Safari (Tanzania)

Traveling with my mom was amazing. It was nice to not be alone and I saw a whole different world of travel, the way that most people travel! It was more luxury than I have ever experienced in my life.
We started out safari at Lake Manyara, Tanzania. We had a whole safari jeep to ourselves, cruising aroudn and looking at hippos, flamingos, zebras, elephants, giraffes, gazelles and impalas. We were able to stand up on the seats and look out over the open roof as the landscape flew by. My favorite were the families of baboons that we got up very close too.
We stayed in an incredible hotel with meals served to us in courses. This was quite different than my staple of avacado on bread for my 2 daily meals.
The next day it was off to Ngorongoro crater. We were greeted by the same animals from the day before but also by rhinos, buffallos, wildabeasts, heartbeasts, hyenas, jackals and ostritches. We saw a cheeta make a kill, though it was from so far away it just looked like a streak of dust. The whole time I was saying I wanted to see something kill something like you do on animal planet.
The next day we stopped at Oldavi Gorge where the Leakeys did their work. Then we headed to the famous Serengeti, driving through the wildabeast migration, wildabeasts speckling the grasses as far as I could see.
We stayed at a "Mobile Luxury Camp" which made me ecstatic because it was just like in the movies. I never wanted to leave.
We had campfires at night and were guarded by 2 Masai guys who became my friends and loved my attempts to talk with them in Kiswahili. I have a strange vocabulary which leads people to believe that it is bigger than it actually is which can get me into trouble. I did try to throw one of their speers and they are much heavier than you would think.
At the end of our trip one of the Masai guys (the one that would yell out my name and hello every time he passed our tent and we would yell back and forth in Kiswahili) asked for my number. I mention this only because of the mental picture I got when I tried to imagine how a conversation on the phone with him might go.
"So, what are you doing?"
"Oh you know, just hanging out on the Serengeti in my Masai robes protecting my gotes and cattle from lions with my speer. You know, the uz."
Our first night at the camp we were woken up by lions which, contrary to popular belief don't roar as much as they groan. Still, it was a new experience to be woken up by lions outside your tent.
As we ate our first-class meals, elephants, giraffes and zebras would casually wander by.
We got really close to all the animals we saw in the Serengeti. We saw lots of lions including one with her cubs. We saw a cheeta and her tiny flufball babies as they were eating a fresh kill. Saying goodbye to the Serengeti was hard, but then we were off to Zanzibar.
I picked the 2 places with the most exotic names I could think of- Zanzibar and the Serengeti. The names are loaded and leave the tongue heavy with spice and anticipation as the worlds leave your mouth and a sense of mystery at the same time as recognition clash in the air.
Walking around Stonetown, Zanzibar, I could imagine the early pure Swahili beginnings. I was enchanted with the tiny passage ways, eleborate doors and smell of insence.
We stayed at Matemway Beach in the North. The sand was so white that when it was cloudy everything seemed muted, like we were in a snowglobe of sand.
We lounged pool-side and at the beach. We had the most incredible suite full of beachy and whimsical decorative touches as well as airy curves and an open-air second story complete with swinging sky-beds and a view of the beach. We spent our evenings with a glass of white wine on the white beach, sandwiched in a pastel-painting sunset with a carpet of pure-white sand.
Our last day was chaotic in Arusha as I tried to find out if I could go back to Kenya or not and was followed by a really sad goodbye, but oh, what a trip!