Cliché Africa: Head-to-toe khaki, telephoto lenses, tents with running water and electricity, and lions chasing zebras across the savannah. Well, three out of four ain’t bad.

Seeing some of the world’s strangest creatures in their natural habitat is awe-inspiring, but being a tourist in a country where most the people won’t earn the cost of lunch in a month is tragic. The tourism industry is justified by the usual rhetoric: the money goes back into the local economy to help the poor. But most the tour companies are British, or at least based in Nairobi, so how exactly does the money get back to the local community? Of course, the industry provides jobs: tour guides who get to rest for a matter of hours each day, who are deaf from the constant hum of safari vans and long stretches of highway, and who see their families maybe twice a month; hotel staff who have to deal with the constant stream of spoiled Eurotrash complaining that there’s no hot water for measely tip money; and of course, the vultures who make their living selling useless souveniers for highly inflated prices.

Of course, the first time I saw an elephant ten feet away, I forgot all about the dirty feeling that I was contributing to the fall of humanity. Every warthog conjured up the opening verse of Hakuna Matata and the backdrop of Kilamanjaro and acacia trees fulfilled my quintessential image of Africa.