Safari Time!

About this time last year I was excitedly counting down the time to go to Antarctica. Now that trip is receding further and further into the past and I admit this fact is depressing me.

January looms around the corner containing nothing special in its days. I never liked January. It is just  a 31-day block of cold, gray, wintery blah. 

Mostly I all do during the first two months of the year is wait impatiently for them to be over so that summer arrives. My impatience will probably be heightened in 2019 because in July I'll be traveling to the Eastern Hemisphere to see what's what in Tanzania. 

When I return from one trip usually my first question to myself is: Where to next? After coming back from Antarctica I mused about touring Russia first by riverboat then I considered a tour by train. Eventually,  I shelved the whole idea of going to Russia in favor of seeing the Serengeti. 

Just like Antarctica, I was first introduced to the Serengeti through an Imax film. The film showed a flood of racing wildebeest, Masai tribesmen puncturing a cow's throat and its blood squirting out like water from a hose and those fantastic Acacia trees. 

And just like that Antarctica film, my eyes widened at the spectacle in front of me and I immediately wanted to see it in person. It is another place, among a multitude, that appeared so different and exotic from my own surroundings. I know there are no more blank spots left on maps and places left untouched and unhampered by humans are becoming extinct-tourists like me are among the culprits. But those plains in Tanzania that stretch far into the horizon make me believe there are still pockets treasures out there on this planet inviting and hoping to be explored.

This is a picture of me eating a cricket while on a tour of the Mekong River in Vietnam and Cambodia back in 2015. It has nothing to do with Tanzania but I like this photo. I feel it shows my true traveling grit.