Safari
Day One:
After struggling to walk and climb into the safari 4WD, we set off on our 5 day adventure with Amanda, a teacher from Perth who was joining us. We chatted the whole way to our campsite near Lake Manyara. The campsite was beautiful, all green grass and swimming pool, and we left all our stuff to be set up while we visited the park. Lake Manyara was stunning. Within 20 meters of being inside the gates we were already seeing monkeys and baboons playing around and walking back and forth across the road. We were lucky enough to see zebras, giraffes, elephants, flamingos, hippos and buffalos all on our first afternoon. Our guide, Richard, was so full of information and so friendly. We were very lucky, as you can see good guides are hard to come by when you stop for lunch or at the campsites. For some guides I guess its just a way to make money, and they care very little for their job or clients. Lunches soon became our favourite part of the day because we got these amazing lunch boxes filled with everything! We will be sad to go home to normal lunches now.
Upon returning to our campsite, we went for a walk to buy a Masaai blanket. Its not unlike Thailand, walking around near shops and stalls, with people heckling you to buy things and trying to usher you into their shop. We just went with the usual excuse that we couldn’t take it back into Australia.
Similar to Kili, we were fed like kings! The difference being this time we could actually eat it. Going home to my cooking is going to be a big disappointment!
Upon returning to our campsite, we went for a walk to buy a Masaai blanket. Its not unlike Thailand, walking around near shops and stalls, with people heckling you to buy things and trying to usher you into their shop. We just went with the usual excuse that we couldn’t take it back into Australia.
Similar to Kili, we were fed like kings! The difference being this time we could actually eat it. Going home to my cooking is going to be a big disappointment!
Day Two:
Day two saw horrible weather! Rain, fog and mist for the entire morning. We left early to start the long drive to the Serengeti. We didn’t see a lot of scenery but enjoyed the drive. Marty slept a great deal, as he did for the whole safari! We had a 45 minute stop at the Ngorogoro Crater entrance gate, where the Tanzanian Safari version of Myki is about as successful there as it is at home. We enjoyed watching all the dorky European tourists in their khaki safari get ups.
At lunch, we visited a Masaai tribe and their village. It was a truly eye opening experience, but in a different way to what we had already seen. The Masaai people are nomadic, moving with their goats and cows depending on the conditions. To make it easy to picture them, they are the ‘jumping Africans’, with the holes in their ears. It was a meeting of western and traditional ways. Imagine 20 or so mud and stick huts, but with a water tank in the middle of the community. Multiple wives are allowed and the women are responsible for child raising and the building of homes. They also make jewellery to sell. Our guide is educated at a school near the crater and had great English speaking skills. But he still maintains the Masaai lifestyle and lives in his hut. There is no ‘taking them away from poverty’ feel here. It’s their way of life.
We reached the Serengeti gate in the late afternoon. We were lucky to see a few animals in our late afternoon drive. The place is just huge. You could get lost in there easily! We knew we were in dangerous territory when our dining ‘pavilion’ is caged and able to be locked! We had an early night that night after yet another amazing meal, as Marty and I had an early start the next morning!
Oh, and the bathrooms were disgusting! Drop toilets and cold showers!
At lunch, we visited a Masaai tribe and their village. It was a truly eye opening experience, but in a different way to what we had already seen. The Masaai people are nomadic, moving with their goats and cows depending on the conditions. To make it easy to picture them, they are the ‘jumping Africans’, with the holes in their ears. It was a meeting of western and traditional ways. Imagine 20 or so mud and stick huts, but with a water tank in the middle of the community. Multiple wives are allowed and the women are responsible for child raising and the building of homes. They also make jewellery to sell. Our guide is educated at a school near the crater and had great English speaking skills. But he still maintains the Masaai lifestyle and lives in his hut. There is no ‘taking them away from poverty’ feel here. It’s their way of life.
We reached the Serengeti gate in the late afternoon. We were lucky to see a few animals in our late afternoon drive. The place is just huge. You could get lost in there easily! We knew we were in dangerous territory when our dining ‘pavilion’ is caged and able to be locked! We had an early night that night after yet another amazing meal, as Marty and I had an early start the next morning!
