Safari - Tanzania

The reason we chose to go to Tanzania was so that we could experience an extended safari. A few years ago when we went to South Africa and Zimbabwe, I would have said we went on safari, too. But now I would say that we went on game drives. There's a difference. A game drive is just that - driving around and looking for game. (Our driver in Tanzania, Nas, said, "Know why they call it a game drive? Because it's a game whether or not the animals will show up. Maybe they will play, maybe they will not.")

They played.

This was a safari. It was us and our driver and the truck for ten days, driving hundreds of miles in Tanzania, going between and through various national parks. We basically lived in that truck.

We drove with the roof up and stood a lot of the time (even while Nas was driving). That was the beauty of having the truck all to ourselves.

We drove through the following parks: Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti (south, central, north). As you can see from the pics below, the landscape varied quite a bit. The crater and lake were more jungle-like and tropical in parts, but the vast majority of the landscape was dry prairie. We were there in their dry season (winter), when the animals have had their babies (kill me now) and are migrating.

Here are some of the highlights. I know not all of our devoted 2.5 followers are as into animals as we are, so I'll keep this fairly brief. :)

The elusive leopard! We saw three different sightings - an unexpected delight.

A Nile Crocodile, his back still wet from the river.

Our first time seeing a cheetah in the wild! In South Africa, we saw several at an animal rescue organization.

All the pics were taken from the truck, and the trucks must stay on designated roads (unlike in other African countries where they can go off-road in private areas, like we did in South Africa).

In future posts, I'll include additional animals that were new to us as well as some of the best shots of more familiar ones. Suffice it to say that we saw so many animals that we eventually just stopped taking pictures. The scope was unbelievable: groups of giraffes; zebras and wildebeests and cape buffalo as far as the eye could see; more baby elephants than you could shake a stick at; birds of all kinds. Hundreds and hundreds. We even stopped taking pictures of the lions!

This, friends, is why we went. It was so amazing. The pictures are great but at the same time they don't really do justice to Tanzania. More to come!

P.S. The King Soopers coupon offer is still on the table. Just a couple of quick syllabi and also some pre-emptive reading for a History of the Novel class. Lemme know.