Africa Part 1: Safari
I cannot even describe in words how amazing the last month of my life was in Africa. With all of the world traveling I have done, I had never stepped foot on that continent and one month there barely even skimmed the surface of this gorgeous and complicated place. The reason I wanted to even become a photographer at age 15 was when I first started watching National Geographic shows and all of the footage shot while on safaris in Africa. It has been a life-long dream of mine to see these gorgeous creatures in the wild and to be able to capture them on film myself…so when I was asked to photograph a wedding in Tanzania, I JUMPED at the chance to go.
The week before the wedding, some of the guests went on safari and I joined them on an epic adventure that started with a road trip across Tanzania and ended with us staying in “bandas” or enclosed thatched-roof huts on a game reserve, where it was considered dangerous to walk to the front desk, because there is no barrier between you and the wildlife. This was my first encounter with the Masai Warriors who would guard our camp at night protecting us from lions.
I could write forever about the magic of this place, but the highlights for me were:
-seeing herds of Giraffes, Zebras, and Elephants from my shower
-taking a siesta after a long morning of searching for lions and reading a book surrounded by impalas and baboons while sitting on a couch outdoors
-spotting a lion for the first time in the wild
-Learning about this land, a little bit of Swahili, and for the first time ever being the ONLY white people for miles. It puts life into perspective when you go somewhere SO foreign, so out of your comfort zone, and so vast, that your regular life seems like a parallel universe. THIS feeling though, that I cannot put into words…THIS is Africa.
