False TANZANIA is for… Hot Air ballooning There’s no finer start to a day in the Serengeti than taking a serene hot- air balloon trip above the wide open plains, watching herds of wildebeest, zebra and buffalo scatter in your shadow, before touching down to a sumptuous champagne breakfast, eaten al fresco wherever the wind has blown you. is for… Great Rift Valley Stretching for 5500km between Arabia and the Zambezi Valley, the Rift Valley formed some 20- 30 million years ago along a pair of fault lines that converge on Tanzania’s southern highlands. Prominent landmarks, like Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro Crater, are volcanic by- products of the rifting, which will eventually cause the region to split into two separate land masses. The eastern Rift, which runs through the heart of Tanzania, is nowhere seen to better advantage than on the sheer escarpments that hem in Lakes Manyara and Eyasi. Further north, Lake Natron is overlooked by Africa’s most active volcano, Ol Doinyo Lengai, which last blew its top in 2007 ( pictured right). The flooded western Rift forms the border with the DRC, where it rises in majestic verdancy either side of Lake Tanganyika. is for… Jambo! “ Jambo!” – Swahili for Hello! – you’ll hear this cheerful greeting wherever you travel in Tanzania, often followed by a friendly “ Habari ya safari?” ( How is the trip) or ‘ Karibu!’ ( Welcome!). 58 msafiri EMMA THOMSON

False 59 is for… Indigenous cultures Home to more than 100 tribal cultures, and to significant numbers of Christians, Muslims and traditional animists, Tanzania is that rare country where cultural diversity is embraced as a cause for national unity rather than ethnic factiousness. Fascinatingly, every key phase in human socio- economic development is represented here – the hunter- gatherer Hadzabe, the pastoralist Barabaig, the agriculturist Chagga, the trade- based Swahili – and for the most part these people adopt a ‘ live- and- let- live’ attitude. Emblematic of Tanzania’s culture of tolerance are the red- robed Maasai, who still herd their precious cattle through some of Africa’s finest big game country. msafiri