A few months earlier, I locked in a 6-day, 5-night budget camping safari.
People told me 6 days would be too long for a safari, but they underestimated my enthusiasm for animals. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek. I was just as excited to see my first giraffe as my 20th.
The safari I booked took me to the four main national parks around Arusha, spending two nights camping in the Serengeti.
- Lake Manyara National Park
- Tarangire National Park
- Serengeti National Park
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area
When choosing a safari, don’t book with Tanzania Special or Leopard Safaris. They have over 300 vehicles in their fleets- impersonal much? Plus they have to drive everywhere in a convoy. This happened because separate vehicle groups from the same company were complaining that they saw different things during the same paid safari, so now the vehicles all have to go and park at the same locations. Meaning, they miss out on some fantastic beasts and where to find them.
A reminder in case you forgot- but I know you didn’t because you remember these small meaningless details of my day-to-day: I booked a trip to Tanzania so I could get licked by a giraffe.
lake manyara national park
After a 06:30 pick up by a non-descript van from my accommodation in Arusha, we stopped at a gas station to play a lil game of roadside musical chairs with another van. We all ended up bundling into the van I was originally in.
Around 08:30 we arrived near the town of Mto wa Mbu at a lodge with campsites- they asked if we wanted breakfast. Everyone had already eaten, but I’m on a very strict hobbit’s meal plan, so second breakfast was in order.
After second breakfast, the people from the gas station pick-up left in a safari vehicle while I waited for my group to finish eating and, for some reason, they also were visiting an elementary school nearby. I ended up joining them since we couldn’t leave until they were done anyways. I was more annoyed than those few sentences suggested. I had woken up at 06:00 to see animals, not to see the inside of a classroom.
The town Mto wa Mbu (translated: river of mosquitoes) is appropriately named because there was a malaria epidemic here. Swedish health workers came and killed all the malaria mosquitos, eradicating the problem. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
It’s very fertile land around here given the surrounding lake so they grow a lot of produce, including the coveted red bananas that taste like regular bananas, but have a red peel.
The guide/ driver I got for the Lake Manyara safari was a goodie.
As we drove under the entrance gate, in a slightly below average volume but clearly intending for me to hear since I was sitting in the front seat next to him, he says:
I don’t like this park
After asking him why, he tells me that you don’t see a lot of animals, maybe like 1 elephant. I’m so glad I woke up at 06:00 for this!
I think he got out all of his words in that first interaction with me because that was the bulk of what Mister Talkative would end up saying over the next 3 hours.
He was wrong about the 1 elephant thing though because right out of the starting gate, were some elephants. A short drive later we saw a mama lioness and a baby cub, then we went around a corner and saw some more elephants.
For the next 3 hours, the remaining things the guide said were as follows:
- Do you see the elephant shit?
- Ya, the balls are blue
- There are no animals here (as we zoom past impalas and dik diks)
- The monkey is looking for seeds [in the shit]
- Zebra no. Buffalo no (arguably an answer to my question from 2 hours prior- are there zebras or buffalo in this national park?)
I don’t have a good picture of a dik-dik because they are tiny af, but Google them and you’ll see how stupidly Disney they are.
After lunch, we made our way back to the entrance/exit and saw another herd of elephants. Elephants a-plenty here, at least for me.
We were back at the same lodge by 13:30 so I went to the viewpoint of Lake Manyara.
I ended up staying in the lodge part of the lodge rather than the camping part (more like glamping since you could stand up in the tents and they had a raised bed, rather than being a mat on the ground). I’m guessing this was because the tour company I booked through messed up when my original group tour got cancelled, so they just stuck me somewhere. The lodge name was different than the one in my itinerary and I think they ran out of camping spots.
Safari vehicles fit 8 total with 6 passengers usually at most. In my Lake Manyara safari, there were 4 passengers, including a child so it was nice and spacious. Children are so compact.
The guide let me sit in the front because I thought I’d get motion sick and he opened the front roof part along with the main roof part, which isn’t common so that was decent of him.
I was really worried I’d get queasy from being in the vehicle for so long on a windy path, but even when I was sitting in the back- middle on future safaris I was completely fine, especially when the roof was popped open.
The drives between the national parks required a front-seat sitch though if you get car sick because the vehicles get a bit stuffy/hot and packed to the max.
tarangire national park
From the lodge area around Mto wa Mbu (Lake Manyara on your safari itinerary/map), it takes 1.5- 2 hours to drive to Tarangire National Park going back in the direction of Arusha town.
