There is nothing like an African safari, especially a Tanzania safari in the Serengeti. Since I knew I’d be in this part of the world for the World Cup, and I always wanted to do a safari in northern Tanzania, I organized a 7 day trip here. As the following pictures and videos show, it was again a wonderful experience.
Lions
Lions are usually the star of an African safari, and they didn’t disappoint on this one. First we saw two lions making love. Here’s the first, quick session.
Afterwards they rested for about 10 minutes. Then the female got up…
…they looked at each other…
…and started another short session.
They can do this on a continual basis for over 3 days. When we went back to the area a few hours later, there were still a ton of safari vehicles watching their continuing show. It seems what they lack in quality, they make up in quantity.
Later on the trip we saw a lion take down a zebra. The actual chase and capture happened in a flash and I couldn’t get my video started in time. But the takedown took a few minutes as the lion couldn’t get a good grip on the zebra. It took a second lion from the pride to step in and help finish the job.
After the kill some other lions and cubs from the pride started to come over. In some cases navigating around all the vehicles that had come to watch the show.
On another day, as we came to a restroom we saw some lion cubs playing. It was fun to watch.
We didn’t see the mother, but we knew she had to be close by. Needless to say, no one left their safari vehicles to use the facilities there.
Another time we saw two adult females and three adolescent cubs near a watering hole. Again, we got to see the cubs frolicking.
In Tarangire Park we saw the unusual site of eight lions in a tree. They seemed to have recently eaten and were just relaxing and avoiding the heat and the insects on the ground.
The Migration
Every year millions of wildebeest and zebra follow the rains and migrate in a circle north and south through the Rift Valley. I was fortunate to be here when they passed down into Tanzania from Kenya and had to do the famous crossing of the Mara River in North Serengeti Park. There are 10 crossing points on the river, labeled from 0 to 9.
We started out at 6:30am and staked out a position between crossing point 0 and 1, as we saw large groups of wildebeest congregating at both spots. After over 4 hours of relaxed waiting, we saw the crossing start at point 0. So we headed over. It took almost an hour for them to cross in waves of different groups.
There were a lot of vehicles there, including two as part of a National Geographic film crew. One vehicle had the side doors removed and had a slew of cameras coming out. The other had a couple of drones. I didn’t see the drones during the crossing as they seemed to be using them to scout the 10 locations to get at the right spot for filming before the crossing. Here’s some of the videos I took of it, not quite at National Geographic’s level, but they will do!
Later in the day we were on the other side of the park and we saw a safari vehicle speed by us. So we followed it and saw the last part of a crossing at point 9. The current was much stronger here. I couldn’t capture it well on video, but a few wildebeest got swept away downstream.
Earlier in the trip we had a slew of wildebeet rapidly cross in front of our vehicle.
We saw thousands upon thousands of zebra and wildebeest all throughout North Serengeti and Central Serengeti parks.
Elephants
Elephants are probably my favorite animal to watch on safari. They are really smart and watching the families interact can be enchanting. Here’s some elephants crossing in front of us.
And here’s a mother, a juvenile and two young babies just hanging out and eating.
Other Predators
We did see a lot of other predators besides lions. The rare ones are cheetahs and leopards. Below is a mother leopard in the tree…
…and her cub in another tree nearby.
Here’s a leopard completely passed out on a tree limb.
We stumbled upon a mother cheetah and her two almost grown cubs. One was sleeping the whole time we were there, but the other cub was up a lot.
Two cheetahs using a termite mound to scout out the area.
A jackal stalking through the grass.
We saw a number of hyenas throughout the week.
Two different crocodiles in the Mara River.
Other Mammals
We did see a ton of other non-predatory mammals besides lions, elephants, wildebeest and zebra. Here are two giraffes gliding by us.
We got a chance to see a small herd of Cape Buffalos rapidly cross our path.
We saw a ton of monkeys in Laka Manyara Park.
Here’s a mother with a young baby holding on to her belly and doing some feeding.
A monkey at one of the places we stopped for lunch. They can be annoyingly opportunistic and grab anything they can get; not just food, but things like cameras and hats.
Here’s a troop of baboons crossing in front of us.
A monkey searching through elephant dung for some insects.
A hippo with a severely wounded left back leg, probably from a fight with another hippo. He can’t spend much time in the water because of the threat of infection and can now become an easy target for large pack predators like lions or hyenas.
