After I decided on an African holiday, I was sure that I wanted to go on a safari. I lost count how many times I browsed for safari offers on the Internet. It’s not that it would be hard to find one, but they’re quite pricey. My criteria were: 3-5 days long, group safari, i.e. joining to other people, and as cheap as possible. Finding the first offers, I was horrified about the prices, and I almost lost my hope to be able to go on with this idea. Imagine the starting point at around $1200 and the upper limit…well, I don’t even want to talk about it. Of course, these were just the few-day long ones. I returned to searching every day, until I found the best offer with Rhino Explorer. Another option could have been travelling to Tanzania and find something on the spot, but I didn’t want to lose time there from my not-so-long holiday with looking for safari tours.
The safari I booked online included the lift from the airport – if you remember I told you about Immanuel waiting for me in the heat at the airport in my previous post -, one night in a hotel in Arusha with dinner and breakfast, then a 4-day camping safari with all the meals, water, tents, national park fees included, a final night in Arusha in the same hotel again with dinner and breakfast, and a lift to the airport or where you needed afterwards. Sounds great, isn’t it?
In the evening of my arrival, Daniel, the main organiser came to the hotel to explain me everything about the itinerary and to collect the money. On my first morning, I was downstairs early to have breakfast before we set off. That was the moment when I realised that despite being in Africa, I won’t have proper coffee, only instant one, though it’s still much better than the Nescafe.
I was really excited, but also a bit worried as nobody was there to collect me at the given time, not even half an hour later. Other guests were already setting off with other cars, only I was sitting there at the reception. A guy came up to me and instructed me to go out to the main street and wait there. He came with me, though I had no idea who he was, and if I should trust him. But what else could I have done? He mentioned Daniel, so I trusted that I should wait with him. While we were waiting there, I got a flavour of a wakening, busy morning in the town. People of all kinds came and went, even some maasai people walked past me, which was an unbelievable thing for me. They are easily recognisable from their thin and lean body shape, and the traditional maasai kanga, i.e. the “African blanket” they wear. The guy told me that basically everybody is from a different tribe here (I can’t remember his), and they obviously recognise who belongs to which tribe only from the look. I was looking at the people with this in mind, and just thought how crazy this is, that I’m here among them, as if I had just climbed into a TV, right in the middle of a documentary.
Finally, my car arrived, I was the last person who they picked up. There were already a Canadian and an Italian couple, and an American woman in the car. And Hermann, the driver. It confused me first that all the others were through different companies, and took me some time while I calmed my mind down and made myself believe that I’m in the right place, and I really am going on a safari now! 🙂
Our first destination was the Tarangire National Park, which is famous of its ancient giant baobab trees and the huge elephant population – among many other animals of course. I didn’t really know how it will be, how a safari looks like. All the others had been on safaris before. Basically there is the national park’s entrance gate where the driver has to go into the office to register us and pay the fees, which go for the national park’s conservation project. Then before departing, he opens up the roof of the car, so we can easily stand up, and watch the distance, browsing the trees, grass, river, bushes to spot animals. You definitely need good eyesight, or good glasses, and you have to set your mind and eyes for scanning mode. Hermann, the driver spotted animals in such distance, or behind such thick bushes that I had no idea how he was able to do that. Zebras here, monkeys there, baobab trees everywhere….just try to follow where to look. When we saw something interesting, we stopped with the car, so we had the chance to take photos, and just to enjoy staring at these beautiful creatures, how they are grazing, playing, walking, or looking back at us.
The first animals we saw were warthogs bathing in the mud, and then vervet monkeys playing on a tree. Then we saw impalas grazing behind the bushes, giraffes munching on trees, dik-diks hiding in low bushes, and elephants wandering around under the acacia and baobab trees or dozing in their shades.
It wasn’t only the animals that kept my attention, but the entire landscape. Plain woodlands stretching as far as you can see with winding dirt road cutting through, riverbed where you can only see the shallow remains of a flowing river, but which still attracts the animals there to help their thirst. You can also see swampy areas, and grasslands from which the sun had already sucked the lush greenness out.
As we were driving deeper and deeper in the park, we saw ostriches, buffalos, zebras, and even more elephants. Elephants under the trees, elephants cooling themselves down in a pond then wandering off, elephants coming from the grassy nowhere, crossing the street in front of us, then becoming smaller and smaller as they walk off again into the grassy distance. We saw huge elephant bulls wandering lonely or keeping their distance from the rest of the herd, and we also saw small elephants who were playing around their moms. I could watch them all day long, how beautiful they are. And I love the fact how freely they can roam here.
It had already been an adventurous and fulfilling day, and it was time for us to head to our campsite, where we also met our cook, Fena, who had already been preparing dinner for us in the camp’s kitchen. On the next days, he came with us, and he was responsible for preparing breakfast, packing lunchbox and cooking dinner for us. This first campsite was not in the wild yet, but you definitely felt the closeness of the nature with all the mystical sounds during the night and with the birds’ early, loud chirping. Even though I woke up more times at night because of the sounds, I didn’t mind at all, as I felt the freedom in it, and also my excitement kept me going next day. I knew that the first day was only the warm-up for the big predators and more animals, and for the vastness of the Serengeti.