We had to stop to pick some people up from a corner gas station, which Google doesn’t add to its drive-time calculation on Maps, hence the added time.
Tarangire was the busiest entrance I encountered out of all 5 parks I visited because it’s the closest “big park” from Arusha- day safaris are common. It took about 35 minutes at the entrance gate for the guide to get the permit and for us to finally enter.
The Land Rover was quite full on this safari with 6 animal lookers (including the ones from the gas station pick-up) plus the driver. Snug as a bug in a rug.
Giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, elephants a-plenty and a pride of lions off in the distance (binoculars required).
We were shown a Baobab tree that has a huge hole cut out of it. In the 90’s the ivory trade was grossly thriving and the rangers couldn’t figure out how the poachers were sneaking the ivory out of Tarangire National Park. It turns out, since Baobab trees are hollow, the poachers would cut a hole at the top and lower the ivory down into the tree along with a couple of poachers. Then in the Elven cloak of darkness (real Elven cloaks wouldn’t need darkness, I’m aware) they would smuggle the ivory out of the park.
We headed back to the lodge by late afternoon. Dinner was around 19:00 and afterwards, everyone pretty much goes to bed. To charge electronics, in this lodge, you needed to be in the main dining area (same goes for wifi access).
serengeti national park
It’s a 5-hour (ish) drive from Lake Manyara to Serengeti. You need to drive through Ngorongoro Conservation Area, reaching the divide between the two parks. Then you drive some more to make it to the main park entrance. There is also an airfield, a small hospital and a gas station here.
Here being: the Serengeti.
The Lion King everyday Disney Magic.
- Every rock I saw I yelled in my head PRIDE ROCK!
- Every time I saw a cheetah, I thought in my head cheetahs never prosper
- Every time I saw a lion, I sang in my head
I’m gonna be a mighty king
So enemies beware!
throwing my voice to do Zazu’s part– you know it so I don’t have to type the lyrics
I’m working on my ROAR
- Every time I saw a warthog, I sang in my head
When I was a young warthog!
He could clear the Savannah after every meal
I am a sensitive soul
Though I seem thick-skinned
And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind
You should have seen me at age 6 when I was conducting my stuffed animals to this soundtrack. A transcending performance.
My group for the next two nights included two Norwegian women who were also on the Tarangire safari with me plus an American woman who was sleeping in lodges rather than camping with us.
Having four people in the Land Rover was fantastic. I know you have no control over this if you book as a single person to join a group, but golly it’s a good amount of people to have.
First flavour of the Serengeti was spectacular. We started with some sleeping lions near a tree, zebra and wildebeest a-plenty, giraffes in the distance and while we were focused on them, the driver suddenly stopped the vehicle because a giraffe stepped out from behind a tree. It was so close I could have almost licked it.
We then went pedal to the metal in some direction. Our driver would sometimes do this after he got a radio call in Swahili). In this case, he wanted to show us something, but we needed to beat the sun setting because you have to be in your campsite by 18:00 when it gets dark. There are no night game drives allowed and the fines are corrupt crazy. So it was imperative we weren’t caught cruising around.
We pull up to this swampy area that our noses saw before our eyes did. It reeked. Talk about your fixer-upper. This is where the hippos hung out in their shit all day and it showed.
We played chicken with the setting sun and won.
nyani campsite
We pulled up in near darkness to an empty bit of land in the middle of the Serengeti with basically no lights and definitely no ranger, fence or other protective measure- well this should be fun. For some reason our group (me and the two Norwegian women) were the only ones here on the first night.
I’ve done my fair share of sleeping on the ground on purpose (also known as camping), I’d say this was of the basic variety. There was a very well protected kitchen stone building, with barred windows and doors so the animals wouldn’t stop by for dinner like an uninvited house guest.
There were showers with cold water, but I turned the tap on and dirt/ insects came out so I decided I’d be cleaner without the shower.
Being Canadian, I asked about where we should put the packaged food because I’m sure as shit not having it in my tent where a lion may mistake a tasty granola bar for a tasty Corrine steak.
Our guide didn’t seem too fussed about it so I gave him a bag of all the snacks and told him if he was so confident he could sleep with it next to his pillow.
The only thing the guide was fussed about was not to leaving the tent after 22:30. If there is a bathroom emergency, don’t turn on your flashlight (jokes on him because they never told us to pack one) and unzip the tent slowly. Then pee close to the tent.
