Tanzania Travel Guide

Big beasts, big leaves, big spices

Day one of our trek proper and we were picked up early by our guide (Beerman), who was going to be our driver and tracker for the next three days. We also had our first experience with “African Time” – tell the chef you need breakfast early because you are leaving at 7.30 – “no problems, we will be ready at 7″, only for it to arrive at 8.15 (it was only fruit and muesli!!!)

Anyway, we still didn’t really know what to expect – so we met with our guide for the three day safari (Beerman) and rode off towards the Serengeti National Park. The drive up took about 5 hours and we first had to go through the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation area (Ngorongoro means “cowbell” in Masai because apparently that is what the word sounds like.) We didn’t go into the crater on the first day, instead we drove around the rim and down into the plains of the Serengeti. First of all we were so excited to see anything we stopped to take pictures of whatever we saw, no matter how far away they were. But once we got down onto the vast plain, there were no shortage of things to look at – especially wildebeest, impala and zebra, which are in total abundance.

Approaching dusk, we pulled into our campsite for the night – not exactly completely in the bush (there was at least a toilet (long drop, not very pleasant) but there was no fences and nothing to stop the animals coming in…

Beerman and some others from the safari company cooked us dinner and we were a little disconcerted that they slept in the caged off area that served as the kitchen while we were out in the open!! We managed not to get eaten alive although everyone (apart from me) heard a pride of Lion killing a buffalo scarily close to our campsite.

And that was just day one!!!Day two in the Serengeti started (after swapping stories of hearing lion in the night – some other group got a little over-excited and claimed that the lion were walking in between our tents!!!) with an early morning game drive – we left about 6.30 so any notion of this being a relaxing holiday soon got abandoned.

It wasn’t looking like being a terribly successful morning – we saw a herd of elephant in the distance, a water buck and some interesting birds (as well as the ever present impala and a few buffalo).

Then possibly the highlight of our tour thus far; going back through the main plains of the serengeti we spotted a cheetah in the distance. There were three about two hundred metres to our left and we watched them walking for about 10 minutes. Then, when we thought they were just going to wander off, they suddenly changed direction and headed towards the road. It turns out that they had spotted an Impala standing on a termite mound 300 metres to the right of our road. We watched them, a mother and two young, cross the road right in front of us and then slowly approach and stalk the impala right up until the final chase. The kill happened just over the brow of the hill so we did not see that (and neither impala or cheetah were seen again so we new they had made the kill) but that didn’t stop it being an amazing site!!!

That night we camped on the crater rim, which was alot colder than we had been used to. Also the campsite (another bush camp) was also occupied by an old (and grumpy) buffalo who grazed the site during the night and chased anybody who dared to go to the loo.

Surviving the night on the Crater rim with the not-so-friendly buffalo, day three of our Serengeti excursion started early again (6am) and straight after breakfast we descended through the mist into the crater itself, a massive caldera. David Attenborough could possibly tell you why but there is but there is an unbelievably amount of animals in the one location. Unlike the plains of the Serengeti, these animals do not migrate so there is always alot to see. The first thing we say as soon as we reached the bottom was this massive bull elephant. We had a distant view of a black Rhine, saw some Zebra giving themselves a sandbath and then spotted the aftermath of a lion kill. The Hyena were fighting over the carcass.

Wild Wild Africa

So much of Tanzania feels untouched. The southern regions that I travelled in were wildest, purest Africa. Jungle,beaches, mountains, wildlife - Tanzania has it all. Hiking to the waterfalls of the Udzungwa Mountains National Park, negotiating the chaos of Dar's traffic, snorkelling the reefs off the coast and game driving in the many wildlife destinations and sharing a Ndhovu Lager with Tanzanian friends in a bar to round it all off. Karibu sana, rafiki.

Very diverse destinations, improving infrastructure, and generally more affordable than e.g. South Africa or Botswana.

Less industrialed safaris than for instance Kenya, lots of space for animals to wander around.

Tanzania has probably the widest, wildest spaces and the biggest selection of wildlife of them all. The people are very warm, and the sense of somewhere else is unbeatable for a first-timer to Africa.

A family trip to Tanzania

We stayed three weeks, and it was the best trip the family has ever done. Apart from the parks, we also saw Zanzibar.

Tanzania is a country which has got very beautiful parks with natural animals compared to other African countries though to some places infrastructure is still not good.

I love Tanzania. Sometimes (especially in the North) it is a bit touristy, that's why I rated 'bush vibe' good instead of excellent. I'm not into birding.

Tanzania... best travel experience of my life!

