a small fire pit for cooking.

Next was Mto wa Mbu, which translates to "Mosquito River" and is a village where people from over 120 tribes live together. They grow more than 30 varieties of bananas, avocados, and papaya. A young man gave us a tour and then the women of the town had prepared a buffet of traditional Tanzanian dishes while other community members played music and performed. It was unanimously the best food of the entire trip. So many wonderful flavors. Matt went back for thirds. At least.

Tom's exit from Mto wa Mbu deserves documentation. On the way back to the car, a couple of "hawkers" as Babenga called them were showing him bracelets and necklaces. Tom was emphatically saying "No, no, no" all the way back. We were loading up. We looked around. Tom wasn't there. Matt went back and found him buying three bracelets and ten necklaces. Swindled?

We drove to our lodge for the next two nights, watching the landscape transform completely from dry and brown to lush and green, like crossing into a different country. Plantation Lodge was a gated oasis with internet and good food, and we slept.

Ngorongoro Crater day. Early in the trip I'd asked Babenga what to expect. He said he had no words for it. That we'd have to experience it for ourselves. He was right.

Ngorongoro was formed when a large volcano exploded and collapsed two to three million years ago. It is the largest intact volcanic caldera in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 2,000 feet deep, with a floor covering 100 square miles home to approximately 30,000 animals. Because of the enclosed geography it has formed its own complete ecosystem.

We ate breakfast at 6am and left at 6:30. Babenga renewed his baboon warning: these are not friendly, curious baboons. These baboons know every safari car carries a picnic lunch and they have a plan. Stories of baboons racing inside vehicles the moment a door opens, with passengers still sitting in them. We stayed alert.

We climbed to the rim at 9,000 feet, which has this surprising rainforest quality…green and misty and completely unexpected. When we were close to the top, Babenga told us to close our eyes. "I'll tell you when to open." When he said open, there it was: the crater. Clear morning. The full bowl of it below us, the lakes, the different landscapes compressed into this perfect ancient circle. Then we descended to the floor at 2,600 feet.

The floor is flat and open and full of zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, and gazelle…the tall grasses sustain them here, but no trees means no giraffes. We'd been driving maybe 15 minutes when we found our first male lion sleeping on a stream bank. He eventually got up and revealed his brother sleeping invisible in the grass beside him.

The Hippo Pool. I was not prepared for how objectively funny hippos are. They crowd together in a tight circle in the water and they grunt, grunt, grunt, then roll over, then grunt some more. It is ridiculous and I loved every second of it.

And then Babenga got a radio call: the black rhino had been spotted.

The Big 5 is the traditional list: lion, elephant, cape buffalo, leopard, rhino. We'd seen four. The only chance for the rhino was here in Ngorongoro, one of the very few places they still exist in Tanzania. Very endangered, heavily poached. Babenga picked up speed and we could see the line of other safari cars arriving from every direction, the whole convergence creating enormous walls of red dust rising out of the crater like signals. The rhino was far in the distance but through Matt's camera and Tom's binoculars we could see it. Big 5 complete.

Two female lions were our next sighting, lying in the shade. We were the second car there. Then they decided they needed more shade and walked toward the cars and then right underneath them. One just plopped herself down under ours, paws visible beneath the chassis. Babenga revved the engine. She didn't move. Matt calmly directed Babenga to inch forward and back until we could ease away. I think she just moved on to the next parked car.

The mating lions on the way out were our final sighting. When female lions are in heat the male stays for 24 hours and they mate every twenty minutes. We didn't need to wait long. Over in about two seconds. Babenga explained this in the same tone he explains everything, which is informative and completely matter-of-fact.

Coming out of the crater I took off my sunglasses and found two perfect white ovals where my face had been protected and every other inch covered in red-orange dirt. We were all some version of this. The showers that evening were, as I wrote in my notes, "a million bucks."

Ten Minutes In, a Lion Kill. Welcome to Africa.

Tanzania  •  Tarangire National Park  •  September 2016  

We woke up on our first real safari morning to the sound of laughter. Not human laughter: this was a bird whose call sounded exactly like someone cackling in the dark. We tried to figure out what it was, which led to the laughing, which was honestly a perfect way to start.

After breakfast, Babenga joined us for an overview of expectations and the rules. Babenga is from Bukoba, Tanzania, has been guiding safaris for 22 years, and is known in the industry as "the wise one." He would earn that title repeatedly. We loaded the Land Cruiser and headed out through Arusha, past a small monument marking the exact halfway point between Cape Town and Cairo, into Maasai territory.

