Blogs from Tanzania, Africa - page 15

Waking up in the Serengeti is an amazing experience (unless it was unintentional) and lying in my tent I could hear various birds and animals making a variety of sounds. They were accompanied by the sounds of the rangers and cooks who talk endlessly, I'd love to know what about! In the distance a large herd of zebra were grazing and I'm sure I heard baboons. During the night we were surrounded by the grunting of buffalo grazing around the tents, plus the yowls of nearby hyena. It's still more peaceful than living in Stoke on Trent! At 6.20am it was extremely bright out despite the sun not having risen yet, so we could easily avoid all the buffalo dung when walking to the toilets. We met Molisi there and I proudly bragged how I managed ... read more

From Zanzibar we’ve made our way by ferry to Dar es Salaam and then by bus (a very long day!) to Arusha where we begin a 6 day Tanzania camping safari. Two of our friends from England join us here and we will travel together for this safari and afterwards for 12 days in Uganda. Tarangire National Park is our 1st stop out of Arusha. It’s not one of the better known game parks so I’m unsure of what we’ll see here, but I shouldn’t have been worried, the game viewing here is excellent. It’s been almost 30 years since we were last in East Africa (and that was in Kenya) but I’m aware of a number of high profile stories about the problems of poaching and threats to animal numbers such as elephant, but it ... read more

We got up at 6.20am to see the sunrise not worth mentioning, except I just have. At breakfast we were joined by two more guests from Hungary, Uri and Mark. They have just spent 5 days climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and were very happy to be eating food that is not frozen. They seem a good laugh and with the Polish couple, we have a nice group. Molisi, our chef told us off for not eating his papaya and said we probably would like his omelette. I did like it. We were meant to be leaving at 9am for the Serengeti, but it was closer to 9.30 by the time everything was packed up by Bori and Molisi. Glyn and I were getting angsty as its a couple of hours drive and we hate to miss a ... read more

Tanzania day 5 A lion cub, thieving monkeys, many elephants and a MOR peckerhead in Tanzania Sunrise isn’t always interesting and today was one of those days. The sun limped from behind the horizon, made no use of the low lying sky and plopped unceremoniously into the sky. Only the look on Claire’s face when someone played ‘Here Comes The Sun’ was worth getting up so early for. Oh and the horror when she noticed a young woman wearing socks and sandals....and then when she saw the pasty white guy who ith an Arab headscarf.... Yes, my wife is always worth watching and infinitely more interesting than a sunrise. We were looking over Lake Manyara national park though, so the view was pretty good. Our campsite is called Panorama and it certainly lives up to its ... read more

Today Glyn and I were totally blessed by the Safari Fairy. Although Lake Manyara was famous for lions in the trees, it is extremely rare to actually see them these days. Our ranger, Mhara, has been a ranger in the park for 5 years and only seen this phenomena 4 times, so his disbelief was as strong as mine and I had mentally prepared myself for disappointment. But we saw a lioness in a tree!! Having a nap!! It was amazing!! So anyway, from the beginning: I awoke to the sound of a persistent cockerel that was even earlier than the alarm. It was so good to have the first hot shower of the trip and Glyn even left me some of the hot water. Our driver from yesterday appeared and we saw that the marks ... read more