Oh, and the bathrooms were disgusting! Drop toilets and cold showers!
Day Three:
We began day three with a 5am wake up call, as we were going Hot Air Ballooning over the Serengeti National Park, my Christmas present to Marty. It was such an amazing experience. The park was gorgeous at that time of morning, and we saw a lot of giraffes and elephants. The only downside was a horrrrrrrrrrrrrible Asian/American tourist who was the resident expert on everything and did not shut up! We tried to tune her out. We were treated to a full breakfast in the middle of the park afterwards. It was a nice way to spend new years eve :)
We did so much driving that day! We saw everything. Hippos, elephants, leopards and 6 lions in a tree, followed by a mumma and two baby cubs later in the afternoon. The afternoon drive was lovely, even if you don’t see animals, there is so much to look at and appreciate. And we were so lucky we had good company in Amanda, as well as Richard chiming in with funny comments every now and again.
We didn’t party hard at all new years eve, we were too tired! Some wine over dinner and an early night was preferred.
We did so much driving that day! We saw everything. Hippos, elephants, leopards and 6 lions in a tree, followed by a mumma and two baby cubs later in the afternoon. The afternoon drive was lovely, even if you don’t see animals, there is so much to look at and appreciate. And we were so lucky we had good company in Amanda, as well as Richard chiming in with funny comments every now and again.
We didn’t party hard at all new years eve, we were too tired! Some wine over dinner and an early night was preferred.
Day Four:
Back on the road again! This time to the crater. The crater is left from an old volcano. It is giant! It is here that we had our great lion encounter. There was a pride walking between the river for water and the carcass of their last kill. However, in the heat of the day, they were looking for places to rest. That place happened to be the shade provided by our parked car! We couldn’t move for 45 minutes! As we sat carefully in our car, a herd of water buffalo were fighting for ‘turf’ with some of the lions under the tree. Apparently, a herd of water buffalo are more intimidating than a few lions. But the worst was yet to come! There were two lion cubs with their mother, and once the water buffalo crossed the river, they were separated. I’m talking ‘stampede in the gorge, Simba’s down there’ style. One of the lion cubs tried to climb a tree out of the way and about 20 safari trucks were collectively holding their breath! Finally the cubs escaped and got back to their mummy, which was lucky, because our truck was almost in tears!
There was no topping what we had seen that morning, so after lunch and a bit more of a drive around, we headed back to our accommodation… which was in a B&B! Not a tent! Amanda and I were very excited to wash our hair in a proper shower and sleep in a proper bed.
There was no topping what we had seen that morning, so after lunch and a bit more of a drive around, we headed back to our accommodation… which was in a B&B! Not a tent! Amanda and I were very excited to wash our hair in a proper shower and sleep in a proper bed.
Day Five:
After a wonderful sleep we headed to Tarangire Park, a park popular for elephants. We have learned that you can never see too many elephants :) Unfortunately, its also known for flies similar to our sand flies at home. And they bite! We spent the day slapping ourselves and each other, while keeping an eye out for any animals we could see. It was a hot day, so a lot of the wildlife was keeping cool. And then our safari was over! It was time to drive back to St. Jude’s, a school founded by a girl from NSW that now provides free education to 1500 of the poorest students from Arusha.
We had an absolute ball on safari! We can recommend the company 100% and learned so much while seeing beautiful scenery so different to Australia.
I’ll update you all on our time at St. Jude’s tomorrow, when we get to Zanzibar!
Love Rach and Marty xxx
sounds great, your blogs are so well written.
ReplyDeleteyou must have been on a similar route that we did, I reckon we must have stayed in the same camp ground at lake manyara.
I am so very jealous that you got to see lion cubs. we saw plenty of lions and females starting to hunt which was cool, but no cubs :( and to get a scene from the lion king! nicely done!
we did see hyena cubs however.... thats cool right? that was at amboseli NP in Kenya.