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Though I travel often, I still enjoy that moment when you realize how very far away from home you are. Not far away in a physical sense, but a place that feels far from everything you think you know. A place where people walk for miles just to collect a bucket of water from a murky pond and carry it back home to drink. A place where no one checks their phones during a meal. A place where you realize that no one gives a damn about whether Lindsay Lohan will go to jail or what that Kardashian woman named her baby, nor even has a clue who those people are. A place where, when asked about his family, a grown man will speak not only of his wife and children but of his brothers, sisters and parents too.
Africa is far away. And though I have already been on this continent four times in the last few years, I still felt that harsh, yet healthy, moment when I realize just how different my life at home is. Traveling with my cousin Tricia, a first-time visitor to Africa, also helped to illuminate the little things that make this continent so special. The minute we left our hotel on day one, we were thrust head first into the spectacle of colour, smell and sound that is Tanzania. The route, lined with the reddest earth, road-side vegetable stands and surrounded by endless crops of bright sunflowers was beautiful in a way that couldn't ever be captured in a photo, or even with these words for that matter. Swahili women in colourful prints and head wraps carry bunches of bananas or buckets of water on their heads and small children wave and smile as you pass. Motorcycles and bicycles pass carrying firewood, crates of eggs, or anything else they can fit on it. Oh, and the occasional giraffe is spotted chewing on trees off in the distance.
From our hotel in Moshi, the drive to our first destination at Lake Manyara took about three hours. We stopped en route to pick up some snacks and beer in Arusha and had a nice picnic lunch under a shady tree. In addition to purchasing some good and affordable South African wines, our stop for snacks yielded one of our favourite finds in all of Tanzania - home made potato chips! Not the greasy kind of chips you find back home - but home-fried yams. Hand packaged in a simple clear bag and completely grease-free, we looked for them in every store we came across.
Lake Manyara National Park in Northern Tanzania is set against the backdrop of The Great Rift Valley - an enormous fault line that runs all the way from Lebanon to Mozambique; a distance of 6600 km. The lake itself is large but shallow with a spectacular landscape featuring lush forests, waterfalls, grassy plains and swamp lands. Our first game viewing experience was good - with lots of animal sightings including elephants, zebra, dik diks, impala and a rhino. We also encountered many baboons who, fortunately, turned out to be a lot less friendly than the South African baboon I met here. We enjoyed our visit to this park. It is a true paradise, with the cleanest and freshest-smelling air. No chemically enhanced, air-freshening candle on the shelf of some North American grocery store could ever capture this kind of fragrance. And this where I had my first "far away" moment. Clean air. How lucky they are here.
After our long day, we made our way to the Highview Hotel for our first night's stay. We were happy to discover that the hotel was really lovely and had the most stunning views of the setting sun over the rolling hills below. Our included three-course dinner was also a pleasant surprise - avocado bruschetta, chicken stir-fry and an orange flavoured cake for dessert. But all that fresh air took it's toll (as did the 7 hour time difference) so we called it an early night and readied ourselves for tomorrow's journey to the Serengeti.
Africa is far away. And though I have already been on this continent four times in the last few years, I still felt that harsh, yet healthy, moment when I realize just how different my life at home is. Traveling with my cousin Tricia, a first-time visitor to Africa, also helped to illuminate the little things that make this continent so special. The minute we left our hotel on day one, we were thrust head first into the spectacle of colour, smell and sound that is Tanzania. The route, lined with the reddest earth, road-side vegetable stands and surrounded by endless crops of bright sunflowers was beautiful in a way that couldn't ever be captured in a photo, or even with these words for that matter. Swahili women in colourful prints and head wraps carry bunches of bananas or buckets of water on their heads and small children wave and smile as you pass. Motorcycles and bicycles pass carrying firewood, crates of eggs, or anything else they can fit on it. Oh, and the occasional giraffe is spotted chewing on trees off in the distance.
From our hotel in Moshi, the drive to our first destination at Lake Manyara took about three hours. We stopped en route to pick up some snacks and beer in Arusha and had a nice picnic lunch under a shady tree. In addition to purchasing some good and affordable South African wines, our stop for snacks yielded one of our favourite finds in all of Tanzania - home made potato chips! Not the greasy kind of chips you find back home - but home-fried yams. Hand packaged in a simple clear bag and completely grease-free, we looked for them in every store we came across.
Lake Manyara National Park in Northern Tanzania is set against the backdrop of The Great Rift Valley - an enormous fault line that runs all the way from Lebanon to Mozambique; a distance of 6600 km. The lake itself is large but shallow with a spectacular landscape featuring lush forests, waterfalls, grassy plains and swamp lands. Our first game viewing experience was good - with lots of animal sightings including elephants, zebra, dik diks, impala and a rhino. We also encountered many baboons who, fortunately, turned out to be a lot less friendly than the South African baboon I met here. We enjoyed our visit to this park. It is a true paradise, with the cleanest and freshest-smelling air. No chemically enhanced, air-freshening candle on the shelf of some North American grocery store could ever capture this kind of fragrance. And this where I had my first "far away" moment. Clean air. How lucky they are here.
After our long day, we made our way to the Highview Hotel for our first night's stay. We were happy to discover that the hotel was really lovely and had the most stunning views of the setting sun over the rolling hills below. Our included three-course dinner was also a pleasant surprise - avocado bruschetta, chicken stir-fry and an orange flavoured cake for dessert. But all that fresh air took it's toll (as did the 7 hour time difference) so we called it an early night and readied ourselves for tomorrow's journey to the Serengeti.
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