Post Climb Safari -- Tanzania

After our brief rest at the Arusha hotel, we were back on the road again for the safari portion of our climb. We were met at the hotel at 6am by the land cruisers. We hopped in with our safari gear for the short trip to Arusha airport. Our flight took us west, over the planins to Seregeti National Park. Our plane stopped once on the way, and we got our first glimpse of the park animals. It had to do a fly over before landing at the first airfield to scare the zebra and wildebeast off the runway. The second stop was ours, so we got off, collected our bags, and met our drivers for the next 4 days. Fauzia, Gary, and Garrison ended up in one of the land cruisers, Dean, Alan, Mara and I in the other. Just like you see on tv - the tops pop up for better viewing!

Our safari was called "game enroute" which is another way of saying "driving from one park to the next while looking for animals." We started in the Serengeti, and made our way east, traveling over rugged dirt roads, and in some places, rugged dirt roads under construction and incredibly dusty. Along the way, we saw all sorts of wildlife. And, we had nice lodging every night. The days were long, though. Up for breakfast at 7, leave around 8:30, Drive, stop for boxed lunch, drive, get to next lodge around 5, hit the pool, have a drink, dinner at 8, bed.

The first park we drove through was Serengeti. It lived up to its name. Within probably about 1/2 hour, we came upon a pride of lions with a fresh kill. Later on we saw more lions, some with kills, a cheetah, several leopards in trees, elephants, and buffalo. 4 of the big 5, plus lots more amazing things. Hippos, birds, gazelles, zebra. It was incredible. And, the trees were awesome. That night, we stayed at the Serengeti Sopa Lodge, a beautiful lodge on the edge of the savannah overlooking a watering hole. Zebra, gazelle, buffalo, and warthogs wandered around below us as we sat on a private deck near the pool drinking sundowners and watching the sun go down.

On our second day of Safari, we continued through the Serengeti for several hours, then through a desolate "under construction" section of road which gave everyone a good butt massage. Eventually, we made it to Ngorongoro Crater, which was amazing. The crater holds a large alkaline lake, which was quite low when we were there. There is an astounding amount of wildlife in the crater, including the rare black rhino. There are less than 20 black rhinos in the park. Sadly, we didn't see any of them, but we did see plenty of other wildlife, including a bit of a buffalo stampede.
On Day 3, we left the crater behind and headed to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Parks. On the way, we got to experience tire changing, safari style. It's amazing that we only had one flat tire on our trip given the roads upon which we were traveling. The first jack wouldn't work because all of the dust that had gotten into it. Fortunately, the other land cruiser had a working jack, and we were back on the road within 1/2 hour.

Lake Manyara was much more treed than the other parks we had visited. The trees were pretty incredible. Giant and funky. It was the first time we had seen Baobab trees, which are immense, with branches that look like roots. We saw giraffes, flamingoes, elephants, and hippos, but not nearly as much wildlife as we had seen in the other parks. We were getting spoiled.

After a nice lunch at the Lake Manyara Serena Hotel, we were back on the road headed to Tarangire. Tarangire is well known for it's large population of elephants, and we were not disappointed. Elephants were everywhere, vast herds of them. At one point, we were treated to the sight of an elephant in ecstacy as he scratched his back and rear end on an abraided river bank. Happy day.
We spent the final night on safari at the Tarangire Sopa Lodge. As was our tradition, after moving into our rooms, we met by the pool for drinks and a sunset. We also enjoyed a bottle of wine that I had brought all the way from my house to celebrate our summit of Kilimanjaro. Nice way to end the day.
Day 4 of the safari was basically driving out of Tarangire and back to Arusha, which was only about 2 hours from the Tarangire gate. Once back in Arusha, we had lunch, then folks started to leave. Only Fauzia and I spent another night in Arusha. But, alas, my stay at the Arusha hotel was over. I was back for another night at the Arusha Naaz, and then, the next morning, I was bound for the airport for the next phase of my journey - Zanzibar.