Safari

My first Safari!! Five days of game drive in four national parks. The organization is chaotic, the plans change all the time, people leave, others come, the car breaks down... It requires a lot of patience, but in the end everything works out and the animals and scenery we see are amazing.

We start from Arusha and drive to Tarangire first. Tarangire National Park has the greatest concentration of animals outside of Serengeti. It even starts outside the park where we see blue-balled monkeys and magnificent starlings. Then we enter, I am very excited. We are driving a jeep with a roof that opens so we can stand up and watch the animals. The African elephant is majestic and there are huge flocks of them. A warthog crosses in front of our vehicle. Impalas, giraffes and ostriches grass nearby and the highlight: a female lion resting under a tree, 8 meters from the road. We sleep in tents near the second national park, Manyara, and watch the moonrise and the sunrise the next day.

photos Tarangire

The setting changes completely as we enter Manyara National Park. From open plains we now drive through a forest with huge trees. A group of baboons are camping on the road and a bit further a blue monkey makes a brief appearance. Our driver knows where to find the animals. We are going to see hippos. They are quite far away, but I am still able to, catch them with my zoom. Elephants, gazelles and more giraffes inhabit this park. I keep an eye open for climbing lions, but am not able to spot one. That’s the game!

photos Manyara

Ngorongoro is a huge crater with flat grassland inside. The crater used to be a mountain even higher than Kilimanjaro before it collapsed. Today, the crater is a natural sanctuary with 30.000 animals. The game drive in here is not a game, the animals are everywhere! There are herds of zebras, wildebeests, elephants, hippos, lions, buffalos and even a black rhino in the distance. Luckily Hannah has a big zoom so she can catch him on a photo. The area is also home to the Masaais, one of the ethnic groups in Africa who live close to nature and wildlife.

photos Ngorongoro

 Our first day in Serengeti starts off with a broken car. Sultan, our driver, and Mister Bean, the cook, jump out of the car to fix it. We also get out of the car, to see what they are doing. They decide to attach a wooden stick to the steering, which is broken. “Don’t worry”, they say,” we have done it before”. I’m not worried about the car, but more about the 5 lions which were resting only 500 meters from where we stopped… Serengeti is even better than what I imagined. It is so beautiful I could stay here for days trying to spot animals and enjoying the landscape. It stretches as far as your eye can see and the game viewing is incredible! A huge male lion sleeps under a tree, a half eaten carcass of a zebra in front of him, the definite highlight of this fourth day. Sultan even manages to find us a leopard, even if it is far away, lying on a branch of a tree. We have thus seen the big five: elephant, buffalo, rhino, lion and leopard. Incredible! A stork sets off in the air from a tree, showing us the way to our camp, where we set up out own tents today.

photos Serengeti 1

Serengeti’s second day is if possible even better than the first. We have an early morning drive to try to see the predators returning from their night hunts. The sunrise is breathtaking and in the early morning light the animals are numerous: hippos, monkeys, hyenas… Some vultures are eating from a dead wildebeest, probably killed by the group of lions in the distance. Then, the most beautiful scene happens right in front of our eyes. A female lion and her two cubs cross in front of our car. I hold my breath and almost forget to take pictures as the mother and her stumbling children act as if we weren’t there. On our way back to Arusha I see Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, at the back of Mount Meru.

photos Serengeti 2