Back to the North - October 2017

Almost a year to the day... we returned to Northern Tanzania for another safari adventure with good friends. Photo album here (takes a moment to load). I've included both colour and black and white versions of each shot. Couldn't decide which to use, and I like seeing both:

Monday 16th October

Departed Dar es Salaam and flew with Precision Air to Arusha. Short flight - just over one hour.

Baggage reclaim area in Arusha Airport.

We were collected from the airport and driven to our hotel, Venus Hotel. Every now and again, along the streets of Arusha, we would spot the beautiful jacaranda trees with their gorgeous purple blooms.

We had some 'chill time' before an early, delicious, dinner at a local restaurant... then bed!

Tuesday 17th October

Left Arusha and drove to our next hotel in Karatu - the Ngorongoro Oldeani Mountain Lodge. The journey took about three hours (143km). One thing I absolutely LOVE about travelling in Tanzania is the sights that you just happen upon when driving out in the wilderness. Sometimes I just have to pinch myself to make sure it's all real. On long journeys like this I just cannot snooze the hours away as there is so much to see out of the window!

• Vast areas of dryness, where people travel miles on foot for water. If they are lucky they might have a donkey, or bicycle, to help carry the load.
• STRONG women carrying heavy loads. On their heads. Buckets, baskets, wood, sacks of potatoes. You name it, they can carry it.
• Maasai men, and boys, herding livestock. Goats, cows, donkeys... the larger your herd, the richer you are. I love spotting the flash of a red or blue shuka. Interesting article here about the shuka.
• Traditional Maasai bomas - a group of mud huts surrounded by a 'fence' of sorts made from thick and thorny bushes to keep out the lions and other predators... keeping livestock safe at night is imperative.
• Local kids being kids - climbing trees and playing games.
• Trucks (yes, trucks, not buses) full of coffee plantation workers. A dangerous ride on the way to earn their keep.
• Older ladies sitting on upturned water buckets having a morning 'meeting'.
• Lots of people wearing woolly (winter) hats and jackets... even though it's just a wee bit cooler in the mornings and rarely under 20 degrees.
• Overturned trucks or buses that have careered off the road.
• Driving through a military zone - no photos allowed.

Arrived safely at the hotel and had a lovely afternoon in the hotel reading, playing games, swimming in the pool, and just generally relaxing - something we rarely get to do!

Hotel pool

Wednesday 18th October

Whole day game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater. Incredible scenery and great views, albeit a bit hazy, from high up on the crater rim.

Some additional info about the Crater that was in the hotel paraphernalia.

Once you are down inside the crater, the land is relatively flat and open... so it is quite easy to spot the abundant wildlife. We came very close to seeing a rhino, but she had moved on by the time we arrived at the spot where she had been sighted. Rangers are always close by the rhino. Men with guns, armed and ready, risking their own lives to protect the endangered creatures from poachers. The rangers work on a 'shoot to kill' regime - if a poacher is caught in the crater it's pretty certain he won't make it out. We learnt that there are now less that twenty rhinos living in the crater. We also learnt that there are seven lion prides living in the crater. Both rhinos and big cats are not easy to spot here as their numbers have diminished greatly in recent years.

We were VERY lucky with our driver... he was extremely knowledgeable about the area and had been working on the Northern Tanzania safari circuit for over twenty years! He was also a bit of a 'bird' man and was able to name every single bird we saw - amazing. Loved the way he could spot things that I would have totally just driven past. Who knew that there were at least five sleeping lions on these rocks?!

We saw multiple numbers of: hyena, jackal, zebra, buffalo, warthog, brown snake eagle, crowned crane, ostrich, Thomson gazelle, Grants gazelle, secretary bird, kori bustard, bat-eared fox, black headed heron, hartebeest, wildebeest, Egyptian geese, cheetah, elephant, blacksmith plover, yellow billed stork, hippo, sacred ibis, lion (male and female), white pelican... and more!

Highlights:

• Cheetah up CLOSE.
• Hyena kill - one hyena stalked and then ran down one of the weaker wildebeest. Once on the ground four additional hyenas joined for the feast! Incredible to see the pack tearing apart the poor creature!
• Hippo fight (possibly play?) in the hippo pool! Big teeth, enormous jaws.

Thursday 19th October

Whole day game drive in Lake Manyara National Park. This was our second visit to this park. Although we travelled here at the same time last year, the lake was much, much lower and the land was very dry and dusty... in desperate need of rain!

We were really hoping to see the 'famous' tree-climbing lions here as we had not seen them on our previous visit. Alas, it was not meant to be! However, it's hard to be disappointed when you see so much flora and fauna in such a beautiful setting. A completely different terrain to the crater. Animals are harder to see here as there is less open space, more trees and bushes. You could be a couple of metres from a lion and never know it!

We did manage to spot these though: blue monkey, crested guinea fowl, silver cheeked hornbill, elephant, bushbuck, vulture, warthog, Egyptian duck, African spoonbill, avocet, flamingo (lesser and greater), African jacana, African snipe, three banded plover, ibis, sadle-billed stork, hippo, little bee-eater, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, waterbuck, buffalo...and... we smelt rotting flesh a couple of times, and saw vultures nearby... but no actual sighting of the carcasses!

Highlight:

• Sadle-billed stork - elegant, and HUGE, bird with vibrant colourings.

Friday 20th October

Drove back to Arusha Airport, and then flew back to Dar via Zanzibar.
Turbulence was BAD from take off in Arusha. The first 15-20 minutes of the flight were very bumpy. I think my son could sense that I was definitely NOT comfortable. We landed safely, twice, and made it back to Dar a little earlier than originally planned. Home, home, joggety jog.

Here's a compilation of the video footage I took... a little wobbly as there is no space for a tripod in a safari jeep!

I didn't manage to tick off any more of the 'Big Five'. On previous safaris we have seen lion, elephant, and buffalo. We have yet to spot the remaining two - leopard and rhinoceros. Maybe next time...
Having said that I did see a huge amount of wildlife that I have never seen before, so it was still an amazing experience!

That's the thing about safaris - "you never know what you're gonna get". Last year in Lake Manyara we saw copious amounts of elephants and giraffes, this year we saw much more bird life. You are pretty much guaranteed to see SOMETHING... and if you are really lucky, that something can be a very big surprise!

All in all another amazing adventure was had. Lovely to experience this with my son and long time friends... it made the trip even more special. I do wonder how much my son will remember of trips like this. He is ten years old, and has seen so much!

I got to spend time in a very special place on this planet. So grateful.