For some reason warthogs are one of the coolest animals to see on a safari.
A black rhino far off in the distance.
A group of yellow mongooses
A group of banded mongooses.
There were a wide variety of antelope in the parks we visited.
Birds
Birds are ubiquitous on safari. Usually they are on the move or sitting far away in trees. But sometimes you get lucky and get some nice pictures.
On the Road
I spent the week with a great guide, Chebi. It was an aggressive itinery where we saw a lot of Northern Tanzania.
The Itinerary
Day 1: Started out in Arusha, visited the Tarangire National Park and spent the night at the luxurious Marera Valley Lodge. Day 2: Did a hard drive through Central Serengeti National Park up to North Serengeti National Park. Then we did a game drive through Central, but it was incredibly rushed. We were going to do this same trip back on Day 5, but I complained to the owner and we were able to modify days 4 and 5 to spread out that drive. We stayed at the Mara Kati Kati Tented Camp. Day 3: Saw the wildebeest crossings at North Serengeti. Again stayed at the Mara Tented Camp. Day 4: Drove down to Central Serengeti and did a long, all day game drive. Stayed at the Serengeti Kati Kati Tented Camp. For Day 5 we Did an extended morning game drive in Central Serengeti and then a few hours drive to the Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge. Day 6: Today was a 5 hour game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater and then again went to Marera Valley Lodge for the night. Day 7: Did a relaxed morning game drive in Lake Manyara National Park and then headed back to Arusha.
The Experience
The Land Cruiser I was in for the week.
A local town we passed through.
A Maasai tribesman and his cattle.
A Maasai village, called a boma.
Some Maasai hanging out in front of their boma.
A lot of the roads we were on were pretty bad. A car turned over a few minutes before we drove by. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
Some local Maasai looking on at the scene of the accident from accross the road.
My guide, Chebi, coming back from making sure everyone was OK at the accident.
At some points the road was so dry that a passing car would temporarily blind us.
Another town we passed through on our drives.
A beautiful boma set amongst the eucalyptus trees.
The next six pictures are scenes from the amazing Ngorongoro Crater. It was formed about 3 million years ago when a huge volcano erupted and collapsed in on itself. It’s a large self-contained garden of eden with an incredible array of animals.
These next pictures a from the small, lush area around Lake Manyara.
Accommodations
With its huge room, relaxed pool area and attentive staff, my favorite place was the Marera Valley Lodge.
I spent two nights at the Mara Kati Kati Tented Camp. It was a short drive to the Mara River and all the wildebeest crossings. I could hear the wildebeests grunting all night as they passed by my tent.
I spent one night at Kati Kati’s Serengeti Tented Camp. It was the same layout as the Mara camp, with just a more woodsy environment.
My nice, basic room at the Ngorongoro Rhino Lodge.
Dar es Salaam
At 6 million people Dar es Salaam is Tanzania’s and East Africa’s largest city. It really doesn’t feel that large. While the streets can be congested, it’s less because of an abundance of traffic and more because most of the roads are only two lanes. There are also are very few sidewalks, even in the center of town, so walking here can be an adventure.
It’s a nice enough city, but there’s really no reason to visit if you’re a tourist. Most people come to Tanzania go right to Arusha for a safari or to climb Mt Kilimanjaro, or to the exotic island of Zanzibar. I didn’t see any other tourists walking around downtown or the surrounding areas. The best part of the city is it’s location, just south of the equator on the Indian Ocean. It’s a green, lush environment with warm tropical weather, but also with strong cooling breezes coming of the ocean.
Transportation
Getting around here can be entertaining. Uber is here, but every driver that showed up ended up canceling. So I started using Bolt instead, which is out of Estonia and is huge in Africa and East Europ. The funny thing is, for both services, you can’t get a car. Just either a motorcyle (called a boda in Swahili – which I was not going to ride on the back of) or a tuk tuk (called a bajaji in Swahili – which I used every time and it worked out well).
The Akemi Restaurant has a beautiful view and slowly rotates around every hour.
Coco Beach is the main beach in town. The beach is long and wide, but there’s a very shallow reef which protects the beach, but doesn’t really allow any swimming. The best thing to do is go to one of the bars and enjoy the ocean ambience.
I had a very comfortable, but basic Airbnb apartment. I will not miss the narrow winding staircase to get up to the sleeping area.
