Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/46hfPGxN8TAJf1K66
Kili alone would have been enough to make Tanzania one of my favorite countries. The safaris definitely ensured that. I have always thought that the Kenya safari I did with my sister in Aug 2018 would never be matched, but this came as close to that as possible – in some ways it was even better! We went through the same company as we did in Kenya, Gamewatchers, and they were easily worth every single penny.
So after the climb, we went back to the Altezza lodge in Moshi, just south of Kili, to get out bags and return the rental equipment. After saying bye to the other hikers, Altezza transferred us ~90 minutes west to Arusha, where we crashed in a hotel for the night. The next morning, Leopard Tours (Gamewatchers’ Tanzania affiliate) picked us up and we drove a few hours west to Ngorongo Crater. While the wildlife during our one day here was “just good” aka similar to my sightings in Etosha in Namibia and Queen Elizabeth in Uganda (so nothing really special), the landscape was just awesome. Apparently a volcano like 3x the size of Everest went off a few million years ago, and then it eventually collapsed into this massive, massive crater. It was just such a unique and cool location to visit even not considering the wildlife. A huge rim of mountains that then descended below into a lush and fertile valley that was the crater itself. While the crater is known for its rhino population, we unfortunately did not see one on our trip to Tanzania.
After the crater, we drove a few more hours west the next day to begin the first of our 3 days in the Serengeti. Our driver/guide, Sam, was obviously awesome, but even beyond that we just got flat out lucky. He was saying our sightings on the morning of the second day in particular were enough to constitute a great trip if they were spread out over the course of a one week trip! And honestly he was not exaggerating. We were lucky enough to see seven cheetahs, two separate cheetah chase and kills (by the same mom/cub duo, with the mom teaching the cub how to hunt), three leopards (including one sleeping peacefully on a tree), and literally 50+ lions. We also saw a Nat Geo car trailing a leopard for what was ultimately a failed leopard hunt (ie the leopard did nothing, not a failed chase…but even just sitting and waiting is so much fun here, and this was after the two cheetah hunts so we weren’t THAT disappointed), a failed lioness hunt (same as the leopard hunt where nothing happened), and a massive massive python that slithered past a car just next to us as we were admiring lions sleeping on a log (too quick and in shock to snag a photo unfortunately). Not to mention the giant giant crowds of wildabeest and zebras that were priming for the migration across the river in a couple months time. Really the only things we didn’t see here that were on my bucket list was a big game lion kill and a baby leopard, plus obviously (although I’ve seen these in Etosha) rhinos which might be my favorite safari animal.
The photos I got in the Serengeti were definitely on par with the ones I got in Kenya, even though in Kenya I had borrowed my dad’s camera which is definitely a bit better than my Fuji X-T100. But it was especially crazy because here we were in a national park and not a reserve, so we couldn’t go off road and all of these sightings were somehow miraculously close enough to the road for me to grab great pictures and for us to get front row seats. Honestly the only reason Kenya would edge Tanzania for me would be because we saw an actual river crossing for the Great Migration up close with the croc kill at the end (though this is purely a timing issue…I have no doubt if we were in Tanzania in Aug/Sep we would have seen this), and the baby cheetahs that we saw were younger in Kenya so had the fur and were cuter. But we didn’t see leopards in Kenya and nowhere near as many lions in Kenya.
