Why Tanzania? Actually that was a relatively easy decision, trying to keep the cost down was the hard part. Several eastern and southern African countries offer good wildlife safaris but we decided on Tanzania because not only does it have the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater but Zanzibar sounded like a good place to relax after a safari. Also Tanzania is not too developed for tourism unlike South Africa and Kenya but its more developed than Zambia and Botswana. Zimbabwe was a close second but Zanzibar ended up being the deciding factor. There are plenty of high cost operators like Abercrombie and Kent and United Touring that will offer you an excellent trip and plenty of inexpensive (notice I did not say cheap) camping safaris you can book locally once you arrive. We were looking for something in between. Using the web we found a Tanzania company, Takims, and booked a safari via e-mail. The cost was the same as a locally booked safari.

There is no such thing as a cheap safari. The cheapest I've heard was $US55 per day and when you consider that park fees are $US25 per day and camping fees are $US20 that does not leave much margin for profit. These prices might be even higher now. Anything less and you are being ripped off. This is a once in a lifetime trip, spend a bit more, even up to $US70 per day and get better tents, better food, a working vehicle and a guide who can tell the difference between a leopard and a cheetah. If you book locally a lodge safari can cost about $US140 to US$160 per day while a safari with one of the big American or European companies can set you back about $US300 per day. We had a private safari for three with a four-wheel drive Landrover, stayed at luxury lodges, all parks fees, meals, government taxes, and the services of a driver/guide for US$145 per day each. A camping safari would have being cheaper but neither of my travelling companions wanted to camp.

I don't live in a major metropoliticial area so cheap seats are something I only read about. Local travel agents are only use to booking all-inclusive trips to Florida or Cuba. I ended up using a local agent to book a flight to London, England and obtained my own ticket to Kenya from a bucketshop in London. Note I said Kenya even though I was going to Tanzania. Nairobi International airport is one of the busiest airports in Africa so cheap seats are easily obtained. An airline that might only fly into Tanzania once a week will have daily flights to Nairobi. Arusha, the capital of safaria north is about 5 hours by road from Nairobi.

Arusha National Park

Arusha is a small city which sits at the foot of Mount Meru and has a year round temperate climate. Many National Parks are nearby so Arusha is the starting point of safaris of the northern parks. Nearby is the rarely visited Arusha National Park where Mt. Meru is located. This is the second highest mountain in Tanzania and fifth highest in Africa. Its a three day trek to the top. Because of its close promixity to Arusha there are no lions or rhinos but plenty of other animals. In fact, the park is nicknamed Giraffic Park because of its giraffe population. They slowly walked right in front and behind our vehicle. You will probably also see black-faced colobus monkeys, rarely seen in other parks.

Lake Maynard National Park

The first park many people visit is Lake Maynard National Park located at the base of the Rift Valley. Its only a small park but contains plenty of elephants, wildebeest, zebras and several antelope species. The grunting of hippos was heard but none were seen, the water level of the lake prevented us from getting too close to the water edge, unless we wanted to risk getting stuck. Watch out for the aggressive baboons. Rumor has it that this park is famous for tree-climbing lions. Our guide who has visited the park for five years had never seen the lions climbing the trees. We only saw the remains of a lion kill.

Serengeti National Park

Our next destinction was the Serengeti, which means great open place in the Maasai language. The main road from Lake Maynard to the Serengeti is considered a well maintained gravel road although I think well maintained has a different meaning in Tanzania. It is nevertheless a necessary route unless you have plenty of money and can fly, all the parks have airstrips. Its a spectacular road as it winds its way up the western wall of the Rift Valley and across the fertile Mbulu Plateau. Soon you come to the forested slopes of the southern rim of Ngorongoro Crater, a quick glimpse into the crater (we will return in several days for a more through look) and once pass the crater we descend to the Serengeti plain. As you drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area you will see plenty of Maasii herding their cattle. You will also come across the occasional group of young boys posing for pictures, a small fee is expected.

