From the rooftop terrace of the Clove Hotel in Stone Town, I looked out over a sea of rusting tin roofs atop old coral and mortar buildings streaked with black mold. At the edge of town ancient dhows – fat, wooden sailing vessels – bobbed on the gentle waves of the Indian Ocean. As the … Read more
During my week-long safari and subsequent three-day Maasai home stay I had three showers – suffice it to say that I was definitely ripe by the time I got back to a town. While I would have loved to stay with my Maasai friends for a few more days (and indeed they invited me to … Read more
I have been back from my Maasai home stay for two days now and I am still struggling to write about it. I could variously describe the experience as appalling, fascinating, stimulating, exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, mind-expanding, enraging, or gratifying, and each one of those adjectives would be appropriate. But, let me start at the beginning. … Read more
The Ngorongoro Crater is a caldera – a volcano cone that has collapsed inward, creating a 15-mile wide hole in the earth surrounded by a high rim on all sides. Over the eons, sediments accumulated on the crater floor and a shallow lake formed in the center of the caldera, providing an environment where abundant … Read more
The fact that you are reading this is proof that I survived two nights camping in Tanzania‘s Serengeti National Park, one of the harshest environments on Earth, without being eaten by a lion. On the first day my guides had warned me not to leave the tent at night, as lions and hyenas regularly came into … Read more