Before I left, I did say that I wanted an elephant to step on the corner of my tent in the middle of the night. Not step on me, but just enough on the corner that it would slightly tug on the tent, letting me know the animal was so close I could touch it if not for the thin polyester fabric separating us- sounding a bit like Hagrid, I must admit.
Now that I was actually alone in said tent, personally, I was planning on getting a bladder infection rather than risk a late night meet-cute with a hyena.
It wasn’t super duper cold overnight here, which was fortuitous because I had to use my fleece jumper as a pillow since the company forgot to bring them. Also, I had the blind fear of getting eaten by a lion to keep me warm. Yes, I could hear them growling at each other throughout the night.
In the morning I “woke” (didn’t sleep) to zebras surrounding my tent.
full day serengeti
The Serengeti is the only park I visited where you can spot all the cats- cheetahs and leopards included. Today was big kitty day.
We saw a cheetah (‘s never prosper) sleeping plus a mom and 2 babies, a leopard in a tree, lions and more lions also a pride of lions.
The fun bit with the pride of lions was that they were surrounded by safari vehicles and the some of the lions began napping by the tyres for shade. When we arrived, the 3 male lions threw some shade at the lioness by wanting to kill her and take the cubs for themselves- it was tense.
Our guide didn’t seem too fussed and said maybe close the window half way.
You get more safety advice on It’s a Small World ride- whatever happened to keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times?
The lion’s mane was petting level to my hand. Don’t tempt me. It took all the strength I had not to reach out and touch it. Honestly, you would want to too when you saw how lush and fluffy his mane was.
Anywho, at one point the lions began to go more under the vehicle and that made a pickle of a situation since they won’t move until sundown and obviously we didn’t want to run over a lion and kill it. Scar definitely did a number on us.
Anywho, the guide takes a bottle of water, pours some into his hand and proceeds to throw it on the napping lion. It freaked the freakout, naturally, since there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight.
I turned to the driver and said what did you do that for? Then he says cats don’t like water.
Throughout the day, there are designated spots to eat lunch and to use the toilet but at one point we drove so far out that the guide told us there wouldn’t be such a spot. We had to go behind the vehicle when it stopped randomly on the open road. We also ate lunch in the car while watching a newborn elephant learn how to walk.
The second night, the campsite filled up with other safari groups.
ngorongoro crater
All the national parks have one entrance/ exit so we leave the Serengeti back the way we came towards Ngorongoro- about 2.5/3 hours to reach Simba Campsite within Ngorongoro Crater.
The “crater” isn’t technically a crater, it used to be a mountain taller than Everest that imploded. We were told this was our best bet for spotting a rhino in Tanzania, which we did.
It was chilly willy here once the sun went down. I had my thermals, fleece and two sleeping bags.
The facilities at Simba Campsite (respect to the king) were a good level by camping standards.
There is an upper and lower part of the campsite, so if the lower part runs out of hot water, you can go up to the trailer part and use those showers. This campsite has solar panels hence the hot wata. This campsite was packed since it’s the only one in Ngorongoro and it had a ranger for security. There was also a small snack shop for treats.
Ngorongoro has a bit different landscape than the other parks (you drive down for ages to get into the crater part). It has a water feature where there were pink flamingos and another water feature with pelicans or swans (they were white and I don’t like birds).
Zebra, hyena and wildebeests, warthogs. It’s super cute that zebra and wildebeests are besties. One likes to eat the top part of the grass, and the other likes the bottom part. I love inter-species friendships. They’re adorable.
There were two rhinos in the distance. With binoculars, the first one I couldn’t see the difference between a rock and the rhino. The second one I could make out its outline and horn.
After a relatively short stint in the park with lunch, we headed back up and drove to the lodge near Lake Manyara, where I got dropped off to catch another vehicle back to Arusha.
A few thoughts on the different animals:
- Hippos are thicc
- Vultures are ick
- Ostriches are uncomfortably large. I think they were supposed to die out with the dinosaurs, but must have had their head in the sand.
- I just wanna boop the lion’s noses
- Hyenas are exactly as Whoopi Goldberg portrayed them. On the edge of creep.
- Sadly, a giraffe didn’t lick me
I later learned the term Big 5 is a hunting term that refers to the hardest and most dangerous animals to hunt on foot. This entire time I thought I was body-shaming animals.
The Big 5:
- Buffalo
- Elephant
- Lion
- Leopard
- Rhinoceros
To answer your question, I did recently re-watch The Lord of the Rings.
