Moving on

We left the crater area and were on our way to Tarangire National Park. On the way we stopped at a fabulous shopping gallery with all kinds of native and traditional goods. There were wood carvings, beaded goods from the Masai, copper goods, cloth, art and Tanzanite. We had an enjoyable half hour buying some things for ourselves and to bring back as gifts.

Then we were off to Mto Wa Mbu village for a guided walk. We met our two guides and we were off. They said that they live “the banana life”. We walked through the banana plantation and they told us about how they use every part of the banana. We then went to an art school. We saw the village school, which was out for the month of June for vacation. This school looked like they really were teaching the young people, unlike the Masai school which did not look like much education happened in it. We stopped at the local tavern for banana beer, we did not try it because it looked like we might get tummy issues if we did. We then went to the local market and walked and saw what was being sold. The people of this village grow most of their food and the vegetables on display were very good looking. We had some very interesting conversations with our guides. They asked questions about our lives and it was difficult to tell them about the excess of our lives in comparison to theirs. When we talked about the houses in the village we were told that the first one you build is a mud and stick house, followed by a mud house and finally if you save enough you might build a block house. It was hard to say we lived in the type of homes we do with water, electricity and all the other amenities we take for granted.

Then we went to lunch in the Tarangire National Park and did a game drive to our hotel. The Tarangire National Park is known as the home of two giants – the baobab tree and the huge herds of elephants. Our hotel, called Treetops was actually built on or around the baobab trees.