I'd read somewhere that you shouldn't imagine what a place will be like before you arrive, that expectations only set you up for disappointment. I would like to formally disagree with that advice for the specific case of a Tanzania safari, because everything we had imagined is exactly what we experienced. (I'll contrast this with the Great Pyramids of Giza, which I imagined out in a vast empty desert and arrived to find a strip mall with a Pizza Hut 200 yards away. Safari: 1. Pyramids: complicated.)

We arrived at Tarangire National Park around noon. It has the second-highest wildlife concentration of any park in Tanzania, the largest elephant concentration in the world, and is dominated by enormous baobab trees that can live 600 to 900 years. Babenga opened the roof of the Land Cruiser and we all stood up with our heads out. And then we started driving.

We thought we'd be peering far into the distance, squinting for shapes on the horizon. Nope. The animals were immediately, very much right there. Zebras and wildebeest in hundreds. Babenga explained that they travel together because zebras have excellent hearing while wildebeest have a strong sense of smell, so together they detect predators much more effectively. Nature is so much smarter than us.

Not ten minutes into our first game drive, we came upon a watering hole. A fresh lion kill. The lions had just taken down a zebra and we sat there for ten to fifteen minutes watching them drag it out of the sun and start working on it, a couple of cubs having a playful tussle nearby. Then some warthogs arrived because they just wanted a drink of water, and the youngest cub decided it was his spot and chased them off. We sat there with our mouths open. We had been inside the park for ten minutes.

The next three hours took us 52 kilometers through the park and we saw: elephants, giraffes, gazelles, mongoose, baboons, more warthogs, ostriches, incredible birds. All three of us were just in sustained awe. I keep coming back to this image: standing up through the roof of the Land Cruiser, looking out across the vast flat landscape and seeing elephant silhouettes everywhere I looked. Not one. Not three. Everywhere. The Africa you dreamed about as a child, actually happening in front of you.

Our camp for the next three nights was Camp Kikoti, reached by driving through increasingly dramatic terrain after leaving the park. The camp sits at elevation with a beautiful view of the park below. The rooms are cabins on stilts, completely open except for screens, full power and operational bathrooms, 80% solar powered. We had the whole camp to ourselves that first night. After dark we couldn't walk unescorted due to the possibility of wildlife wandering in. If we wanted to leave our cabins we'd wave our flashlights and armed rangers would come get us. I want to be fully transparent: I found this extremely exciting. Disproportionately exciting. This is camping in actual wild Africa.

Day two started with a Jambo and hot tea and coffee delivered to our porch at 6am. We headed to the swamp area of the park, overcast and chilly with the roof open, all of us layered up and happy about it. Then fifteen elephants came across the road.

A herd moving fast. Babenga pulled us up ahead so they'd cross right in front of us. As they got closer, the matriarch turned and came toward our car, ears flared, trumpeting a warning. The young bulls followed her lead. She stopped halfway across, turned back once more, one more unmistakable "stay right there." Then the herd continued.

That moment. We'd read enough about elephant behavior to know she was likely bluffing, that it was a warning charge. That knowledge does almost nothing when a matriarch elephant is coming at your car. Your body does not care about what you've read. Time did something strange and I felt completely, entirely awake. Unquestionably the highlight of the trip for me.

Later that morning a stopped Range Rover tipped us off to a leopard sleeping in a tree, arm draped over a branch, profoundly unbothered. I genuinely cannot explain how these guides spot a sleeping leopard from a moving vehicle. She had no interest in waking up for us. We had coffee and muffins in the middle of wild Africa with a tablecloth. Babenga is extraordinary.

Day three he announced Training Day. Matt had come to get me before I'd even finished getting dressed: "Stop getting around and come outside for a minute." From the porch the valley was just beginning to catch the first light. Golden and wide. We sat there with our coffees in silence and I felt very, very lucky. Then we went out and the roads got dramatically, dramatically worse. We were flying off the ground, slamming into the sides, making involuntary hippo-grunts trying to brace ourselves. Babenga called from the driver's seat: "You need to get used to this. It's worse in Ngorongoro and Serengeti." All three of us just looked at each other. He said it's like riding a three-legged horse. We were about to find out.

Two cubs in a tree turned out to be our afternoon lions, almost posing. On the way back to camp, Babenga warned us about an incoming tsetse fly area and tried to outrun them at 30km/h. They kept up. They were chasing us in his side mirrors. You kill them by smashing their wings between your fingers, which is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds. I was extremely grateful we were visiting in the low season.

