Blogs from Serengeti National Park, North, Tanzania, Africa - page 4

SUNDAY: We were in for a full day of driving as we hit the road and headed back to Ngorogoro's rim to make our way towards the great Serengeti National Park. Ngorogoro Conservation used to be a part of Serengeti but was separated when it became the UNESCO World Heritage site, so we had to drive around the rim to get to the other side and make our way down. We hit the main "highway" leading out of the conservation and this is where I should mention that VERY few roads in Tanzania are paved. There are a few reasons...the first is money, they just don't have the funds to pave. The second is that many are against paving as it disrupts the animal migrations and more animals are killed due to speeding on paved roads. ... read more

From Cape Town I flew into Dar es Saleem and I was very glad to have had a driver booked. The airport was absolute bedlam! The driving was as crazy as I expected and I was grateful to get to my accommodation for some peace and quiet. The Acacia Africa truck where I would be joining a tour for the next 26 days was not here yet so I settled into the beach front bar for the afternoon. When the truck did pull up, I introduced myself to everyone and enjoyed a drink with them before an early night as it would be an early start as we headed off to Zanzibar. Morning did come far too quickly and we joined what seemed like half of Dar es Saleem in jumping on various ferries to get ... read more

Went through Serengeti again. Saw 3 cheetahs and 1 leopard and lions!!! How exciting! Went to the Ngorongoro crater place. Saw many many wildebeest and zebras. Managed to see lions and hyenas and buffalos and elephants...OH and 1 RHINO!!! (far, but still identifiable) So, I managed to see the big 5 today. How cool is that! The hotelish-resort today is the best so far. It's a proper room, as opposed to the tent. My guide insists on bringing me to see some craft stuff and tanzanite tomorrow. I'm not interested in these types of stuff at all. Oh well, I supposed I should humour him, see as he keeps telling me how he always tries to do his best for me. Animals 10. Warthog 11. ostrich 12. vultures 13. cheetahs 14. leopard 15. rhino 16. dik ... read more

Total Distance Travelled Today: 292 km Elapsed Travel Time: 11 hours 11 min (including game drive) Lodging for the Night: Dik-Dik Campsite Our first night camping in Africa was not bad at all. Unfortunately we both awoke at 3 am and were not able to get back to sleep - a bad case of jetlag as a result of sleeping during the day on our first day. It was okay because breakfast was at 7 so we only had 3 hours to wait for our 6 am alarm to go off. After breakfast we had to repack some of our gear into one bag, and we transferred some of our things from our large gadventures truck into two smaller safari jeeps that we're going to use for the next 3 days. There was 6 of us ... read more

Heute brechen wir wieder pünktlich um 8 Uhr auf. Vorbei an netten Häusern, welche wunderschöne geputzte Vorplatze haben. Wir halten noch kurz bei einer Werkstätte vorbei da unsere Scheibenwischer kaputt sind. Die Reparatur hätte aber evtl. Mehrere Stunden gedauert, aus diesem Grund führen wir ohne Reparatur weiter. Laut Witson ist es vermutlich nur ein Kurzschluss. So fuhren wir entlang des Ngorongoro Krater, bei dem es feucht und sehr nebelig war, am Denkmal der Macher („Serengeti darf nicht sterben“ einer deutschen Kinodokumentation von Michael Grzimek und dessen Vater Bernhard aus dem Jahr 1959). Hier ist die Landschaft komplett anders, kahl und braun. Das Gras ist niedrig, es ist sehr flach und es ist nichts zu sehen. Es ist auch erstaunlich kühl. Wir sehen drei Löwen faul in der Sonne liegen. Ein Jeep fährt von der Straße ab ... read more