We set out on the first morning of our five day safari with no real expectations. It's the rainy season which means low season here for safari's and it was pouring rain in Arusha when we left. Our driver/guide was Eliasi and our superb chef was Gabriel. There were supposed to be two Brits joining us, but they got held up somewhere on the way, so it was only the four of us. We dropped Gabriel and his supplies off at a bus stop in what seemed like the middle of nowhere so he could get to our camp site and set up.
The rain let up as we headed towards Tarangire National Park. Just before entering the park, Eliasi slammed on the brakes to show us two big dung beetles rolling a ball of poo across the road. We couldn't get over how big they were?!
Once in the park, Eliasi lifted the roof and we could stand up to see all around us. After smashing our faces against the rim of the vehicle a few times we mastered how to manage driving through huge, deep potholes. There were a lot of elephants here with beautiful long tusks and Eliasi told us of how one charged at him one time in the Toyota Landcruiser. The elephants like to scratch up against the beautiful and large Baobab trees in search for water during the dry season.
As we were driving I felt something crawling on my toes and swat at it thinking it was pain in the arse tse tse fly. I felt it crawling on my foot again but when I looked down I saw a huge purple dung beetle! I didn't scream, (just swore) and Eliasi picked it up and threw it out the window before Jamie could snap a picture. You know, always thinking about the blog.
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| Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep the dung a rolling... |
After arriving at our campsite and throwing our stuff into the tent we found a plate of popcorn sitting on our dinner table. As our daughter can attest to, we love popcorn and haven't had it in soo long. It was great. (Little did we know at the time, but we had popcorn appetizer every night but one on our trip. BONUS. Gabriel whipped up a great dinner for us every night despite the basic camping conditions. He was great.
On the second day we visited Lake Manyara and were joined by a couple from France; Albane and Sylvere. It was great to have more company and we jostled seats often so we could share the best view of all the animals. We practiced our french and they practiced their english. If we were keeping score, they won.
Lake Manyara had so many different birds; thousands of pink flamingos and many different types of monkeys, it was great. By the end of day two we had seen a good slew of animals and we still had the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater ahead of us.
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| You watch my back, I'll watch yours! (That's actually what they're doing) |
Even though this is the lowest season to visit the Serengeti, we saw lots of animals and can only imagine during the dry season. Eliasi told us that their definitely were less animals, but also a lot less vehicles to contend with which gave us up close viewing opportunities. Right after driving into the park, we were surprised by a few hyenas. One of them lay sleepily in the mud on the side of the road with what looked like a very full belly. We were soon treated to a pissed off elephant trumpeting and charging a herd of migrating gnu when his group was separated. Nature at its best! We caught a little video of it, but I don't think you can hear the trumpeting for the wind noise. Check it out.
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| Hyena cooling off in the mud |
There were lots of giraffes, zebras, cape buffalo and hyenas everywhere, but we were trying to find where the lions were hiding. It Turmed out, they were hiding in plain sight! We found a pride of ten or so lying in a trench beside the road. After watching them for a while, Eliasi says "We need to go. We have a flat tire" Ahhhh, just what you want to hear in the middle of the Serengeti after watching lions. We drove a few kilometers away until we stopped. Eliasi and Gabriel got out to change the tire and another Safari vehicle joined us to help out. We were on lookout, but didn't see anything lurking in the tall grasses. Imagine this blog if we had!!
There's no way to do these parks without four wheel drive, especially in rainy season. Park requirements for vehicles in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater are long and include having two spare tires, jacks, shovels, four wheel drive, and a slew of spare parts as well as intimate knowledge of the animals and area. In many places we could see roads washed out full of rocks, dirt and debris.
That night we slept in the Serengeti. I wish I could tell you how we saw animals right up along the gate at night (as we did in Kruger) but there was no gate here. And yes, we heard lots of animals around but stayed snug inside our tent until just before sunrise.
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| Elias our guide wouldn't let us out to help. Although if something "happened" to him, I'm not sure we'd have been in any better shape! |
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| Zebra and gnu stampede |
On the last night, we set our tents up on the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater. We could look down into the crater and even though it was pretty cool and damp here we found the hottest showers ever. Armed Park Rangers guarded the camp at night and we were up before sunrise again as the animals are most active in the morning. Ngorongoro was my favorite place on this tour. Sooo many elephants, hyenas, zebras, wildebeest, gnus, antelope, warthogs, rhinos, hippos, and lions. I had been waiting to see a lion with a huge mane and this is where they were. There had been a large kill the day before and the responsible pride of lions were sticking close by until they had their fill. They were definitely not afraid of looking for a shady spot to lie down in while waiting for their fast digestion to work. On the snack menu was a large Cape Buffalo. We could see the hyenas popping in and out of the tall grasses, daring to get just a little bit closer then circling back and hiding if the lions spotted them. Their turn would come, but the lions weren't ready to give up their kill just yet. We even saw (and heard) three of the cutest, tiny lion cubs with this group. We felt pretty lucky. The tune from The African Lion Safari commercial kept running through my head - annoyingly so after a while. For Jamie, it was Deep Purple and Motorhead.
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| Our tentat Ngorongoro |
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| Packing up our camp |
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| Our group with the awesome chef Gabriel |
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| Sunrise on the edge of the crater |
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| Young gnu bucks playing around |
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| Yummy, a fresh kill. We weren't invited for dinner, but I'm sure they would had enjoyed to have us FOR dinner. |
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| Taking up the offer of some shade we were providing. |
The lions are clearly the Kings and as you'll see in the video below, they aren't afraid to get nice and close to us to assert the fact!
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| Roaaaaaar!!!! (OK OK... It was actually YAWN!) |
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| Simba |
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| Hyena sneaking a peak to see if the lions have left the carcass |
As we drove through and around many of the parks, it was great to see many Maasai people walking alongside the road with their cattle and trading things in huge markets. Many Maasai continue living in their traditional ways in northern Tanzania and Kenya. Eliasi pointed out one maasai village with several huts and told us how this this Maasai was very rich and had ten wives. He would have had to pay ten cattle to the families of each one of his wives and has own village to boot. Many people here don't want their picture taken for various reasons; some are shy, some kids are told their spirits will be taken while others think you'll sell it to National Geographic for lots of money!
We had a great time and it really was thrilling to hunt all this wildlife with our cameras. It didn't even rain until we returned to Arusha and were heading to the bus station the next morning.
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| Maasai meeting under tree |
