into the wilds of Tanzania

Our safari with Hoopoe tours was absolutely amazing. At first I thought that I would get a bit tired of visiting parks day after day; I didn't really think about how diverse Tanzania's environment really is. The safari was 12 days long, and we went along with another couple around my parents' age. She was Canadian and he was American, but they live in the States. We were very lucky because we all got along very well, and had a lot of fun together. I can imagine that if you were tuck with someone you didn't like, the trip could become unpleasant rather quickly. Our guide, Lesikar, was also fantastic. Not only was he ridiculously knowledgeable about the various areas we visited, and their animal and human inhabitants, but he was also a really sweet and funny guy.

We travelled around quite a lot during the trip, alternating between hikes and game drives. The hikes were a big part of why the trip was so fulfilling; with the amount we were being fed, it would have been terrible to be sedentary during that entire time. We began in Arusha, then stayed for a couple of days at a tented camp in West Kilimanjaro. Then it was off to Tarangire National Park, then Lake Manyara, and then the Ngorongoro Crater conservation area. Finally, we finished off in the Serengeti, that awe-inspiring, seemingly endless expanse of savanna. Though all of the places we visited were fascinating and beautiful in their own way, I think my favourite was Tarangire park. It was there that we saw the most elephants, who are so active and so much fun to watch. The park also has a high concentration of baobab trees, which I also love. They somehow manage to be gorgeous and comical and grotesque at the same time.

During the trip, we saw:
-455 elephants in one day in Tarangire
-176 baboons in one day in Lake Manyara
-43 hyenas in one day in Ngorongoro and Serengeti
-lions devouring a baby giraffe
-ostriches mating
-elephants chasing juvenile lions, after they attempted to pick some zebra off from the herd
-an adult hippo using a baby hippo as a toilet (worst parenting ever!)
-elephants drinking and splashing themselves at the water hole
-a cow in Ngorongoro which had been attacked by a lion and had a chunk torn out of its flank, being led off to slaughter
-three baboon babies playing and fighting
-a cheetah hunt and kill a Thompson's gazelle by draining the blood from its neck

... and a whole lot more. I was astounded by the sheer number of animals we saw, as well as their interactions. One day we also had elephants visiting us during our lunch in one of the parks. That was a little bit frightening, but definitely an experience that we will never forget.

Overall it was a great trip, particularly because the staff of the various camps and lodges we stayed in were really friendly and personable. Perhaps the only negative experience was during the first day of our two-day hike around the Ngorongoro crater rim. The day was warm and sunny at first, but the weather quickly went downhill and it began to rain. Not just a regular shower, mind you; this was a torrential, full-blown rainy season-style rain. And it went on, complete with occasional thunder and lightning and a little bit of hail, for about three hours. By the time we arrived at the camp, we were all soaked to the bone and definitely getting cranky. As the crater rim is quite elevated and windy, it was also very cold. There were donkeys carrying our equipment, including the tents and sleeping bags and fire starting materials, which were a couple of hours behind us, so we couldn't even set up the tents. Luckily, one of us had a lighter, so we were able to make a fire. The next three hours, we spent drying out our clothes and everything else we had been carrying that day. I didn't carry any papers with me, but others were drying out plane tickets, itineraries, passports and the like over the fire. The next day, it was happily warm and sunny again, so we had a fantastic hike through Maasai country. Mom did get sick for a couple of days, but luckily it was when we were staying at a hotel which had an in-house doctor, not at a bush camp, and she recovered well.

After our treks and travels through forests and arid regions, around salt lakes and rivers, always in amongst elephants and lions and hyenas and many cows, it's time for a change of scenery. Our next stop is the coast: Zanzibar.