Animal Kingdom African Safari, Tanzania

***We are very behind on blogging but starting to catch up! this safari actually look place in August :) 

Day 1:

John, our driver/guide and Jacob our cook for the next few days pick us up at out Good Hope to begin our trip to get up close and personal with some African Wildlife. After a very quick stop to pick up some snacks we were off to park #1 – Tarangire National Park. Within minutes of entering the park we had our first animal sighting, African Elephants, a whole family of them, including the baby.  Tarangire is very well known for elephants so we were lucky enough the see hundreds of them.

Mama and Baby elephant

The whole fam

Elephant crossing the road

On top of elephants we were up close and personal with loads of zebras and wildebeests, who apparently are best buddies. Zebras are not good at smelling out water sources or predators, a strong suit of the wildebeest, but can see forever a trait that the wildebeest lack so they often hang out together. To round out the day were gazelles, impalas, giraffes, monkeys, baboons, lazy lions out in the crazy, a cheetah taking an afternoon siesta, even a jackal and a warthog.  After a long day in the park we headed to a place called Mosquito River (unfortunate name) to camp for the night and have our first of many unreal meals prepared by Jacob.

Cuddling zebras

Overlooking Tarangire

Baboons in tree

Giraffe eating lunch

Day 2:

On day 2 we made our way to the uber famous Serengeti national park. The Serengeti is an incredibly diverse ecosystem in northern Tanzania which meets up with the Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya to the north. It is home to over 70 mammals and 500 other species but is made most famous for the massive wildebeest migration (the largest mammal migration on earth – thank you Wikipedia) where over 1.2 million wildebeest, nearly a million zebra, among other game migrate from the Serengeti to Maasai Mara reserve and back annually.

Our day started out a bit slow when we first arrived in the Serengeti and it seemed that our luck with animals had run out. We went for a long time seeing only gazelles and impala’s and a handful of elephants. Finally we stumbled upon a mama lion literally right beside us. She paid zero attention to us because we caught her just as she was stalking a group of gazelles.  We followed her for a while before we finally got the witness the holy grail of safari sights – a lion kill. She pounced on the group and scored herself a gazelle for dinner. We didn't really get to watch her feast of her prize since she made her kill out in the long grass, but we could see her wagging her tail up in the air as we enjoyed her 

dinner.

Thompson gazelle

Old man elephant

Focused lion stalking her prey

After watching mama lion do her work we cruised around for a few more hours enjoyed the scenery and catching a few more animals, including a leopard taking a nap in a tree, before making our way to camp.

Leopard waking up 

Never ending views in Serengeti

Day 3:

On day three we headed out really early for a morning game drive to catch all the animals during their busy morning routines. We hit the road before the sun came up over the park and got to see a whole pride of lions before the sun even came up. A little while later we found another pride that looked like they were on the hunt.  After an hour or so on the road, and a very lively morning animal kingdom we caught the most incredible sunrise over the Serengeti. We toured around the Serengeti for the rest of the day just taking in the sights all around us and added hippo, buffalo and crocodile sightings to our growing list of species seen on this safari and then we made the 3 hour trip to Ngorogoro crater where we camped for the night.

Stalking her prey?

Amazing sunrise 

Vulture perched in his tree

Baboon waking up

Crocodile sneaking up on a baboon 

Hippos splashing around 

Getting fiesty

Enjoying some shade

Day 4:

Our last stop of this tour is Ngorogoro crater, home to all the “Big Five” animals; Rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and buffalo. It is the last place on earth where the Black Rhino lives and due to aggressive poachers there are only 29 remaining – horrible. We actually we lucky enough to see one …..but only as a tiny spec in a pair of binoculars.

We hit the road early again in the crater and as a result we caught all kinds of animals going about their business, including a mother/father ostrich duo fiercely protecting their eggs from a hungry hyena. Luckily ostrich are way smarter than they look and Hyenas are really stupid. Eggs saved.

Male chasing away the jackal.....

.....while female protects eggs.

Some highlights from the crater were all kinds of wildebeest and zebras hanging around that had not yet made the migration and one of the highest densities of lions anywhere. We even had to stay put for a bit while a female lion took refuge from the sun in the shade of our Jeep, resting right on it. After a late lunch in the park we slowly made our way out of the crater and back to Arusha where sadly said goodbye to our crew for the trip John (the human safari encyclopedia) and Jacob, camping cook extraordinaire.

gorgeous birds in the crater

Zebras and wildebeests

Male lion 

Close enough???

Zebras crossing the road

Excited male Hyena......look closely

Amazing views of the crater

Saying goodbye to our crew 

OOO_Talia and Jonny