Lake Tarangire
After trekking Kili, we went on safari. Following a week's worth of walking, it was so nice to just SIT and view our incredible surroundings! Our tour operator was Maasai Wanderings and they were excellent. We chose them because they gave back a portion of the fee we paid to local needs and they allowed us put in requests: let us spend time with the Maasai, and bring us to a local orphanage. The company was amazing and our driver was excellent. We highly recommend them. Our sleeping accommodations were also nice - we had beds inside our tents! That was a first for us! |
We started our safari in Lake Tarangire, a lovely, quiet park in Northern Tanzania that is jam packed with wildlife. We definitely got our fix of elephants, giraffes and zebras, as well as some other animals too. I loved all the baobab trees.
The name of the park originates from the Tarangire River that crosses the enclosed lands (seen in the photo below). We went in the dry season, which is the best time for wildlife viewing since most of the animals migrate out of the park during the wet season.
We saw elephants....
And zebras....
And giraffes!
We loved seeing them "play" by bonking their necks together. It make quite a loud sound!
We also saw other animals, though not in quite the excess as the elephants, zebras and giraffes.
I remember our surprise the first time we saw little "dik diks." I had NEVER seen or heard of an animal quite like this... they were only as tall as my hiking boot! Dik diks look identical to a real deer, but just perfectly miniaturized. They ran in and out of the bushes and were a complete joy to watch! |
Each day we received yummy packed lunches... which were great until an angry baboon stole mine! He literally ran up to me, jumped on the table and stole my lunch! Niels kindly took photos as I was hightailing it out of there. Our very generous driver offered me his chocolate bar, which just about tripled his tip at the end of our safari. Wise man - he knows the way to a woman's heart.
What a treat it was to be here. Lake Tarangire was lovely and secluded. There were not crowds of people... just crowds of beautiful African wildlife. We savoured every moment and took way too many photos!
As we left Tarangire, lots of village children ran after our jeep!
Maasai Village
We stopped to spend some time in a traditional Maasai boma. A boma consists of a variety of small huts made of mud and cow dung. Each hut has one room with traditional Maasai mud/stick beds. The idea behind the huts is that they are quick to put up, but easy to maintain, allowing the Maasai to move on quickly if necessary (they are semi-nomadic). The boma is surrounded by a circular fence of thick and thorny bushes to protect the tribe and their cattle from predators.
Most Maasai wear the color red because it symbolizes their culture and they believe it scares away lions, even from a distance. Maasai are also famous for their intricate beaded jewelry. The men often wear beaded bands on their wrists, ankles, waists and necks. Women wear big, beaded collars. Each color of bead represents something (red means bravery and strength, blue represents the color of the sky and rain, white is the color of cow's milk, green symbolizes plants, orange and yellow mean hospitality and black shows the hardships many Maasai experience). To the right are photos of them dressing us up. They especially liked Niels, who they called their own "White Maasai" because he is tall like them. |
It was humbling to see inside their houses, and think back to what we have at home. I noticed that they made their shoes out of car tires...
Guess where these children go to school? Yup, in the shade under that tree. School is occasional, with most Maasai children spending their time helping out with family responsibilities.
Ngorongoro Crater
The Ngorongoro Crater is a breathtakingly beautiful setting and home to the highest density of big game in Africa, including all of the "Big Five" and plenty of predators. It used to be a huge volcanic mountain - rivaling Kilimanjaro in size - before it exploded and collapsed in on itself, creating the biggest volcanic caldera in the world. Below is a photo of us with the crater below. After lunch, we would travel down there!
The photo below is from the internet, but it gives a great idea of how big and vast the Ngorongoro Crater actually is. The sides rise up 2000 feet.
We stopped for lunch at a picnic spot where a friendly herd of zebra grazed. This just amazed us! It was like the Canadian equivalent to having a picnic in a field where cows grazed nearby.... or squirrels... or something common... but these were ZEBRAS!
While we took the photo to the bottom right, we left our lunches unattended and a huge eagle swooped down and stole mine. Roar! Second lunch in a row snagged by an opportunistic animal. On day three, I ate in the jeep.
While we took the photo to the bottom right, we left our lunches unattended and a huge eagle swooped down and stole mine. Roar! Second lunch in a row snagged by an opportunistic animal. On day three, I ate in the jeep.
