Out of Africa

What could possibly compel me to blog 10 months after my last post? AFRICA. We spent 9 incredible days in the beautiful country of Tanzania. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but Tanzania was not what I expected. I guess when I think Africa, I think desert. Boy was I wrong. The landscape in Tanzania is stunning: lush rolling green hills, mountains, volcanic craters, open plains. Tanzania has it all. We spent 1 day in Ngorogoro Crater which is like a Disney-fied safari, but guarantees great animal sightings. But the 3 days we spent exploring the Serengeti were my favorite. I felt so removed from daily life back at home. Our guide said that his girlfriend always says the sky seems bigger in Africa, and it sure seemed like that in the Serengeti. Endless plain and endless sky. I felt so in-the-moment there. When I'm home, I have serious ADD: checking email, surfing the Web, thinking about the next thing on my list, Googling any and all questions that come to mind. There, it was all about taking it all in and not really thinking about anything else. We ended our Tanzanian journey at Lupita Island. Talk about private and remote, but incredibly luxe (in a private and remote way). I'm not really good with free time, so the 3 days there with some planned activities along the way were perfect. There is something incredible about unwinding at an island resort halfway around the globe where very few people have gone before. There is also something about going to sleep in your open-air villa with lake breezes coming through mosquito netting and being woken up by birds in time to see the sun rise. I don't know that I'll have the chance to visit Africa again in my lifetime, but I feel lucky to have had the privilege.