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Tarangire: Bathing With Elephants + Hunting With Lions, Tanzania
Tarangire National Park was one of my favorite places in Tanzania because of the number of wild elephants. Stepping off the plane at Kilimanjaro, we met our safari team. They had everything perfectly preplanned and ready to go. There was the company owner, who had recruited me online who I’d spoken to for a few months. He introduced himself as White. Several days later, after getting to know him a bit, I would chuckle when I read “Wilson” on his business card. White suited him. “We call him White because he is lighter skinned than us”, the driver Hamisi said. White had a beautiful caramel complexion and was from a…
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Somaliland
I’d gone into Somaliland with an open heart and an open mind. I’d read so much good news online from the tight knit community of international country collectors. Somaliland wasn’t Somalia; it was supposed to be safe, interesting, and welcoming. Before entering Somaliland, at the gate in Djibouti, I hadn’t covered in my hijab. All of the ladies who had seen my hair now starred a hole through me as I stepped into their country. They were smiling. They were beautiful and mysterious and traveled in women-only-groups. I, on the other hand, even though I was covered, wasn’t mysterious at all. They knew exactly what I looked like without my…
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Dwam, Reverie in the Scottish Highlands
I had hoped yet hadn’t intended to visit The Highlands, but– there I was. I was at the bottom of a brown valley with waterfalls as far as the eye could see– more than thirty! I’d counted. Their tails cascaded down the slopes, digging thin trenches beneath them. Each ribbon traveled inward to this middle point, me. A pair of stags rose out of the tall grass on the valley floor; their antlers dripped. This valley was instantly burned into my mind forever as I became lost in a reverie. Do you like endless landscapes where the sunlight and rain create art in the sky? Then you’d love The Highlands.…
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Authenticity in Costa Rica
This is where this story began; it was hard not to miss the burning forest outside of Liberia. When the Spanish claimed “Costa Rica” they named it after the RICH land they saw. Mixed research indicates that in the 1940’s 75% of Costa Rica was forested. Suprise As of today 20,000 acres of land is deforested annually. Now, while I can’t speak first hand about the authenticity of statistics, I can speak about what I saw while there. I had these HUGE expectations of Costa Rica . . . cue the dreams of . . . forging a river crossing in a Land Rover, maybe getting stuck in the mud a time or two,…
