Safaris in Tanzania

With the largest concentration of wild animals in the world, Tanzania is the perfect destination to see "The Lion King" come to life. This spectacular country is comprised of three vastly different landscapes - from highlands (including Mount Kilimanjaro), great rift valleys in the northern and central regions, to islands and rolling plains on the eastern coast. For those seeking to experience the beauty of the animal kingdom on a safari tour, northern Tanzania provides the perfect gateway to see the "Big Five" (lion, rhinoceros, elephant, leopard, and buffalo).

Arriving at Kilimanjaro airport, your fellow passengers will likely be those adventurous types seeking to chase the adrenaline rush climbing the majestic mountain, which at 19,331 feet, is Africa's highest mountain.

The town of Arusha, 60 kilometres from the airport, is located just below Mount Menu and is surrounded by several famous national parks, making it the ideal base for your safari adventures. Arusha has many little markets with friendly locals in traditional African dress balancing everything from baskets of fruit to pails of water on their heads while anachronistically chatting on their mobile phones. Some will even call out "Jambo" to greet you hello.

Cheeky Monkeys at LakeManyara

At Lake Manyara National Park, a couple of hours drive away from Arusha, you will be greeted by many, many baboons, so hold onto your hats as most jeeps have open top roofs and these cheeky monkeys are eager to grab what they see. The park itself is relatively small, compared to other national parks in Tanzania, at approximately 300 square kilometres. Giraffes, elephants, warthogs ("Poomba" of "The Lion King" fame), flamingoes, hippopotamuses, impala, and dikdik (the latter two being deer-like animals) all call the park home.

Dancing with the Maasai

The route to the Serengeti from Lake Manyara takes you through beautiful plains with mountainous backdrops, dotted with various villages inhabited by the Maasai who are still practicing their age-old customs. The Maasai are a semi-nomadic hunting tribe, where males are sent out to hunt at the age of fifteen, but they also herd animals.

Upon arrival, you will be invited to join the women in a traditional dance and pleasing rhythmic chant, so be prepared with your dancing shoes on to stomp away with them! After the welcome festivities, you will be taken on a tour of the village, starting with their huts made of acacia trees, cow dung, and mud. The huts are tiny, housing two "beds" (with a thin cow skin sheet) and a very small cooking area. The village we stopped at comprised of twenty-four huts owned by two men and their twenty-four wives. Yes, that would be twelve wives each!

The villagers have no access to water except to travel miles away with their herd of cattle so the animals could drink from the closest water source. However, currently, with tourist visits to whom they charge US$20 entrance per tourist and sell hand-made jewellery, they are able to pay trucks to transport water to them at least on occasion. Seeing the Maasai's humble way of life really makes one appreciate the many luxuries most of us take so much for granted.

Spotting Simba at the Serengeti

Travelling along a very bumpy road, you will arrive at the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania's largest and most famous park, spanning 14,763 square kilometers of protected area. It consists mostly of flat plains, small forested areas, kopjes (Dutch for "rocky outcrops" which are rocks formed closely together, some of which are billions of years old), rivers, and little lakes. There were also a lot of acacia trees (cutely shaped like umbrellas). The Serengeti, which comes from the Maasai word "Siringet" meaning "the place where land goes on forever", is sparsely populated with animals at times, although there is always an abundance of gazelle fawning about. The park's massive size comprising seven reserves necessitates spending a few days of exploration (don't worry, there is a lovely lodge close by so you will not have to camp amidst the prowling wildlife).

Hopefully, you will be fortunate enough to have an eagle-eyed tour guide to spot and name the animals, especially for those of us who are far less observant who may excitedly identify inanimate rocks or trees as elephants or storks. We were lucky enough to spot two sleeping lions who then woke up to mate very, very quickly right in front of jeeps filled with gawking and camera-snapping tourists, a mommy cheetah and her four adorable cubs, a leopard in a distant tree eating its kill, zebras, ostriches, storks, hyenas, vultures, lion cubs near Simba Kopjes ("Lion Rock"), colourful birds, parrots, elephants, two hippos fighting, giraffes, and even a lioness stalking a warthog. On our way out of the Serengeti, we also saw a wildebeest migration from a distance.

A Crater With a View

On the way to Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera, you will drive by Oldupai/Olduvai Gorge, the "cradle of civilization" where Mary and Louis Leakey discovered the earliest known specimen of the human genus in the 1950's.

The crater was formed two to three million years ago when a volcano exploded and collapsed onto itself. It is 610 metres deep and is just stunningly beautiful, filled with forests, lakes and plains. The view from atop the crater will simply take your breath away. The tour company certainly saved the best for last.

The road down to the crater is seriously bumpy and you will likely meet with a mini traffic jam full of excited tourists trying to drive past the Maasai boy shepherds and their herds of cattle who block the narrow roads. After an hour of massive head bobbing, you will arrive at the bottom of the crater, which is about 300 square kilometers in size and home to about 25 to 30,000 animals.

Unlike the Serengeti, there are animals everywhere, surrounding your car at times since it is very densely populated. Most of the animals here are grazing herbivores like gazelles, zebras, and warthogs, but we did see a few hyenas, hippos, elephants (which, unfortunately, did not oblige us by spraying water at each other), jackals, and, from a distance, we caught glimpses of the elusive black rhinoceros.

A safari tour of Tanzania is a trip like no other, so if you are looking for a unique travel experience, one that will show you the simple wonders of nature, enchant, and leave you open-eyed in awe, go ahead and take a walk on the wild side in Tanzania.

First published at: http://www.bazaar-magazine.com/baz/bazaar/index.php?show=eIndex&show_filter=view&action=article&art_id=ART00000000649