We land in the International Airport of Kilimanjaro. We pick you up from there and drive for about half an hour until we reach our refuge. The first step in all this journey is get in tune. We get to know the surroundings, breathing the African air, we meet the other participants and, while having dinner, we obtain information necessary to let ourselves penetrate the savannah on the next day.

We get up to a coffee or tea and get ourselves ready to depart: the horses are waiting for us in the National Park of Arusha. We saddle them up, we ride them, we look challenge in the eye. Once we go forward, we notice that vegetation changes drastically, from an open area to dense vegetation. We can see elephants, buffaloes, leopards, and exotic species. We cannot longer see far, we just see what is close to us, the imminent. That’s the African spirit: a reality waiting for us, crouching. After lunch, we continue with our journey. We stop by the old house of Margarete Trappe, the Iron Lady of the First World War, who was fascinated by cavalcades along this land. We reach the camp, set at the foot of Mount Meru, upon sunset.

If we are lucky, we will wake up with the nice Colobus monkeys. We have breakfast and ride our horses towards the setting where the Hatari movie starred by John Wayne was filmed. We then make our resistance endure to climb the Fig Tree Arc. We reach a tropical jungle, over a cascade, and have lunch next to the sounds of the jungle, the leaves, with the animals watching us from the shadows. We head back to the camp and have the choice to ride the pickups towards the Momella lakes to visit them. Maybe, if we are lucky enough and if we are stealthy, we will see hippopotamus and aquatic birds. The night is falling over the lake and we see the stars reflected over the water, we go back to the camp. We have a shower, dinner and rest: tomorrow will be another day.

At this point of the journey we understand that sleep is not more than a parenthesis in our adventure, a pause to take in that we are in Africa, in the savannah that adjoins the jungle, and that, in the end, we are standing over the land where everything started. Maybe that I why the connection with Africa has something to do with the atavistic, the ancestral. We get up, have breakfast and continue the search, both internal and external. We leave the National Park of Arusha and head towards the Kilimanjaro. We take advantage of the morning freshness to go forward as far as we can, before the sun rays struck. We go through the cropping lands of Tanzania, the Maasai’s steppe. We come across local cultures. Before continuing with our journey and reach the next camp at sunset, we have lunch and regain our energies.

Above all, our journey is movement. We get up, have breakfast and commence the search of the greatest mammals in the world: the elephants. We look for them in dense bush areas, in acacia forests. We want to see elephants, maybe because we know that by watching this animal, to take in their greatness with our sight, is an effective way to feel that we are in Africa. In the end, we are in Africa to de taken over by sensations. In the afternoon, we ride our horses once again and return to the camp to enjoy this remote place, lost in the centre of the world, in the outdoors, with nature sounds as background noise.

We get up early, have breakfast, ride our equine partners and head towards the Seven Hills. Once we cross it, we go through the Sinya Village and stop to have lunch under the shade. The land varies: there are open spaces and wooded areas. We have good chances of seeing zebras, giraffes and wildebeests, but above all: the shy antelope, the Gerenuk, which we watch as we go forward -although it would be more accurate to state that it is watching us. We spend the night in an amazing place, with an open sky, where we feel surrounded by the Mount Meru, Namanga, Longido and the legendary and great Kilimanjaro Mount.

We get up and head towards the border with Kenya. We use this day to track the footprints of elephants, the biggest and one of the most mysterious animals in the African fauna. Why are we so attracted to them? What are we looking forward to discovering in their path, the lifting of their trunk, the way in which they relate to their peers? Impossible to know beforehand. Maybe this is the reason why we advance the savannah during the whole day. We see the fauna on the plains, the animals interacting, moving, alert for the presence of any predators. We hope for the night to be crystal clear in order to see a blue sky apart from the mountains.

Last day of safari. We say goodbye to our partners, the horses, who are as much of a protagonist as we have been in this journey. We have breakfast and head back to civilization, a safe area, a three-hour trip on the road before reaching the airport. For those who travel late, there is a waiting room in our refuge club.