Tanzanian Safari – America's Finest Ambassador

Ngorongoro Crater

: According to them fools at Wikipedia, “Ngorongoro Crater is the world’s largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera” – a “caldera” being “a volcanic crater formed by a major eruption that led to the collapse of the volcano’s mouth.” Here is a view of Ngorongoro from above, from the rim of the crater.

: Some huts belonging to Maasai people seen as we began our descent into the crater

: According to a 2011 census, there are approximately 800,000 Maasai people living in Tanzania, mostly in the north. And according to a 2009 census, there are some 841,000 Maasai living in Kenya, mostly in the south. And pictured here are four Maasai men who just happened to be standing in front of a pack of giraffes when we crossed paths.

: Maasai people speak a language called Maa, are semi-nomadic and pass on from generation to generation a traditional set of survival skills that allows them to produce food and proliferate in deserts and scrubland

: On the left is a couple from Poland, on the far right is my brother and that’s me in the middle with our safari guide, Raymond. Raymond was a bit of a weird guy who offered his less-than-a-year-old daughter’s hand to my brother in marriage, informed us (without us having solicited the information) that if we wanted to kill any of the animals we saw that we’d first have to purchase them and, most unprofessionally, had no intention of telling us that they, without having consulted us, changed the itinerary of the safari we’d already paid for and were supposed to go on. And it wasn’t just a small change in itinerary, but the swapping out of one of the two national parks that we’d chosen to go to (Tarangire) and replacing it with a visit to one that we, at the time, hadn’t heard of and had done no research about (Lake Manyara). “I didn’t think you’d mind,” he shrugged off the significance of the several-hundred-dollar fee we’d each paid for a specific service when I confronted him about it. Bearing witness to his nonchalance towards something that, in America, would be such a huge deal that warrants a full refund and terrible reviews for any given company, I couldn’t help but laugh. There was no real point in making a stink about it because Raymond didn’t give a fuck and as long as we still got to go to Ngorongoro Crater, I didn’t really give a fuck either. But wow, can you imagine paying a tour company for a trip to Universal Studios and Disney World and then they just bring you to Universal Studios and Busch Gardens and you feel all taken advantage of and they have an attitude like, “Yeah, so what, deal with it.”? I guess that’s Tanzania for you. And so, after him casually telling us that he didn’t think we’d mind, aside from my brother and I using that as material to make fun of Raymond behind his back while together in our hotel room, that was basically the end of what should’ve been a grand mea cupla on their part.

: Just like in the cartoons!

: Approximately 25,000 large animals live within the confines of Ngorongoro Crater

: Zebras and wildebeests

: Other safari vehicle

: Buttload of wildebeest

: Lunch spot where…

: …I guess there’s no picnic allowed.

: Bird that came into the safari vehicle wanting to ransack all the bread products from our boxed lunches

: Pumbas have gotta be the dumbest-looking animal I have ever seen. Shave that mullet, you look ridiculous!

: Crowned cranes

: Buffalo

: Gazelle

: Ostrich

: On the left is a lion sleeping and a bunch of jackals trying to creep in and get a piece of the carcass being consumed by some other lions on the bottom right hand of the photo

: I don’t know what that dead thing is – a wildebeest perhaps? Nevertheless, there’s it’s exposed spinal column

: Cowardly lion

: On the prowl

: So, as it turns out, male lions are pretty big pieces of shit. They make the female lions do their hunting for them and once the female has made a kill, they don’t let the female eat any of it. They step in and get their fill and then go off to take a nap while they…

: …make the female stand guard to fend off coyotes and, like shown here, jackals from getting a piece of the action. I think Raymond said that a pride of lions will feed on a carcass for a day or two before deciding it’s no longer fresh enough and leaving it for the scavengers to consume while they go out and hunt something new.

: Bunch of baboons lining the road out of Ngorongoro Crater which Raymond told us “are impossible to not run over.” To this assertion we responded, “What do you mean it’s impossible to NOT run over these baboons?” “When the car is going fast, it’s impossible to not hit them.” “Well,” we offered, “maybe you shouldn’t drive so fast.” “No,” he concluded as he continued on full speed ahead, with baboons running and diving out of his way, “it’s impossible.”