Come along for a couple of weeks on the African continent in the beautiful country of Tanzania. It was a great ride, and I would rank it a top-five adventure for the Parisian Family. Yes, it's good to go, but it's great to be home in the United States of America. With over 8 billion humans on the planet and over 345,000,000 now in America, you have about a 1 in 24 shot just at being an American! Imagine how lucky you are. You have opportunity, freedom, education, free speech, freedom of religion, a diverse geography, great healthcare, and world-class infrastructure. It is endless. There are big rewards for ambition, freedom, and innovation in America.
You can do whatever you want in America. The Creator has blessed you for being an American.
Nine time zones separate the Nashville, Tennessee airport from the airport in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. If you don't know jet lag it is tough on the body. The older I get the more impact it seems to have. We left Nashville, changed planes in Atlanta, boarded a Delta flight in a Boeing 787 to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, and again, changed aircraft, boarding a KLM (Dutch carrier) 787 flight for another 8-hour flight to Kilimanjaro. It made for a long 24 hours! I was very impressed with the service and the great food on the KLM leg.
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My first job out of college was working for one of Curt Carlson's many companies in Minneapolis, Performance Incentive Corporation as a trip director helping companies send their top people to exotic places as a reward for being big hitters in their respective companies. It was a job I will never forget. To interview, I had bought a new suit but didn't get a great haircut as I had been trapping beaver most of the spring, so when I walked in with my resume the lady at the front desk was rather inattentive and asked me why I thought I should get an interview when the massive bookcase behind her was full of resumes just like mine. I replied very off-the-cuff that I was the guy they were looking for. I am forever grateful to Patti Schullo for arranging an interview with the President, Dennis Callister, and for giving me a shot.
All I wanted was a chance.
Those trips overseas taught me about life. Top hitters at companies were approachable, fun, had beautiful wives, and expected success. I had one major fiasco during my time there that was my fault. We had gotten into a European restaurant to have lunch much later than planned after an excursion, it was hot, and everyone was thirsty and hungry. The restaurant was understaffed and because of my outstanding collegiate training in tapping beer kegs, I got on the stick, tapped a keg, and started pouring beer to the hot and thirsty. I wasn't a pro at delivering beer off a serving tray by any means and proceeded to spill a couple of cold beers directly down the back of the President of Toyota America! His wife jumped to my defense and cooled him down while apologizing profusely for my ineptitude as a waiter. I have never waited tables again.
We landed at Kilimanjaro airport and were driven to our hotel in Arusha about an hour away. It was late in the evening and our bodies, given the 9-hour time differential were telling us to wake up and start the day! Exhausted, we hit the pillows and awoke in daylight. Opened the curtain to the morning sun and was looking at Mt. Meru, the 2nd tallest mountain in Tanzania and the 5th tallest in Africa at about 15,000 feet above sea level. Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest.
Tanzania is 365,794 square miles and is the 13th largest country in Africa, the 31st largest in the world. To give you a sense of comparison, the state of TEXAS is 268,596 square miles and Tanzania is roughly double the size of California! The country's population is about 70,000,000 people and is concentrated in a couple of areas. This is a staggering number to consider when 38% of the country is a National Park!
The state of TN has over 42,000 square miles. The national parks in Tanzania are over 38,000 square miles, which is a relative
comparison. Tanzania is one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas on Earth. Traces of fossil remains of humans and hominids date back to the Quaternary era. Here are some of the oldest footprints on the planet.I want to give you my impression of the country. Those of you who've traveled in Tanzania may have a different view.
We hired a safari company to ferret us around and were lucky. We had probably the finest Land Cruiser driver in the nation. Mr. Kimondo was his name! He knew animals, he knew birds, he knew reptiles. He was a great driver and we had a lot of fun covering hundreds and hundreds of miles, maybe thousands but everything was done in hours. Hours to get here, hours to get there. The game drives were on the nastiest roads and we didn't see a lick of pavement for over a week. They call it getting an "AFRICAN MASSAGE" after sitting in a Land Rover all day getting tossed about!
We went to Tanzania on a photo safari and brought cameras and binoculars. Our gang is always on top of their game trying to come up with the best "spot" of the trip. Our family was blessed with good eyes.
