Safari Styles
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2008
1
15
20
Trip End
Jul 24, 2009
Where I stayed
Random Campsite
Serengeti National Park,
Tanzania
Friday, June 6, 2008
Travelling from Dar Es Salaam to Arusha was another crack of dawn to darkness bus ride. This time made worse by the onset of a viral bug that had hit about 6 ppl on the truck. Nausea and queasiness all day, loss of appetite (very rare for me!), fever, aches, confirmed by Tuesday morning so thank god our campsite had flush toilets! Unfortunately, my memories of Arusha will be slightly tainted by the total misery and exhaustion I was feeling. How I yearned for my warm bed, fresh linen, and my clean bathroom! However, I won't dwell on the details, but to say that it was a 48 hour bug that I would NEVER want to experience again - least of all while camping! So yet another thing I appreciate after this trip, my health!
Tuesday afternoon we headed to the Ngorogoro Crater in 3 seperate jeeps, which I can honestly say was just an exhaustive haze for me. But we did see giraffes along the way which have taken place as my favourite animal! I love their strangely graceful loping gait, and they are beautiful to watch. We were up early (and still in pain) to head into the crater, which was an extremely bumpy 2 hour jeep ride. But a safari, talk about the perfect pick-me-up! It was freezing and misty at the top of the crater, but inside was clear and almost magical...
Warthog first, then a herd of zebra...
Buffalo
we were like kids at Christmas! To summarise the wildlife we saw (in both the Crater and the Serengeti): giraffes, warthog, zebra, gazelle (numerous and many breeds), wildebeest, buffalo, flamingos,cheetah, jackals, hippos, rhino (from afar through binoculars, but still!), leopard (also hard to spot as they climb the trees and hide amongst the leaves), elephants, hyena, ostrich, mongoose, serval, baboon, vultures, lions (countless)... oh and some birdlife, which was rather anti-climatic and boring! Some of the most awesome moments occured when the cheetahs walked alongside and in front of our jeeps, a herd of elephants playfighting, a zebra scratching its belly on a rock, the serval (very rare) beside our jeep door, seeing lions up close and so many, and of course managing to see the big 5 in one day!
We headed to the Serengeti Wednesday afternoon, which is a massive park of 15,000 square kilometres. This was great for the elephant and lion spotting. We camped in the Serengeti, with the vivid pink sunset in the background, and sounds of wildlife to sleep by. The close proximity of animals and the absence of fences, definitely made you think twice about using the bathroom in the middle of the night!
Safaris are a truly amazing experience and I would recommend them to almost anyone - although maybe not the camping experience, or for the fainthearted. The jeep rides were crazy bumpy, and I felt like my already delicate insides were turning inside out. No shower for 2 1/2 days may not sound like that long, but we were covered in dust and I struggled to get a comb through my birdnest hair.
Wildebeest
So definitely do a lodge if you can afford it! The park fees are also very expensive but seriously so worth it. I don't think I will be impressed by a zoo for a very long time, in fact although I appreciate the need for zoos, they'll probably make me sad now! And I will never forget the sight of cheetahs crossing the road in front of us with a jackal and herd of zebras right beside them. And I always come back to the sunsets and sunrises I know, but there is truly nothing like those I've seen in Africa.On the way back to Arusha we managed to spot the peaks of Kilimanjaro, the world's 3rd highest mountain. May I add, I have no desire to climb this, especially with only 40% of attempts succeeding! Our campsite was at Ma's Snake Park, which you guessed it, housed a lot of snakes (behind glass thankfully) including the black mamba and python. A bit of a strange place if you ask me, and kinda weird watching them eat rabbits, very slowly too!
Now in Kenya before I head to the Masai Mara game park for another brief safari. It probably won't rank quite as good as my first time, however I'm still very excited! I'm nearing the end of my African experience which has been a true eye opener. There's still so much that I could have seen and done, but I must admit I'm craving Western comforts: clean bathrooms, efficient service, clean clothes, and hot showers just to start! I'm definitely hooked on the wildlife though, and there's still Kruger National Park (Sth Africa), Ethosha (Namibia), and Chobe (Botswana), to name just a few so I'm sure I'll be back for more!
