The Masai

Leaving the Ngorongoro crater on our way to the Serengeti National Park, we stopped off at a Masai village where, after watching a 'welcome' dance by the tribesmen, we had the opportuntiy to speak to some of the members and go inside their homes.

What a bizarre experience! They could all speak english, which certainly helps and despite having help from the government with baby milk, they otherwise live as their forefathers did. They still use their tribal heirarchy - child, warrior, elder - and very much abide by the roles that come with those positions.

Sitting inside one of the huts, it was heard to imagine just how they do survive, but they do and they are happy. Like many of the people we'd seen through the towns, they didn't have much materialistically, but these tribes-people had a purpose, they were happy working the land and striving to survive.

On to the Serengeti and this is what we saw:

Wow!

One of the most amazing sites we saw would have to be a leopard. Not that easy to find, and we found one, but secondly, although we missed the actual 'kill' we found the leopard just after it had caught a gazelle. After a kill, leopards normally hide their catch in the undergrowth around a tree, climb the tree and then have a rest before dragging the kill up the tree to devour (that way nothing can steal its dinner!) We sat and watched for 1/2 hour but unfortnuately weren't able to hang around to see dinner on the move, but wow. An amazing spectical to simply watch.