The Ngorongoro Crater is the best place in Tanzania to see 'The Big Five'. A healthy population of black rhino is present (we saw one!), as well as some of the largest tusker elephants left in Africa today (elephants whose tusks are so long that they touch the ground). The crater is also home to the densest known population of East African Lions. Additionally, you can also find leopard, hyena, monkeys, wildebeest, buffalo, serval cats, warthogs, ostriches, cheetahs, jackals, Grant's and Thompson's gazelles, flamingos and bat-eared foxes. We saw them all! There are also approximately 400 species of bird.
We were able to get out of our jeep at the watering hole, where we saw a large pod of hippos in the water. We were warned to 'be on guard' several times since the hippo is one of Africa's most dangerous animals. In fact, the hippopotamus is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal and they are said to be responsible for the deaths of approximately 3,000 people per year on the continent. They can run at speeds of over 20 miles an hour... which was really hard to imagine. They looked like lazy blobs who wouldn't be able to outrun a tortoise.
It was exciting to drive through the crater in pursuit of seeing wildlife.
Ngorongoro conservation area is known to have over 42,000 Maasai living in it's borders, so we often got to stop and interact with these incredible tribes-people. Since the Maasai only live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, we considered it quite a privilege to have so much interaction with them!
The Serengeti
'Serengeti' is derived from the Maasai language and means "Endless Plains." I couldn't think of a better name myself. The Serengeti is comprised of 12,000 square miles/30,000 square kilometers of African savannah. The annual migration of herds of wildebeest, gazelles and zebras, followed by their predators, is one of the most impressive natural events in the world.
We saw so many lions. In total on this safari, we saw 52 of them!
In the photo to the right, we were lucky enough to see a female lion on a hunt. She waited and waited (while we waited and waited) to find the optimal time to pounce on a grazing antelope nearby. Surprisingly, when she sprang into action the antelope actually got away and she was left hungry and on the prowl. We were left in awe at watching the cycle of life unfold right before our eyes. Below is a gorgeous male lion that we saw from our jeep - it was only about 3-5 feet away! Niels quietly maneuvered out of the jeep and sat on top of the sunroof to get a better photo - and then later got a 'talking to' by our guide. Apparently we can't do that. Apparently these are pretty vicious lions. Whoops. |
Finding and viewing wildlife was definitely a high point of the safari for us, but there were also so many moments where we were reminded of the sheer beauty of the physical landscape too. What a blessing it was to go to sleep and wake up in the Serengeti... to live so in sync with a land that has a heartbeat of its own.
Rays of sunlight streaming through on the African plains...
Below are some of the other animals we saw on this last leg of the safari. That serval cat (top right) is pregnant, and those cheetahs (bottom right) are a mom and her child.
At night, we slept in tents on the "endless plains" of the Serengeti in a "camp" that was not fenced in. At night, hyenas surrounded our tents and we could hear them scavenging and laughing. I did not go to the bathroom on those nights!!!!
Below is a Lilac Breasted Roller, and an ostrich - which was actually quite scary!!
We also came across a mom and her lion cubs. They were adorable. At times they were not listening, so mamma had to pick them up with her jaws to get them in line. The mom lion was collared as part of the Serengeti Lion Project, which began in 1966. This is one of the oldest and most extensive long-term studies of any animal species in the world. Radio tracking of these lions allows scientists to study 20 lion prides (each pride contains only one collared female that is tracked from the ground every 2-3 days and from the air for one day each month). Through these regular observations, scientists can measure the ranging patterns of each pride and maintain demographic records for the lions. This includes data on how many are speared by the local Maasai tribes in 'retaliation killings' (ie, when lions attack their cattle, they kill the lions in return). A massive conflict-mitigation project is currently underway to try and maintain lion conservation in the Maasai inhabited parts of northern Tanzania.
We were also fortunate to see a leopard who had just made a kill. After all the effort he exerted to kill the antelope, he hung it up in a tree so that he could take a nap and re-energize before eating his dinner!
It was sad to say goodbye to the Serengeti. Niels and I so enjoyed the landscape, wildlife and just the overall feel. What an incredible experience to say the least.
Visit to an Orphanage
Niels and I really wanted to donate a few school supplies to a local orphanage, and luckily our safari company was affiliated with one. After our safari, we visited the little school and spend an afternoon meeting the children.
Their faces were full of joy when they saw the school supplies. Their favourite items were actually the skipping ropes, although we had to show them how to use them first! They also enjoyed it when Niels did caricatures of them on the blackboard.
Everyone wanted a cuddle and a hug. It was hard to leave!
Well, after hiking up Kilimanjaro and sitting for a week on safari, it was time to lie down on a beach and be lazy. We were ready for our adventures in Zanzibar!
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Click on the links below to see photos of the other parts of this trip: