July18 Ngorngoro!

 

Last night we got to this 'Farm House' which isn't really a farm house! It a sprawling resort with independent villas in the rolling coffee plantations. I know this place is bigger and attracts more tourists. The staff feels like the have to present 'Africa' to us and do so via a generic  but enthusiastic song-and-dance about the campfire. The cuisine is great, safe in its content and familiar in its variety so that it works for those of us like my dad who have touchy first-world GI tracts! ...Just as long as you stay away from the peeli-peeli !

The camp on the edge of the Ngorngoro crater...

I sit on a circular tin table under a large hut surrounded by manicured lawns, fruit plants, flowers growing in organized rows as far as the eye can see. This is that time between brightness of the midday sun and the gentle sentimentality of its setting, when the sun is there at an easy angle, its rays not aggressive and illuminating but rather slanted and apologetic. I have yet to learn if this lighting is good for the photographer and his photographs but certainly it is perfect for the soulful images the eyes capture. Its a time to look closely with the heart and the soul and to experience these vistas and their Creator. Off in the distance are polished and planted fields. A coffee farm on the horizon sweeps up and over the curves of the land, large flowering trees line the edges and as the gaze runs downward there are flower bushes everywhere in so many summer colors. A short way up a curvy path lined with small lamps is the ‘Mamba’ house where dad and I are staying. The Mamba is a large room that has extraordinary woodwork in its beams, doors and windows, netting to prevent mosquitoes from entering and a back patio that looks over a coffee plantation brightly lit by the dipping sun. I drag the mat from the bedroom out to this patio and finally practice my yoga as I face the sun and feel like I am living in Tuscany for the moment…a Tuscany of my imagination borne of Hollywood movies, nevertheless a beautiful place. Wild animals and Africa can wait for tomorrow...