There are these giant Pride-rock like formations scattered throughout the Serengeti called kopjes (Afrikaans strikes again!), where we spotted two of the leopards and where a lot of lions liked to take naps on during the day. Having seen leopards and cheetahs up close on this trip, it’s actually quite easy to spot (ha) the difference between the two…cheetahs have a large black stripe from their eyes to nose, and their spots are fully circled in and small black spots. Leopards, on the other hand, don’t have any facial stripes and their spots are more like splotches than the fully circled in spots of cheetahs. We saw a female leopard just mulling about on the road outside a kopje the morning of our second day, and literally spent like 20 minutes with just one other car observing her. After that, we drove to the southeast corner of the park specifically to look for cheetahs as that’s where they are known to congregate. We were super super lucky enough to see one mama with her cub..the cub was just about losing their fuzzy white fur (but it was still there!) and, as we would soon see, was learning how to hunt. The mama chased down a baby gazelle and held it, and then let the cub chase it. It was actually kind of torturous because the cub would grab the baby, injure it, but then not kill it as the baby ran away for a desperate attempt each time only to quickly be caught again. The mom then finally came in and killed it with her jaw, and then carried the food to a hiding spot in tall grass to hide from hyenas and lions and leopards. But while she was doing that, the cub darted for a rabbit that was in the area, and we literally saw a second chase and kill right after the first. Same as the first time, the cub would catch and injure, but not kill as the rabbit tried to flee after each attempt, before the mom finally killed it and they took the rabbit back to eat as well.
The landscapes in the Serengeti were just awesome. Very stereotyped I know, but I have always pictured “Africa” to be a vast endless plain with the umbrella acacia trees, and the Serengeti is where that image comes from…that exact landscape shot was literally everywhere. And obviously the sunrise/sunsets to these backgrounds were simply stunning. Beyond these, other highlights of the safari were a pool of 100+ hippos (probably not quite as cool as the hippos on my river safari in Uganda to be fair), a cerval cat (which I would have mistaken for a leopard had it not stopped and posed for my camera), and obviously the hordes of wildabeest and zebras just roaming around and slowly making their way north to the river crossing into Kenya.
After the safari, we took a bush flight – these are awesome! just small the small airplanes that you always see in the movies – to Zanzibar for a few days before heading back to the US. Zanzibar was decent, though obviously a come-down from Kili and the safari. Stone Town is the historic center of the island and reminded me a toooon of India with a dash of Mozambique. Freddie Mercury (who was a Parsi aka Zoroastrian from NW India) was born here and you can definitely see the Indian influence (from the spice trade and also British colonialism) in the food here. Sort of standard “exotic” town with tourist shops, bazaars, and narrow alleyways. After a day here, where we also got our COVID test, we headed north to Nungwi beach for a couple of days. I guess the beaches were nice though we’re both not really beach people. Unfortunately not enough time up here to scuba dive since my sister would have needed to get her open water certification (though this did save me like 600 USD since diving is crazy expensive in Zanzibar), but we did snorkel which was surprisingly fun as the visibility was great and there were tons of coral reefs and colorful fish that we could easily see. We also went jetskiing and attempted to waterski, both of which were firsts for us. Jetskiing was super fun but definitely not as easy as James Bond or Indiana Jones make it seem, though to be fair the Indian ocean was quite choppy the morning we did it. I also tried and failed to waterski like 5 times, as I could never actually stand and would always fall over – again, the choppiness of the water probably didn’t help. I was also an idiot and lost my first ever item while travelling here, which were my Oakley sunglasses which I was wearing while waterskiing. Need to get a replacement as those were great sunglasses especially in Kili.
Had to go home after a couple days in Zanzibar as I have a 6 week stretch of a bachelor party/wedding in upstate NY/Chicago/wedding in Chicago (headed to Chi early to see people)/roadtrip to Glacier-Yellowstone-Tetons/LA to see my hs friend Martin who’s interning at Snapchat there this summer. Hoping to go to Tajikistan around Aug 9 or so (to give me one weekend in NYC before leaving), and then bounce around central asia and the caucuses after that, but we’ll see. I also renewed my passport as it was expiring in April 2023 and only had like 10 free pages left (had the 52 page one and obviously applied for a new 52 page one), so hopefully that comes back in time with the expedited process for me to also apply for my Tajik visa before leaving in early August. But yea, overall Tanzania was incredible and I can safely say that sub-saharan Africa is my favorite region in the world that I have traveled in. East Africa in particular (Kenya/Tanzania/Uganda) has been just amazing, and southern Africa (S.Africa/Namibia/Zambia/Mozambique) isn’t too shabby either.