Safari Overview

I am back in Arusha. My appologies, but I forgot my journal at the hotel, so I will only briefly describe the safari with more detail to come.

The safari was amazing! It was really neat to see all the animals in their natural habitat. The entire trip fits with the theme of seeing to believe rather than reading about it. Our guide, Walter, proved to be very knowlegible (and a safe driver!). The lodges we stayed in were fantastic! All had rustic, African-themed decor with excellent service. It might be a little hard to revert back to budget hostels and simple meals after 5 star luxury ;)

The climb up Mt. Kilimonjaro was very tiring and long. I can't remember ever walking 16 Km in one day, let alone up hill and down. That said, the experience was well worth the sweat and blisters. The forest had more shades of green than I have ever seen before. It contained Colobus and Blue Monkeys, which were a delight. We were rather slow and made it to the 1st camp at 5pm. After a quick rest, we hurried down, but still didn't make it before dark. Maria gets the girl-scout award for bringing her headlamp. I had the most interesting discussion with our Kili guide, Elis. We talked about all things Tanzanian from the school system to coruption in the government.

Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara NP, Serengeti NP, and Ngorongoro Crater were all stops on our trip. My favourite was Ngorongor Crater which had all the animals I wanted to see (except giraffes) set in beautiful flowered open areas and the crater side as the back drop. I saw 5 black rhinos! Walter had said we would be very lucky if we get to see one! Another favourite experience was being 'charged' by an angry female elephant when we got too close to her baby. Walter very quickly 'backed the truck up.' The girls are teasing me now because I thought we were gonners. I saw 3 cheetahs and over 40 lions! One female was so close to the safari vehicle (I can't think of a good name for it), I could have almost reached out and touched it. Another male gave me the shivers when he looked directly at me with piercing green-yellow eyes and licked his lips.

I watched the sunrise over the Serengeti one morning at breakfast and concluded the classic Acacia tree silhouetted with a red sky might actually be a morning scene rather than sunset.

We saw wildebeast in a portion of their great migration. As the hundreds of animals plunged across the stream, I couldn't help but think what I was seeing could be straight out of Discovery Channel. The herd was divided when a hyena trotted into their path.

Zebras are really neat. They also migrate, we must have seen several thousand.

This hippos were much different that I expected. They are in the water to avoid the hot midday sun. The few hippo pools we came across were vats of excriment that according to Maria and Viv smelled really bad (thank goodness for my poorly-functioning sniffer).

Aside: My written descriptions cannot begin to describe what I have seen, but my attempt to upload pictures is failing miserably. The internet is rather slow. I will try this again soon. There are a few on Flickr, please take a look.

We are going on a 1-day Culture Tour including Camel Rides (yay! Note: South of the Sahara, Micha!). Then we are flying to Zanzibar, which should be fantastic!