There is plenty of wildlife, the numbers are simply mind-boggling. A recent census estimated 1.5 million wildebeest, 1 million gazelle, 200,000 zebras and about 3000 lions. We saw our first pride of lions in the open plains, the lack of vegation makes animal spotting very easy. Unfortunately you can also get a Serengeti traffic jam. Once one vehicle spots an interesting animal soon several vehicles appear, the big cats seem to cause many traffic jams. The park is big enough and there are plenty of dirt tracks that you can easily find yourself alone. The hippo pool which is near the main camping area and several lodges is always crowded but you do get a good view of hippos and crocodiles. You can spend a week here and not see the entire park.

One night while walking around the grounds of the lodge I spotted a couple of Dik-diks, probably the smallest of the antelopes. Pretty exciting spotting some wild animals while out for a walk. More exciting and I'm sure more dangerous was spotting a wild cat called a civet. Its a nocturnal medium size cat and therefore rarely seen, it stared at me for a few seconds before disappearing into the woods. Now I understood why some quests of the lodge wanted an armed escort back to their hut.

Ngorongoro Crater

After spending two days in the Serengeti we headed back to Ngorongoro with two interesting stops along the way. First we visited Olduvai Gorge where in 1959 the Leakeys found fossils of Homo habilis dated back 1.8 million years and in 1979 discovered footprints dated back 3.5 million years. There is a small museum at the site and certainly interesting to visit the place where we might have all come from. Also along the main Serengeti-Ngorongoro road the Maasi have builted a model village to attract tourists. Many of the Maasi still live a traditional lifestyle and built this village to capitilize on the tourist trade. You can see some of the villages further back from the road. In this model village you can take all the photographs you want, purchase items (remember to barter), watch and hear tradition music and dance, and see the inside of houses. A bit too pandering to the tourists for my taste but I did purchase a Maasi spear, bartered down from $US50 to $US10. My wife purchased a necklace from $US40 to $US25, not as good as me at the bartering but then I really enjoy it.

Ngorongoro Crater has being called a Living Eden by the PBS program Nova. UNESCO declared it a World Hertiage Site. Because of its promixity to Olduvai Gorge some people think it might be the mythical Garden of Eden. Whatever you want to call it, it is truly one of the wonders of the world. A 20 km wide volcanic crater with 600 metre walls packed with over 45,000 large animals. Its one of the few places in Tanzania where you are almost guaranteed to see a rhino (there are about a dozen left) and almost anything else you might have missed elsewhere. Two cheetah creat a traffic jam, hyenas chase a rhino, thousands of flamingos wading in the large soda lake, Lake Magadi, very fat zebras graze near some overweight lions. The only animal you will not see here are giraffes because the vegetation is wrong. The amount of wildlife you will see in close promixity is amazing and because of the vehicle traffic in the crater the animals are habitated to the vehicles and you can get very close. You can practical pat the zebras. If you only have time to visit one park, make it Ngorongoro. All the camp sites and lodges are along the crater rim with only one expensive ($US40) camp site on the crater floor. Most of the lodges overlook the crater and the sunset and sunrise over the crater is spectacular.

Tarangire National Park

Tarangire National Park is an often overlooked park and because of that its not crowded. During the dry season, the only water flowing in this area is in the Tarangire River and plenty of animals migrate into the park. Often when the migrating herds of the Serengeti are mainly in neighboring Kenya at Masai Mara National Reverse, Tarangire will have more wildlife than the Serengeti. Unforuately there are many tsetse flies in Febuary and March but then thats when the Serengeti is full of wildlife. We spotted our only leopard here and there is a sizable elephant herd. There was a large baboon tribe near our lodge and boy are they noisy.

After Tarangire we spend one night in Arusha before getting a bus to Dar-es-Saalam to start a southern safaria. Some advice, buy your souvenirs in Arusha, especially at the markets near the Clock Tower and Goliondoi Road, and not at any of the tourists traps along the park route. Many safaris will also stop at the African Culture Center just outside Arusha, again overpriced souvenirs. We did meet some Texan oil men there who were going trophy hunting for some lion. According to a attendant at the Center they visit Tanzania ever year to hunt. One of them brought a huge makonde carving for US$80,000. The makonde carvings are worth your money and since bargaining is the order of the day should cost less than US$5 at the untourist markets. While in Arusha you can also check your e-mail, there are several cyber-cafes.