Crossing Tanzania
Trip Start
Mar 20, 2012
1
13
30
Trip End
Oct 16, 2013
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Friday, May 11, 2012
Nyakhanazi. It felt really good to be
back in Tanzania; Maybe my favorite East
African country, home to Mt Kilimanjaro, the biggest mountain in Africa. The following day was another drive to Lake
Victoria which is so huge it has citizenship in 3 countries. We crossed by ferry and spent the night in
Mwanza, Tanzania's second largest city.
Lake Victoria is stunning and I guess that’s why bilharzia thought it
was a good place call home. On the way
across I got chatting to a Tanzanian man who told me so many great things about
the lake, the country, the language and a lot more. The campsite in Mwanza was at the yacht club
right on the edge of the lake.
All this travelling was on the way to the Serengeti game park. The drive through the Serengeti conservation
area thrust many animals into our sights, many of them antelope which have now,
no matter the species all been coined 'various antelope'. A night was spent camping amongst the acacia
trees and long yellow grass with a Massi warrior wondering around in case any
unwanted creatures turned up. The next day was when we got to enter the
park. It is so big and the grass is long
making it hard to see a lot, but that does not mean it wasn't there. We set up camp at our site in the middle of
the game reserve, this time there was no protection at all between us and a big
cat looking for a midnight snack after getting the munchies. We set off on a game drive. To our ecstatic approval we came across a
lion with a buffalo carcass; after a while he decided he wasn't enjoying being
watched so proved to us how easy it was for an animal to hide in the long
grass. We even got to see a couple
leopards, one right on the side of the road, along with many other
animals. I thoroughly enjoyed the rock
Hyrax and playful mongoose. I slept
surprisingly well considering how nervous I was after Ryan found Hyena
footprints through the camp. A game
drive the next morning was enjoyed by all after returning to the carcass to
find 3 lions making for some great photography.
To our amazement after exiting the game park on our way to the Ngoro
Ngoro crater we were witness to the great wildebeest and zebra migration
stretching out to the horizon. They
wonder all the way to the Massi Mara in Kenya and then back again with the
'grass is greener on the other side' burned into their brains. The further we drove through Tanzania the
more I saw of the Africa I was expecting, the picture discovery channel puts in
your head. We passed many Massai
villages, some camels and a large snake as we took in the many sights along the
way. The climb to the crater rim at over
2000m provided us with views over the Ngorongoro conservation area; I felt
blessed to have been witness to. There
really are no words to describe the crater; at 20kms wide it harbors many kinds
of animals that can endure the cold of the night. We camped on the craters rim and spoilt the
dog at the campsite after she scared off a Hyena while we prepared dinner.
As we descended into the crater (in 4x4's as the truck would not make it)
we were stopped in our tracks by an elephants blatant refusal to remove himself
from the road. Maybe he liked us as others who had left earlier had to wait
approximately half an hour for this stubborn beast, whereas we only waited mere
minutes. This wondrous environment
really came through for us providing many Hyena, Wildebeest, Zebra, Flamingos
and the darkest colored elephant positioned gracefully onto a picturesque field
of yellow flowers. Laying my eyes on a
group of 7 lions and lioness sleeping, then to come across a Serval... Tanzania had truly laid it out for us.
We met our truck, had a bite then drove to Arusha. Just before entering the 3rd largest city we
embarked upon the Cultural Heritage Centre (who had so kindly stayed open late
for our arrival). Two very different
building lay next to each other, the first a building around 6 stories tall
housing artworks from all over East Africa by various artists. Mainly paintings, photography and carvings
that continued to intrigue of the varieties of beauty that this part of the
world holds. The second building was a
maze of souvenir shopping including the gem Tanzanite.
On
arrival to the campsite we were greeted by some of the other Absolute Africa
employees preparing a glorious meal and 4 new additions to the team, was a
small lift on the dampened moods, due to this being the final destination of 11
of our travel mates.
