Pre-Safari, we spent a few days at our favourite hostel, Mountain Bike House, for some much needed rest – swapping Kili stories with the other guests, and handing out our leftover Diamox like sweets!
How cute is Mountain Bike Hostel! This was our accommodation:
The Safari
Itinerary: Tarangire National Park (1 day), Serengeti National Park (2 days), Ngorongoro Crater (1 day)
Accommodation: Camping (this massively lowers the cost of your Safari, as opposed to the lodges)
Company: Focus in Africa
Cost: £460 for 4 days
The Squad:
Tarangire National Park
Located in northern Tanzania, just south of Lake Manyara, Tarangire National Park is a protected area famous for its colossal baobabs trees, grassy plains and huge herds of African elephant.
Ranking as the 6th largest national park in Tanzania, it covers an area of 2,600 square km. It has some of the highest population density of elephant compared to anywhere else in Tanzania!
We literally saw elephant, after elephant, after elephant. We actually stopped taking photos pretty quickly – unless the elephant was literally posing for us or next to Bertha, our beloved 4×4.
Oh hey, another elephant.. what have you got for us! 🙂
As well as the many elephants, we also saw warthog families, impala, an eagle, three cheetahs, giraffes, monkeys, vultures, deer, and many interesting birds!
We stopped for a lunch picnic overlooking the beautiful winding Tarangire River. “Hold onto your picnic boxes!” our guide, Dickson said. He wasn’t lying. We were hilariously fighting off the hungry Blue Monkeys who were literally clawing and biting at our lunch boxes!
After lunch we proceeded with another game drive to different areas of Tarangire National Park. We experienced some next level face-attacking flies and bugs here – bug spray is absolutely essential if you are planning on visiting Tarangire.
Also – poor Leon had food poisoning from the cafe we had breakfast at, so he was struggling today!
Regarding the ‘camping’ – our expectations were rock bottom having only paid £460 for our tour (you can pay thousands). When they said camping, we assumed this meant sweating in a cheap tent.
To our suprise, our first night was spent in these adorable looking igloo mud huts which were nice and cool inside. They had a double bed, electricity, and a light inside. Needless to say, Panorama Campsite had some pretty cool panoramic views!
In the evening, the campsite treated us to feast of meat skewers, salad, chips, vegetable curry, soups, and pineapple. Whilst we fought off the flying cockroaches and crazy huge moths – we watched the campsite staff do their amazing African dance, fire breathing, and acrobatic show! Today was full of surprises!
Serengeti National Park
When you think of an African Safari, no doubt the Serengeti will spring to mind. A huge expanse of Savannah grassland bursting with exotic and unusual animals against infinite plains under the burning hot African sun. Yes, it’s exactly how you imagine it to be. Immensely vast, wild, and totally wonderful: a safari here does not disappoint.
Firstly, the national park is enormously huge: 14,750 km² (5,695 mi²) to be exact.
Secondly, the wealth of animals just blew our minds. I hadn’t seen one single wildebeest until today, but now, I have seen thousands. Seeing all these unusual, wild animals together was a distinctly unfamiliar sight which never got old. We saw ostrich, lions, buffalo, monkeys – and wildebeest and zebra as far as the eye could see.
My favourite moment was during golden hour – we were all standing looking out the top of Bertha taking in the setting sun and the beautiful scenery. It was definitely one of those moments where you stop and reflect about where you are.
After a day chocked full of animals, it was time to find out campsite in Seronero (we were actually camping in tents tonight for reals). We all assumed we would be within some sort of gated off area, but we were wrong. We pitched up right in the heart of the Serengeti in a canvas tent amongst the animals.
Wow, no fence.. this felt very wild indeed! “Don’t leave your flip flops outside the tent Amy, the hyenas will take them!” Dickson shouted over to me..
Had we not been totally shattered, I probably would have been more concerned about having just a piece of canvas between us and the wild animals. But we feel asleep instantly, with the the sound of laughing hyenas around us.
Of course when you backpack you know you have to take the rough with the smooth. You expect to have negative events, just as often as the positive. When we were all eating breakfast in the (gated) dining room, Leon noticed all his debit/credit/ID cards from his wallet in a stack on the side. No wallet or money insight. Somebody had robbed us.
