guide knocked on our hotel room door at the time that they said they
would on Monday morning. Up until that instant, we really couldn't be
sure that the Safari was actually going to happen for us. We had
planned a 4 day / 3 night safari to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and
the ngorongoro crater, all camping in tents. By this point, I had met
up with Erin and Meredith after they returned cold, but successful
from the Uhuru peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. Only the three of us would
be going on safari, everyone else either returning to Canada or
continuing on with their travels.
I won't give you a step-by-step of the safari and everything I saw,
but I'll put up some of the best pictures and talk in generalities of
my impressions.
There were 7 of us in the land rover, which made it close quarters,
but there was enough leg room so that I didn't feel too cramped. I
think we got pretty lucky with the group that we randomly got placed
with and we seemed to click right off the bat. The tour company had
quite the operation going on the first morning, with at least 20
people milling about the office, packing food, sleeping bags or tents.
The spectacle that they made of showing us off was impressive and
hopefully sincere: they all seemed so excited for us.
The animals that we saw over the next few days were amazing and
seeing them in their element represented the fulfillment of a
life-long dream for me. I didn't really mind which animals we were
seeing, because just having the opportunity to observe behaviour out
in the wild was exhilarating (although I will admit that watching
hundreds of Thompson's gazelle eat grass and do little else got a
little tired after the second day). We managed to see many of the
standards, including most of the "Big 5" (Lion, Leopard, Elephant,
Water Buffalo, Rhino), except the rhino, despite our best efforts in
the ngorongoro crater to spot one. Highlights include watching lions
walk feet from our car and across the road in front of us; seeing a
Thompson's gazelle hung up 10 meters in a tree and the leopard
responsible for doing so; watching herds of zebra file one by one
across a river; having a big bull elephant come into our camp on the
final day for some amazing photo ops… the list goes on.
We liked the Serengeti more than the other parks and it was worth the
extra few hours' drive to get out there. The crater was beautiful
scenically, but somewhat underwhelming faunally, probably due to the
massive expectations that we had for it. Our driver/guide was good as
a driver but relatively useless as a wildlife guide, although it makes
sense that the best guides are the ones working for the expensive
safaris. Our guide's English was poor and we had many exchanges where
we would try to ask questions about an animal, only to have him answer
a completely different question. It was a frustrating exercise in
patience, particularly when I was so looking forward to digging a
little deeper than "you can tell an elephant is older because of
bigger tusks" or "male ostriches are black, females are grey". He was
no Attenborough. Ah well, I didn't go to the Serengeti for the guide.
There were a sickening number of tourists in rovers in these parks.
They've apparently capped the number of cars allowed in each day, but
it often felt like we were just zooming around the park until we saw a
line of cars already stopped looking at something. It's weird too:
hardly anyone waves at each other in the cars. Everyone is so focused
on the surroundings that acknowledging the hairless ape in the next
vehicle is not a priority. Speaking of hairless apes, I felt a
connection to the area around the Serengeti and ngorongoro because of
the significance of the Olduvai Gorge. Olduvai is the location of an
excavation site that unearthed some of the oldest humanoid footprints
discovered thus far: 3.6 million years old. They are from a species of
human that is ancestral to our own and predates Neanderthals and the
spread of humanity to Europe and Asia. We all came from that region at
some point in our history and it felt good being there. Stupid guide
said we'd have the chance to go and explore on our way back, but
conveniently as we were driving by the turn off, looked at his watch
and then said "Oh, it closes at 4:00". Bah. I'm not bitter, honest.
Unsolicited advice: If you want to go on a safari and will be paying
for the flight over there already, go ahead and pay the extra few
dollars for a mid-range safari and make sure the guide is good before
you pay a cent. Camping was pretty cool though… sleeping under the
stars in the Serengeti, with buffalo, zebra and hyena poking around
the tents at night was an amazing experience that I won't forget.
Also, apparently the rainy season is a pretty spectacular time to see
the national parks and you can usually get a better deal on the
safari. Oh, and don't for a second think about buying sculptures or
art on the road from the Northern safaris back to Arusha unless you
are amazing at bartering. The prices are astronomical compared to
anywhere else in Tanzania and unfathomingly, unlike ANYWHERE else in
Tanzania, these tiny little shops on the side of the road accept
Mastercard and Visa!
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