So the weekend after my Nairobi trip, I had my first hit with food poisoning... NOT FUN. Luckily, there was nothing but a house party planned for that weekend, so I didn't miss out on much. But I was REALLY sick for about 24 hours. After 3 days of antibiotics though, was feeling just about at full speed. But it was a chill weekend at home for me.
But this past weekend was a BLAST! We went on a two day safari, leaving at 6am Saturday, and getting home around 8pm Sunday night. The first day was at Tarangire National Park, which is like a smaller more condensed version of the Serengeti. Serengeti would have required an extra day, since it is a couple hours farther to its edge, and at this time of year, the migration is at Maasai Mara, which is closer to Kenya, and would take a long time to get to from Arusha. But many people that have done both Tarangire and Serengeti have said that the animal viewing is better at Tarangire, minus the huge migration of course. And Tarangire was only three hours away from Arusha!
So the trip didn't start off great. We left a little late, around 6:30am, and about an hour and a half out of Arusha, the engine of one of the safari trucks blew. When they opened the hood, the engine was overheating so much the coolant was literally boiling over hahaha. We had two 4x4's since we had 10 people. So we were told another truck would be there in about an hour, so we decided to wait. Btw, NEVER listen to times in Tanzania. Everyone goes by "Tanzania time", and would rather make you feel better by saying something will happen soon, even if it is an outright lie. So two hours go by, and we decide to pile 9 of us into the 6 seater truck, along with the driver, so we don't lose out on our day. My buddy David who organized the trip stayed behind to wait for the other truck. Later, we find out that it took the truck FOUR HOURS in total to get there. Ridiculous. But anyways, the trucks had three big holes in the roof that popped off, so the 9 of us were able to stand and get a pretty awesome view of the park for the morning drive.
So Tarangire was a lot of wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, elephants, impala, and birds. Very cool, and very very up close. We even had an elephant start to charge at us. Then in the afternoon, we drove to Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. It is a HUMONGOUS crater, created by a volcanic explosion/earthquake, that caused a volcanic mountain to collapse on itself. Very cool. So we camped in tents up on the rim of the crater, which was inside the Conservation Area, so had animals in there. There were elephants near our campsite when we arrived, and during the night buffalo were sniffing the sides of one of our tents, which kept up my poor friends terrified that night. Then, after waking up at 5:30am for breakfast, we descended into the crater, and spent the whole day there. We drove around for HOURS and saw SOOO much. The scenery by itself, without any of the animals, was just breathtaking. I have never seen anything like it. The whole crater is surrounded by these steep slopes, and within the crater there are lakes and even a forest/jungle like area. And the animals were also amazing. We saw lions that came right up to our trucks, kind of scary, and again lots of wildebeest and zebras. We also saw hyenas, waterback antelope, baboons, some other kind of monkey, and warthogs (pumbaas). But the best animals were the hippos, the black rhino, and the cheetah. The black rhino and the cheetah are very rare to see, and some people have gone on many safaris without ever seeing them. For us to see them on our first safari and it being a two day safari, is just amazing.
Hopefully I will be able to put pics up soon!
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