I am honored….and a bit intimidated, after all we have all been enjoying the witty, comical and informative blogs of Mike and Nancy for the past year! Mike asked me to share some of my stories from our Safari; I agreed to try! Oh this is Mary. So here goes …..

There are so many amazing things that happened on this trip, every day we thought “today can not measure up to yesterday” but every day seemed to be better than the day before. Going into the trip I wanted to see lions! We saw lions: eating, sleeping, playing, walking, and stalking their prey and (yes!) the kill!

So who would believe my favorite encounter would be with an elephant?? Well, when you factor in the fear factor (ok, and the exaggeration factor!) the elephants win hands down.

Maggie’s favorite animal is the elephant. Every day started out with Maggie asking Damas “Will I see any elephants today”. Damas would smile and tell her she would, and he was right, when they were not hiding (or disappearing) we saw elephants. However, they were never close enough for me. By the fourth day I joined Maggie with her morning question to Damas: “Would we see any elephants today?” He must have thought we were crazy since we had seen elephants every day, but he would just smile and say yes. Except the last day when he responded “Wow, you people really like elephants.” He then promised Maggie he would find her a baby elephant up close that day. (Mike will give you details about that later.)

We went to Lake Manyara to begin our Safari drive, it was unlike the other areas we had been in and appeared more like a jungle than what we had experienced so far. We had the roofs off and Nancy and I were sitting on top of the jeep for parts of the drive. We saw many animals (Mike will give you details!) and were driving along when Nancy screamed for Damas to stop the jeep. She said there was a “tribe” (yes, she said tribe!) of elephants back there just off the road. So, Damas backed up to where she indicated, shut off the jeep and we all crawled out onto the roof to watch. Yeaah she is good at spotting elephants. Can you see them?

Is this easier for you. Remember we were driving when she saw them.

We could not tell how many elephants were in the tribe because the trees were thick, but we could see them eating the branches and tearing down whole trees. I was thinking: “This is really cool, but I can’t really see the elephants and they’re not really that close.” A large elephant tore down the tree branches directly parallel to our jeep approximately ten feet from our jeep and began to walk towards our jeep as he made his way out of the trees and onto the road! Damas excitedly stated “get off the roof, get off the roof”; later he explained that the elephants trunk could have reached us and pulled us down quite quickly. Believe it or not – we listened to Damas and got off the roof. Ok, we didn’t exactly get in the jeep, but we did get off the roof! Maggie and Mike got into the jeep and watched from the window with Mike’s mouth pressed against Maggie’s ear ferverently whispering….don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound… Remember these are Maggie’s favorite animals. (FYI: it turns out they are quite skittish, do not like noise and were the only animals on safari who did not seem to want people around!) Nancy and I continued to stand on the seat with our cameras held out in front of us and snapped our pictures!

The matriarch came out of the trees and walked directly behind our jeep

That white at the bottom is the top of the jeep. Nancy I are directly behind the part you can see.

She stared at us.

Her ears were waving back and forth (sign of aggression); her trunk was swaying (not in a happy puppy dog way); and she took two steps forward two steps back. She looked like she was deciding as to whether she would charge or not.

OK- my heart was pounding. I do not know why she did not charge us; she looked like she wanted to. She stood in that stance for about ten minutes while approximately fifteen elephants came out of the trees and passed behind her. Then she switched positions with a smaller female who guarded as the babies made their way out and across. When everyone had crossed the street and reentered the trees on the other side the guard elephants left us and rejoined their group.

As soon as they were gone we all started talking a mile a minute! It was the scariest and most exciting part of the trip for me. Maggie was amazed and thrilled with all of the elephants. And I get to tell everyone that we were almost killed by elephants! How can this NOT be my favorite story!

I’ll let Mike finish the rest of the day, he adds at lot more detail that I want to remember!

I do need to throw one more picture in (because it’s sooo cute!) Maggie and I were fortunate in that our vacation continued when we left Tanzania, we still had Egypt to explore. Maggie had been excited to see the pyramids and absolutely loved the Sphinx.



Egypt was completely different than I expected. I told Mike and Nancy I had a romanticized vision of Egypt from history and stories of the Nile. So I wasn’t quite prepared for the reality of Egypt. The people were nice and very helpful. The shops and the merchandise were amazing. The Khan al-Khalili was amazing; it was like a treasure hunt. There was alley after alley with every imaginable ware you can think of, thousands of people and great deals! You can see ancient Egypt throughout these streets and the architecture is awesome.

The Mosques are beautiful, as are the government buildings and the Citadel is incredible; the overall city is dirty and lacking in technology and modern standards (ie. automobile regulations, laws, emissions etc.) Maggie and I were treated like celebrities because of our blonde hair – Maggie loved having her picture taken (by Egyptians) surrounded by Egyptians! We definitely felt welcome!

Without a doubt this was the best vacation I have ever dreamed of and would highly recommended it too anyone with the slightest interest in going. (Not to mention you get to hang out with Mike and Nancy!!!!) Thanks for showing us Cairo and introducing us to your adventures!