Drive to Serengeti National Park - Day 9 (Sept 9, 2009)

This day we would have to drive quite far to the Serengeti National Park. The trip would go up and over the Ngorongoro crater and down onto some rough bumpy dirt roads. Along the way, we would pass by many local tribe folk. One thing that I learned on this day was that the local tribes people don't like their picture taken (unless you offer them money). I always thought these people would be self sufficient and be content living off of the land. Not the case, as we would pass by many of these people sitting on the side of the dirt road with their hands out. Yes, they are asking for money. It's amazing what western civilization has done to these tribes as they now see the value of money to buy material things. One of them even asked us to convert a euro into Tanzanian shillings.



Along the way to our camp site, we drove through the Serengeti to camp amongst the wild animals. Sippy got us pretty damn close to some female tigers and some very cool images of a pack of elephants traveling across the valley. They are so quiet when they walk, you'd think you would hear the sound of all these heavy footsteps but it was as if they had slippers on.

Toward the end of the day, I caught the image of a beautiful sunset in the Africa desert. Quite amazing to see. That night at camp, I had dinner with my new Danish friends I had met the day before. We talked about everything from politics to European culture by candlelight. They were very young (just out of high school), but very knowledgeable about the world. It's a shame more American teenagers don't travel before college, I think it helps put so much into perspective.





Xander and Sas stayed in a hotel that night and didn't want to sleep out in the wild. I can understand that because it was quite possible to have animals wander into the tent area at night looking for food. Since we couldn't build a fire, we were ripe for the picking. All I can say is that it sure made 2AM bathroom breaks interesting. :-)