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We stopped at a Maasai village on our way from the Serengeti to the Ngorongoro Crater.

It was an authentic village, but also a bit of a tourist trap. For a fee of about $40, you're welcomed in, given a tour and invited to take as many pictures as you want.

(If you spot Maasai along the road, it's considered rude to photograph them without their permission.)

They also put on a show, singing a song of welcome and performing a dance that really looks more like a vertical leap contest among the young men.

We poked around inside one of the communal houses, observed an outdoor school for small children (older kids go to school in a larger village) and also were invited to buy lots of craft items on display. We ended up spending close to a hundred bucks there.

We also happened to be the only tourists there at the time, and maybe the only ones there all day. If the village is raking in big money from the tourist trade, it doesn't show.

The Maasai are nomads who more or less follow grazing opportunities for their cattle and donkeys. They grow a little corn when they're in one place long enough but for much of the year live on a diet of milk and blood. When times are really hard, just blood from their cattle.

We had a chance to learn more because a young Maasai man hitched a ride with us to his village on the rim of the crater. He was a very pleasant 24-year-old who spoke a little English.

He was surprised to learn that Andrew, 25, and Kenny, 23, aren't married yet. He already has two wives and a couple of kids.

Polygamy is the norm among the Maasai. The more cattle a man has, the more wives he can afford.

(Polygamy still exists among the general population in Tanzania, although it's become uncommon among more educated people. We met a man whose uncle had more than a dozen wives, but he himself only has one.)

I asked our Maasai friend about his life, which consists very simply of herding cattle and tending to the basic necessities. He expressed a great deal of satisfaction with it. Indeed, the area where his village was located is one of wide open spaces and great natural beauty. I don't know where else his nomadic existence takes him and his people, but the Ngorongoro region is spectacular.

At the same time, I'm aware that life for the Maasai is harsh and full of conflicts. Children are often malnourished and sickly. Few receive much of an education. They compete for grazing land with the protected wildlife in and around the national parks. Sometimes they clash with farmers and other people who keep livestock.

Still, I couldn't help contrasting their pastoral lifestyle with what I saw in Mwanza or even Nairobi, crowded cities that draw people who no longer want to scratch out a living on farms. Unemployment is high in these cities. People are crowded together. Children beg in the streets. Crime is increasing. You see idle men sitting on curbs and sidewalks everywhere. Is that any life compared to the freedom of tending herds of cattle out on the plains? Of course, I don't know what it's like to try to survive the long dry seasons on those plains when the cattle on which the Maasai depend have little to eat and drink. If the rains don't come in time, people and livestock die.

I asked our friend if he thinks his own children will have the same life he has had.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Maasai forever."

I hope so.

(You can find our photo album here.)

(Also, you might want to read this article from the February issue of National Geographic about the Serengeti and Maasai.)