I had the great pleasure to spend about a week and a half in Tanzania in early November, 2009. This was a trip that I had spent hours and hours researching, reading about, asking questions about on various travel forums, and then finally planning with my safari tour operator (Good Earth Tours). I had very high expectations, and they were all exceeded. Everything from the weather, the low number of other tourists (and bugs/mosquitos!), the wildlife viewing, the services and care given by my safari outfitter and private guide, the warm welcomes from the good people of Tanzania, the quality of the food and lodging, the amazing natural beauty of the various parks we visited, all varied and different from one another... just made for the most magnificent trip I have ever taken. And I have taken quite a few. I love to take photos, purely amateur, but some of the photos I came back with stunned my friends and family, they couldn't believe the beautiful sights that I was able to see.

I feel like my itinerary was perfect, I wouldn't have changed a thing about it. Flew into Kilimanjaro Airport, and planned to spend two nights in the town of Arusha pre-safari, just to get acclimated to the time change, and to have a buffer day in case of flight delays or other problems like that. And it was a very good thing that we did that. ("We" was just myself, and one friend... party of two for this entire trip.) My friend had a mishap with her passport as we were preparing to fly out of St. Louis, it was current, but did not have more than six months validity left on it, which we did not know was necessary. What a day that turned out to be...after some scrambling to find out our options, my friend flew ahead to Chicago with hopes of getting her passport renewed on the spot. Thankfully, we had a long layover there before the international flight. Long story short, my friend did make it on the plane to Amsterdam, with only minutes to spare. The door was closing. I was already on the plane, planning to go ahead to Tanzania, knowing that we had the buffer day built in and that my friend could at least make it by the second day, and we would not miss our safari. So, just a word of advice, check your passport date! And do try to have an extra day to recoup when you arrive, or just relax, or to save yourself a whole lot of worry in case something like this happens to you.

The best part about our "extra" day in Arusha, though, was that we did get to have the most lovely lunch at Hatari Lodge, and a half-day visit to Arusha National Park. It was something I had debated back and forth, whether or not to include Arusha National Park in our safari. I am so glad we did. My very favorite photo from the whole trip was from there. And the way we did it was very cost effective... we asked to have lunch at Hatari Lodge, which is inside the park. So it was sort of a bonus to see the park, while we were just driving thru on our way to lunch! And our guide was so wonderful (Prosper was his name, with Good Earth Tours). We were getting to know each other during the drive, and I was just asking casual questions, making conversation. I asked about whether we would likely see Flamingos at Lake Manyara later in the week. Prosper said if we wanted to see Flamingos, he would make it happen. Turns out, the flamingos were actually in Arusha. lol LOTS and LOTS of them. He didn't have to do it, because it wasn't on our itinerary, but Prosper took at least two extra hours of his personal time, and took us to see the flamingos in Arusha National Park after our lunch. It was so beautiful, and such a pleasant surprise. Just a fantastic way to start our journey together.

Sorry for the long story there... but I felt it was important to share. Back to our itinerary:

Two nights in Arusha at the Kibo Palace Hotel
Two nights at Tarangire Sopa Lodge
One night at Lake Manyara Hotel (A Wildlife Lodge property)
Lunch at Gibbs Farm
One night at Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge
Two nights at Seronera Wildlife Lodge
One night at Lobo Wildlife Lodge
Two nights at Migration Camp (including a full-day game drive to the Mara River)
Flight to Zanzibar
Stayed four nights at Imani Villa Beach Resort
Flight back to Arusha, picked up by Good Earth representative, who took us to some local places for last-minute shopping, lunch, etc. They kept our luggage for us during the day, and then drove us back to Kilimanjaro Airport for our flight home.

Good Earth took such good care of us, and so did the good people working at all the different lodges and camps. The food was so good everywhere we went. At least that is my most humble opinion.

I was especially impressed with the Wildlife Lodge properties. They are extremely budget friendly, and I thought they would be a little more rustic than they were, but was willing to save a few bucks by staying with them, in order to better afford the luxury of Migration Camp as the grand finale of our safari at the end. The Wildlife properties are Very, VERY well located, you are in the heart of all the beauty and wildlife. They are truly great lodges, the architecture of the common areas especially pleased me. And the food here was just as good as the Sopa lodges.

Migration Camp, well, what can I say, but DON'T MISS IT! Just an amazing experience to treat yourself extra special for a night or two. It's expensive, but I think it is worth it for at least one night.

I guess that is the basics, please feel free to contact me for more details! I love to talk about it and reminisce! :)

Cheers!
Sandi

This is Africa as I had always dreamed it would be. The diversity of wildlife and the locations lived up to and surpassed my expectations on all levels.