I didn't go alone, though, because, as she put it herself, 'I love to see the big animals', Mum was very keen to come back to East Africa and share the experience with me. This turned out to be mutually beneficial, as she also refused to do a camping safari, so I got the added bonus of doing the safari in style.
We did a 4 day safari taking in Tarangire, Ngorogoro Crater and Serengeti National Parks. We had our chief guide, Gerry, whom I have known for quite a while, who was in charge of animals, and an assistant guide, Godfrey, whom avid readers will realise that I have also known for some time, who was in charge of birds. Birds don't hold a huge amount of interest for me, but even I was impressed by some of the ones that we saw, namely the Kori Bustard and the numerous Kites and Vultures (the latter waiting to take the last pickings after the cheetah, hyenas and then jackals had had their share.
Mum would like me to rescind my comment from Rwanda that the scenery there is much more beautiful than in Tanzania, and I will happily do so, as on this safari we saw some truly breathtaking sights, the peak of which was the Ngorogoro crater which was viewed from the rim. The lodge on the final day was balanced (somewhat precariously) upon this rim and had truly spectacular views, and indeed a telescope, through which we had our first sighting of the Black Rhino. Luckily we also saw one the next day from within the crater, slightly closer up. The two other lodges included a truly luxurious one called the Farmhouse located in a coffee plantation where we had a huge room complete with terrace and open fire, and a luxury tented lodge, which consisted of a giant tent with en-suite bathroom, flush toilet and hot shower, proper beds and dressing tables. Acceptable even to Hester after an initial comment of 'I thought I told you that I didn't want to camp.'
The advantage of this lodge was that you were right in the middle of the park - no fences, if a lion wanted to walk up to your tent, it would do so. That night they choose not to, and we had only hyenas for company. Noisy buggers they are too.
We basically saw all of the the below, including the rocks that they stand on.
Much of the time we had the animals to ourselves, other times they were seriously outnumbered, which felt very uncomfortable to us, so we left them to it where possible.
On the last day, in the crater we got to see a Rhino with it's baby, so after sightings of lions, cheetahs, elephant and buffalo, that gave us our 'Big 5'.
This morning we actually watched a program which must have been from at least the early 0's, as it mentioned the Tanganyika National Parks (Tanzania before the unification with Zanzibar, which is possibly about to be reversed). The program was narrated by a very proper English voice which quite correctly stated that Tanganyika needed to learn how to look after their national parks and wildlife, though inly after the have provided sufficiently for their people. It continued that you shouldn't provide water for the animals of the Serengeti before you have provided the same for your citizens.
I think if the narrator returned now they would be happy with how the parks have been preserved. I'm not sure what they would think about how the nation has provided for it's people though.
But of course, in this blog more than most, the real stories will be told through the photographs, so enjoy the snaps in the 'Safari Pictures' post.
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