Safari Safari Safari!!

Just got back to camp after 3 full days of safari! We started by jumping into jeeps and heading to Lake Manyara the day after we arrived in Arusha. The National park here was mostly dense forests and a few open grassland areas and we spotted monkeys, baboons, herds of elephants and a handful of giraffes.

It was amazing to be so close to Elephants! The females and their calves generally hang out together with the bulls usually wandering on their own and the herds can be up to 50 or 60 Ellies!

It was my first ever safari and I stood up with my head out of the truck all day- can’t believe how tiring it was doing nothing but animal spotting!

We stayed that night at a place called Kudu Camp near to our next safari spot – Ngorogoro Crater. The crater is whats left of a volcano and backs onto the Serengeti which is next on the list.

The crater had such a high concentration of animals – a pregnant hyena, jackals, warthogs, hippos, elephants, gazelles, ostriches, and lines of wildebeest and zebra following each other and possibly heading to the Serengeti for the migration. And my first lions! A young male sunbathing on his back and then a few of females hiding in the long grass from the midday heat.

After lunch on the rim of the crater we headed into the Serengeti for an afterooon game drive. After a few hours wait at the entrance gate because of some problem, this turned into an evening drive pretty much straight to the camp site for the night.

I think everyone would have been a lot more disappointed about the lack of game drive if It hadn’t been for the cheetah and her gazelle kill, she called to her 4 cubs too and they started tucking into their tea at the side of the road as we drove by!

I think the Serengeti is quite renowned for its cats and it lived up to it - we saw loads more lions and a leopard with a cub (all be it briefly) too!

We camped in a campsite in the middle of the game reserve with no fence and just a guard with a gun. The gun was to protect the animals from us, not the other way around!

After sleeping to the sounds of hyenas and waking up to more elephant and lion spotting, we drove 4 hours back to Arusha and I had to wash off 3 days worth of dirt and dust pretty fast because it my turn to cook… Luckily not on my own :)

written by

JL1 on November 11, 2010 from Arusha, Tanzania

from the travel blog: African Travels

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