Safari in the Serengeti

We almost started taking bets on which part of the Landcruiser was going to fall apart next. 

During the three days we spent in the Serengeti, the car broke down six or seven times. One flat tire, one wheel coming off, the axel, the changer between gas tanks… We started to lose count. We also became well-known in the campsite for our vehicle woes.

Even so, the safari in Tanzania was amazing. As Gary said, “Good people, good guide, good cook, bad car.”

What brought our group of six together was Angie’s friend falling down some stairs in a bar and breaking her arm. They were going to safari together in January, but with the injury, her friend cancelled. In December, I posted on the Lonely Planet Thorntree for safari partners and Angie, an American living and working in Turkey, contacted me. Catherine, originally from Trinidad & Tobago but living in the U.K. also contacted me, so I invited her to join Angie and me. Later, the travel agency contacted us about having a couple join us. Since every additional person made it cheaper, we agreed not knowing anything about them. That couple turned out to be Ana and Chantal from Argentina. FInally, I met Gary, who’s from the U.K, at my hostel in Arusha. He was traveling alone and looking to safari, so I invited him along. The six of us ended up having a great time together. And our tour guide, Jackson, confirmed that we were one of the most fun groups he’s had.

Our six-day budget camping safari began in Tarangire National Park. This small park was our introduction to safari-ing. We drove through the lush grass and baobab trees with our heads poking out of the pop-up roof. We were so excited to see our first elephans, impalas, zebras, and baboons that we stopped the driver at every animal sighting. Little did we know that by the last day, we would be driving past hundreds of zebras without even pausing.

Hippo crossing the road

The next three days we spent in the Serengeti, which is so vast and diverse. Different parts of the park were very different, some parts just pure grassland as far as the eye could see, other parts filled with umbrella acacias so perfect that they looked straight out of the Lion King. In the Serengeti we saw wildebeast migrating, hippos fighting one another, cheetahs guarding their kill, lions napping on one another, and hyenas running off with a stolen buffalo leg. Giraffes, elephants, leopards, cheetahs, lions, jackals, wildebeest, zebras, baboons, monkeys, hippos, warthogs (or as our guide called them “lion popcorn”), hyenas, impalas and gazelles. It was surreal that these animals were just roaming around near me.

Baby baboons with their mommies

Baby black-faced monkey

After almost three days in the Serengeti, we headed to the Ngorogoro crater, a caldera formed by volcanic eruptions that basically keeps all the animals in the one space. We saw more zebras, ostriches, wildebeest, and warthogs. We even saw a few rinoceros from very far away, completing the “Big Five” (lions, elephants, cheetahs, leopards, and rinos), which are called the Big Five because they are the five hardest to hunt. Personally, my favorites were the zebras and giraffes. I don’t think I could ever tire of watching them.

At the Ngorogoro Crater, we were lucky enough to witness some action apart from animals grazing, which they do a lot of-- two baboons having sex and a lion unsuccessfully trying to chase down its lunch! Camping at the Ngorogoro crater rim, Angie and I had a little more excitement than we wanted when we were coming back from the bathroom to our tent before bedtime. There was a buffalo, which are supposedly the most dangerous of the Big Five, right by our tent. This was extra scary because I had taken out my contacts and forgottten my glasses in the tent, so I was totally blind as Angie was leading me. After freaking out momentarily, we got the ranger who escorted us with his machine gun (seems a little excessive…) to our tent.  

Buffalo

The safari was surprisingly exhausting considering the extent of our physical exertion was standing up to pop our heads out of the car. But we did wake up before sunrise three days in a row because the animal watching is best when it’s still cool. And on each of those mornings, we all decided to forego breakfast so we could get out of camp and start our game drive earlier. Luckily, we were all of the same mindset and all six of us were equally as excited to see more animals and easily agreed on early wake-up times and skipping breakfast. 

Lions napping

Sunrise on the Serengeti

Leopard

I still feel like I need to pinch myself. Even though I’ve seen all of these animals in the zoo, seeing them in the their natural habitat, roaming free was mind blowing.

As for the car problems? Frustrating, but already it seems like nothing.

And the smell of Serengeti grass before it rains? Unforgettable.

Storm approaching in the Serengeti