Aw, shit. There was only about 7 campsite staff present, and another one or two small groups. The thief was among us, which didn’t feel nice.
This is what travel insurance is for Leon said. We took it in our stride and didn’t let it dampen this once-in-a-lifetime experience, besides it wasn’t huge amounts of cash so nothing to get upset about.
Today we saw giraffe, baboons, dik diks (move aside Guinea pigs, I have a new favourite animal), mongoose, monkeys, meerkats, crazy huge birds (no joke, we thought they were tribesmen in the distance),
A particular highlight was witnessing about 40+ hippos having their morning wash. I say wash, but it looked like they were getting dirtier not cleaner. If you’ve ever seen David Bowie’s Labyrinth; just imagine the bog of eternal stench. This was seriously smelly. We watched the glorious stinky hippos for about half an hour; whilst they pooped, farted, fought, and pooped some more.
We even came across a tortoise crossing the road!
Once we left the Serengeti, we stopped off at the Rangers Office at the park gate to report the stolen cash to claim on the insurance. This adorable park ranger dressed head to toe in the most safari looking outfit you can possibly think of had us each write a brief statement about the missing wallet.
We then continued on our way through Ngorongoro Conservation Park to get back to our campsite.
After the Serengeti plains, poor old Bertha was struggling on these steep roads. After three days of Safari, it had been constant touch and go for Bertha making it through particularly muddy patches. We had heard horror stories of 4x4s getting stuck, then having to wait hours to be rescued and escorted to another vehicle with guns.
We were about 30 minutes away from the campsite, but after a particularly steep hill, Bertha suddenly rolled to a halt. We looked around at each other nervously. Ah oh!
After 10 minutes of faffing, Dickson turned to us and said “clutchy, breaky” and then spent another 10 minutes looking around for some kind of miracle to happen.
Dickson was useless but luckily a few members of the nearby tribe saw the whole thing and came to help. After posing for a quick photo, they started pushing Bertha up hill. We didn’t move an inch, so it was all hands on deck; we all got out and started to push her up the hill, then all of a sudden .. after about 30 seconds and some loud noises, she was alive! Dickson couldn’t stop, so shouted POLE POLE as one by one we jumped into the moving vehicle, waving goodbye to the helpful tribe, and bursting into laughter about what had just happened.
Ngorongoro Crater
Ahh it was the final day of our Safari, and they had obviously saved the best til last: the stunning Ngorongoro Crater. Formed due to the collapse of an active volcano 2 million years ago; the crater floor covers about 260 square km and is about 600 meters deep.
After sunrise, we descended into the beautiful huge crater, down the steep snaking road. The air felt so fresh, dewy and warm.
Ngorongoro Crater is often referred to be the Garden of Eden or Noah’s Ark. Immediately we could see why; we were instantly spotting silhouettes of families of elephant, huge numbers of buffalo grazing, galloping wildebeest, zebras, antelope. It felt like animal paradise. We knew we were in for an absolute treat today.
Today we saw elephants, lions, pelicans, hippo, warthog, zebras, wildebeest, antelope, buffalo, ostriches, crown cranes (these are very funny looking!), an eagle, flamingos, a civet cat, and load of baboons blocking the road!
We even saw a family of black rhinos in the distance! You can just about make them out in the photo below. The crater is home to about approximately 45 rhinos.
Fun fact: Did you know that when a flamingo is standing on one leg, it means they are sleeping.
When we returned to our campsite at the end of the day, the Safari didn’t stop there – we were greeted by a herd of zebra! Happily munching the grass around our tents and looking at us curiously.
A very weird looking pelican/vulture(?) even flew in to say hi!
After snapping some incredible zebra photos, we packed up, headed back to Arusha, and said goodbye to the Safari Squad.
Leon and Amy’s Big Adventures 
Awesome pictures! We have just returned from safari in Kenya , enjoy your trip !
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Wow what an experience. The hostel reminds me of lamin lodge on The Gambia river, travelled 1/2 a day to get there , thinking what the hell have we let ourselves in for. Turns out fish chips and peas was on the menu! Bonus😉. Stay safe x
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