The nighttime game drive in the open-sided South African safari car, with a Maasai guide on a chair mounted to the hood looking exactly like E.T., brought us a Bush Baby with the most impossibly bright eyes I've ever seen and a brand new understanding of the phrase "lean in" when Acacia thorns are brushing you with no car walls in the way. The sundowner walk and climb up Kikoti Rock gave us sunset views across the whole Tarangire area, followed by cold beers Babenga had waiting at the bottom.

There are things photos can't capture out here: the way a place looks at night by moon and lantern light, the smell of burning acacia wood, the feeling of being somewhere that makes you genuinely connected to the earth in a way you've never felt before. I've never felt it quite like this. Not until Africa.

The Trip of a Lifetime Officially Has a Departure Gate

Tanzania  •  Amsterdam + Arusha Arrival  •  September 2016

This trip had a name before we even packed: The Trip of a Lifetime. We said it out loud constantly in the months leading up to it, partly to make it real and partly because nothing else quite captured what a ten-day Tanzania safari was going to be. We were also celebrating Matt’s Dad’s 70th birthday, which added a whole layer of joy and intention to the whole thing. This wasn't just a vacation. It was a milestone.

Our first stop was Amsterdam for a 23-hour layover, which I fully support as a concept. We got through customs quickly, hopped on the train from Schipol, and were in the city within minutes on a beautiful, breezy, sunny day. We'd found a loft apartment on Airbnb right off one of the canals. "Loft" sounds romantic, and it was. "Loft" also meant six flights of stairs with full duffle bags. I'm fairly certain the stairs nearly killed my Father-in-Law. The view from the rooftop terrace made it immediately, completely worth it.

I'd go back to Amsterdam just for that rooftop terrace honestly. Boats drifting down the canal. Droves of people moving through the streets below. Those enormous willow trees with their branches dipping into the water. People in the parks with their faces turned up to the sun. Friends and couples dangling their feet over the canal edge, eating, drinking, completely unbothered. And yes, the aroma of marijuana drifting through the air on basically every street corner, because Amsterdam…

After settling in we found a small café around the corner for bar nuts and cold drinks by the water, then took a canal cruise. I will not pretend we stayed fully awake. The warm sun and gentle movement had all of us closing our eyes at regular intervals. We found a Dutch pancake house for a late-afternoon snack: one traditional with ham and cheese, one sweet with sautéed apples, calvados, and cinnamon. Chewier and thicker than a crepe, really tasty, exactly what the tired and slightly jetlagged need. Walking back we discovered that Amsterdam is full of Calliopes, those old-fashioned fairground music machines that sound exactly like a merry-go-round. We'd seen one earlier and thought nothing of it. They were everywhere, each with a different theme and scene. Completely delightful.

We made a unanimous group decision not to nap (debatable call) and instead sat on the rooftop terrace until it was time to head to Bord'eau for dinner. One of the best meals any of us had ever eaten. We started with champagne to toast the trip, then everyone had the six-course tasting menu with the optional seventh oyster course added in because why not. Each course came as three smaller dishes, so the variety was incredible. My favorites were the seared foie gras in a broth I genuinely still dream about, and their famous apple dessert: apple sorbet shaped exactly like a core, surrounded by blown sugar in a crystal-clear replica of an apple, set on apple balls and pastry. Almost too beautiful to eat. Then a second dessert appeared: glazed strawberries with elderflower meringue. Michelin starred and completely deserved.

Tom and Matt took a late stroll through the red light district. I chose the warm bed. We had an early flight.

Schipol's security is not fooling around. Full contact pat-downs, double bag scans, the automated bag system that sucks your luggage into an underground two-and-a-half kilometer journey to your plane. We made it through with time for coffee and pastries, which is all you can really ask for.

We landed at Kilimanjaro Airport just after 7:30pm. Small airport, exactly as I'd imagined it. We descended the 777 via stairs out onto the tarmac. Getting our visas in advance was one of the better decisions we made: there was ONE window for on-arrival visas and hundreds of passengers queued in a line going absolutely nowhere. We walked past them with our stamped passports. I tried not to look too satisfied about it.

Our guide Babenga was waiting outside. He'd be with us the entire trip. The drive to Lake Duluti Lodge just outside Arusha took 45 minutes, and when we arrived they welcomed us with fresh watermelon juice and then showed us to freestanding cabins in the middle of a working coffee plantation. Tom, Matt, and I had African beers on the porch before turning in and sleeping like absolute babies.

The next day was an intentional rest day and we honored it completely. Breakfast at 9am, nap until early afternoon, four-course lunch, nap again. Every vegetable from the garden, every cup of coffee from the plantation right around us. We spent a perfectly lazy day enjoying the view before calling it an early evening, because tomorrow Babenga was picking us up to begin what we'd been dreaming about.