Eddie made a pre-determined stop for us to take pictures and look at the valley. A dormant volcano dominated the landscape. The rift valley extends from the Jordan Valley (Dead Sea) through the Red Sea, the Great Rift Valley in Kenya and all the way to Mozambique. As soon as we stepped out two guys came along side us and started chatting us up like we were in some kind of bizarro singles bar. They owned the gift shop and were to be our designated personal 
interlocutors for the bargaining experience. I got a drum for Charis and something for Amanda but I almost left without the drum…the price plummeted by several 10% increments in the last 30 seconds of the transaction. I still probably overpaid.
Then we began the long drive through the rift valley. The roads were pretty bad, but are under construction. The dominant figures in the rift valley are the Masi tribe who are a nomadic people that make their living herding goats and cows. The wear distinctive bright red cloaks. The total drive to the park boundary was ~6 hours. About half an hour before we entered the park the goats and cows began to give way to gazelle, wildebeest, Cape Buffalo (our first of the ‘Big Five’) and a group of 5 giraffes. The giraffes were particularly remarkable. With the zebras they remind me of Chesteton’s ‘The Ethics of Elfland’ where he says something like: we grow accustomed to the apple being red but wonder exist
s in the moment that we recognize that it could have been any other color. If apples were all green, the red apple would seem absolutely magical. A life of wonder involves forgetting that apples are red and being awed by the remarkable happening each time. This kind of wonder is easier to muster with the unfamiliar. (I think I’ll try to expand on this idea in my main blog).
The other phenomena that stood out as we approached the park gate was the red robes the Masi were wearing began to get brighter and they tended to be sitting in small groups by the road with ornate weapons rather than herding goats. It became clear that these ‘villages’ were simulated Masi communities[1] as cultural experiences for the tourists. I had read about the aggressive Masi selling strategies and we experienced them at the park gate. As our driver went in to pay the fee several Masi came up to our window dropping their wares in our laps and repeating the price ad nauseum after we had declined. One of them even touched to the bulge in my pocket (through the van window) which represented my wallet and said ‘you pay money.’ Now, I understand the complexities of introducing tourism into a marginalized and oppressed culture. But the whole simulated culture thing makes me very uncomfortable. Even the greeters at our restaurant that are dressed up as Masi and are not trying to get any money from us make me uncomfortable. It feels like voyeurism. It is not like they are just another savannah species 
for us to gawk at. Our driver wants to stop at one of the ‘villages’ on the way out. I’m not too psyched.
As soon as we crossed the park boundary the vegetation changed. Without the livestock grazing the grass lands were just that, grass lands with the occasional, lonely, savannah tree. We saw our first heard of zebras, a jackal, warthogs and a variety of gazelle. We finally arrived at the Fig Tree Camp around 1:00. The camp is hard to describe. It is beautiful. We crossed a major river using a thatched bridge and emerged into a ‘tent’ village. I am sure there is some law preventing permanent structures in the park that requires these to be tents rather than cabins, but they are ‘tents’ in the same ‘letter of the law’ spirit that the Mississippi gambling docks are ‘boats’. They have full bathrooms, stone foundations, roofs, beds and electricity. Ours is right on the river. Lunch at the camp was very good. It is populated mainly by Europeans (we guess Germans and Dutch by the inordinate percentage of blonds) as we have not heard much English spoken. After lunch I took some time to write before our first official Safari (the previous sightings were incidentals on the way in). Apparently the predators mainly emerge at dusk and dawn so our main two ‘hunts’[2] will be this evening and tomorrow morning.
Our evening safari started out with hippos. There were nearly a dozen of them periodically surfacing. They are enormous. I really like hippos. 
Then, many gazelle later, we passed a small heard of elephants. It included a baby that Eddie guessed was 2 weeks old. Then we drove for a while until we saw a line of 8 or so other vehicles near a pack of Impallas, only no one was looking at the impallas. They were all looking at a nearby bush that ended up containing a Jaguar who had been eyeing the heard. He gave up on the heard and walked away, and we finally got a good view and a couple of pictures. Apparently the Jaguar is considered the holy grail of the safari, but everyone I have talked to has seen one. I think it is the black rhino that is the biggest find since there are only like 400 of them, but no one talks them up because it is an expectation they can’t fulfill. Still the Jaguar was really impressive.
Then we proceeded to a nearby river (and another crowd of vehicles) and got to see a second 
jaguar. This is pretty much how it works. The vans scatter and see the standard stuff (gazelle, elephants, hippos) until one of them happens on something special. Then they radio out and everyone converges to see it. There were a few range rovers with movie cameras there as well. Eddie said it was the National Geographic people doing a documentary. I think it is interesting that in all of those nature shows I used to watch, there were probably roads and tourists just off camera. After that we headed back. We had spent a significant chunk of time staking out the jaguar. There was a brilliant sunset on the way home. But our evening wasn’t done yet. Just before our camp we happened upon a cheetah stalking some gazelles. He passed in front of our van by no more than100 ft. He eventually gave up on the gazelles, but was a grand finale. All and all, a very fun outing. As we were driving home, standing with our heads out of the van, wind in our hair and the African sun setting to our backs, I said to Matt, “This was not something I foresaw when I applied to work at HEC.”
______________[1] Which is weird for many reasons, but just one is that nomadic peoples do not have static villages to simulate.
[2] Metaphorical, of course.
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