Hey travellers!
I’m definitely not done with articles from Tanzania! As soon as we got back to town from Kilimanjaro, we did another adventure – safari!
We have never been to a safari before, and honestly we didn’t really have high expectations, because we’ve already seen all the animals in the zoo, right?! Hahaha
But, oh boy, what we saw was pretty fascinating.
It’s not even worth mentioning that two days on safari were ridiculously expensive, but we said to ourselves, that even though we’re not that crazy about wild animals, this was a must-do. It was a once in a lifetime thing, plus it’s quite possible that some species might not be here in ten years, so this was a unique opportunity to see them in the wild.
When we were climbing Kilimanjaro, I was already wondering which national parks were the best for safaris, so the guides told us, that we can’t skip Tarangire NP and Ngorongoro NP. And so we found an agency that would do one day in Tarangire and one day in Ngorongoro, which was not that difficult actually. The agency was called Avocet Tanzania Safari and I can only recommend it.
We booked a two-day trip just one day in advance, so it was quite spontaneous. The next morning we got picked up at the hotel in Arusha by a safari jeep, and together with four other people we set off. We were honestly quite happy that those 4 people were Europeans, haha:) All the safari cars have open roofs, that means you’re actually standing and don’t have to squint through the dirty windows.
When we arrived at the gate of the national park, we were quite surprised. We originally thought we were gonna get binoculars and freak out every time we’d see a grey spot, debating whether it was an elephant or a rhino.
After about two hundred meters past the entrance gate, we spot first monkeys running across the road. However, in another two minutes, I saw THE gray spot behind a giant baobab tree, so I started screaming and then everyone else with me. It looked like an elephant. The guide, who was also our driver, reassured us that we’d certainly see elephants a lot closer.
Then we saw a zebra crossing the road. And then about 15 of them. And after another five minutes hundreds of them.
And then it all started. There was just sooooo many animals around us! Elephants, gnus, monkeys, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, hippos, antelopes and dozens of others.
And then we saw the first lions. These creatures are not usually very interested in tourists, so it’s a bit harder to spot them, but we were lucky and saw them about 20 meters away from us.
At the end of the day, we moved to a camp, where we were supposed to sleep. Who would have thought that sleeping in the tent meant sleeping in a tent with regular beds and two rooms, one of which was a bathroom with a shower and a toilet?!?
The next day we set off for Ngorongoro crates, which is pretty spectacular itself. And now add all the animals! <3
And then something incredible happened! We saw elephants. Sure, nothing unusual for a second day in the wilderness. But these were about five meters far from our car. A whole family. And then suddenly all of them started walking towards the car. And they kept going. They stopped about 2 meters from the car and stared at us. I have never seen elephant so close and this experience gave me goosebumps. There were so huge and they were just chilling next to our car!
But as we left Ngorongoro, we had to face a little problem. In the park, there are, of course, dusty bumpy roads, and our guide was rocking it pretty fast, so he managed to break the metal parts on the side of the car (Idk how these are called haha), so we stopped and repaired them in an African way – tied them to the rest of the car with some cables we found.
We managed to repair that, but when we left the park and stopped for a water in a local “supermarket” in the middle of nowhere, the car wouldn’t start again, so we had to get out and push it. Fortunately, we managed to bring the engine back again started heading back to Arusha.
Well, we thought how we were gonna rest on the safari, but due to unbearable high temperature, endless bumps and constant excitement, we were so exhauted, that we were actually looking forward to being in Zanzibar, but more about that later!
If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments!
Love,
E.