We took thousands of pictures, so let's look at what Tanzania is about!
Giraffes were many. Fairly easy to distinguish females from males. Immense size, always eating.
Nasty critters. Don't get near one. They kill more Africans than lions. Temperament of a woman scorned. Cape Buffalo
This was a group of bachelor males. Young and hungry. Cheetah.
A species of Bishop birds.
Rhino's were hard to get near to. Wary, don't like people.
Momma gazelle in action. We all started somewhere.
Saw a great number of lions. Average pride was 6 to 10. Did see a pride of 18. They sleep most of the day and feed when they get hungry. Eat and sleep, repeat!
Territorial. The biggest killer of humans in Africa. Hippos feed at night and cover a wide area eating vegetation. Massive trails out of water holes.
Plenty of youngsters closely watched by Mom.
Everywhere. Look for shade, you'll find lions.
Warthogs. Found everywhere.
Baboon.
Saw a few leopards. They attract a crowd. Tough to get good pictures.
For the number of lions we saw I wasn't sure there were many old, mature males around. This was the oldest we saw.
Males have a good group of females. Bachelors like this guy wait to grow up and lead the herd!
Birds were gorgeous across the Serengeti. Colorful.
Mom Cheetah had 3 youngsters and was moving them gently.
Don't even think about getting close to these rank behemoths.
2 to 3 million animals move across the Serengeti during migration. It is hard to catch, via camera, the size of the herds. Drones are illegal. From horizon to horizon the herds stretched. Hard to fathom.
Mom and baby Hyena's. Powerful, shy, nasty, opportunistic canines.
Grey-crowned cranes. Not a better-looking crane on Earth.
Wildebeest. I wasn't aware that so many wildebeest calves are left behind as the migration moves. We saw several lost and would soon be a meal for hyenas and lions.
Wary Ostrich. Didn't get close to them.
Serval
Simba!
Eat, eat and eat.
Playtime for the kids.
Lichensteins Hartebeest
Secretary bird. They walk miles daily.
Topi
Dung beetle
Remains go fast. Many vulture species have massive wing spans.
Like coyotes, they can't be domesticated.
Look close at the lion damage on this hippo!
Turtles were fairly common.
Dirt airstrip!
This big girl had cubs below her and was very nervous. She had killed a small antelope and had it in a tree close to her. Can you see the antelope in this tree?
Bird nests in Africa are like Monets or Picasso's!
Crocodiles were numerous.
Impressive rigs. Not much plastic, fueled by diesel. They take a beating on the rough roads and being all metal they are built like a tank.Looking into the Ngorongoro Crater, a massive volcanic caldera teeming with wildlife, often called Africa’s “Garden of Eden.”
We did see bat-eared fox, jackals, and hyenas everywhere, impala, a couple of mongoose, one big snake, zero rabbits, zero squirrels, lots of eagles, hawks, geese, ducks, grebes, dik-diks, shorebirds, flamingoes, black and white Colobus monkeys, vervet monkeys, eland, bushbuck and probably a million wildebeest.
In no particular order here were my take-aways.
Drove hundreds of miles, and didn't see a fence. Didn't see any litter, no paper, cigarette butts, zero, none. Went 600 miles before I saw my first plastic Coke bottle in the ditch. No high-fructose corn syrup in Tanzania therefore no obesity in Tanzania. No tattoos. A happy, warm, mostly bi-lingual people, speaking English and Swahili, proud of their nation. Tanzania’s economy leans on agriculture—coffee, tea, cotton, and sisal are the big exports, and over 60% of people farm or fish for a living. Gold mining is a cash cow, ranking it among Africa’s top producers. Tourism is massive—Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti Plain, and the island of Zanzibar pull in over a million visitors yearly. Poverty is everywhere, per capita income hovers below $1,200, so it’s still a developing nation. The Swahili phrase Hakuna Matata, from The Lion King, really means “no worries” here.
It was a long haul back to the United States. Here is our approach into Atlanta from the belly of an AIRFRANCE 787. Listen to the applause upon landing in the greatest experiment in the world, America!
Thank you for coming along to see some of Africa. It was unforgettable. My real beauty was being with the people I love the most. The people of Tanzania were remarkable. Yet, we all live here.
Check us out!
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