Tanzania 2019 – Safari Full Report and Pictures

After conquering Mt Meru and then Mt Kilimanjaro, you would have thought I’d be done with this trip and my body wouldn’t be able to move for a month afterwards.

Part of me did feel that way. 🙂

But after a celebratory lunch with all of the hikers, guides, cook, and porters at a restaurant in Moshi and getting a hot shower and a good night’s sleep in a real bed in Arusha, I was mostly feeling human.

Mostly.

If and when my body REALLY started to feel the pain of the past two weeks of hiking, the last place I wanted to be was sandwiched into a tiny economy seat on an airplane for 24+ hours.

So that’s the main reason I had planed a safari for the end of this trip.

Besides, you HAD to do a safari when you went to Africa or you really didn’t go to Africa.

I did enjoy nature and animals, but I usually didn’t have the patience to wait for animals to show up when I was hiking. So being able to take an organized safari trip to areas with a large number of exotic animals that you can’t see in California outside of a zoo was very appealing to me.

While I would have liked to have gone to the Serengeti for the safari, that time of year you would have to travel to the northern part to see the animals and that would take almost 2 days of travel just to get there. So I settled for some nice parks near Arusha over 4 days.

I stayed at a slightly nicer hotel in Arusha than I had before my treks. Particularly since the Outpost Lodge wasn’t available for one of the nights, but also since the Zawadi House had air conditioning, reportedly better hot water availability, and the rooms were a little bit of an upgrade over the Outpost Lodge. After Kilimanjaro, I could use a little bit of luxury to recover.

Day 1
We drove from Arusha to Tarangire to start our safari. This is a huge park with a lot of wide open plains and a major river flowing through it during the wet season (but was mostly dry in October).

Didn’t take long to see some Blue Monkeys, Impalas, Zebras, Giraffes, and Waterbucks. One interning sight was a pair of Mongooses calling out to each other as they scanned the area for danger (check the movie links directly below for what that looked and sounded like).

And we saw 4-5 female Lions sleeping across the river from us.

But they were VERY far away, so they just looked like tan blobs laying in the grass. Even with binoculars and my camera’s zoom lens, it wasn’t much of a sighting. But since Lions were one of the animals I thought it would be very hard to see at all during these safaris, at least I could say I saw some Lions.

We ate at a nice overlook with a lot of Blue Monkeys running around and trying to snatch people’s lunches. And succeeded many times from the more careless tourists.

Elephants were a little scarce until the afternoon heat brought them out in the open. White Headed Vultures, Ostriches, and Dik Diks (tiny deer) were also seen after lunch.

Then as we were ready to leave the park to drive to the Lake Eyasi area, we found a pair of female lions sleeping under a tree near the road. Very close and clearly the highlight of the day.

Of course, one of them had a radio collar on so I suspected the park may let the guides know where they might be able to find the Lions. The various Jeep (although most of them were Toyota Land Cruisers or similar trucks) drivers also stopped when passing each other and gave each other info on where they found animals.

So it wasn’t entirely random sightings, but it was an enjoyable start to the safari. I could have used less bouncing and rocking around on the rough dirt roads we had to drive over. I had just climbed a 19,341 foot high mountain, after all. 🙂

Then it was back onto paved roads until we got to a REALLY rough dirt road to get to the night’s destination: A ‘Tented Camp’ near Lake Eyasi (which was dry at the time).

While I made sure that we weren’t going to stay in regular tents during the safari (after 7 nights on Kilimanjaro in tents, my body needed real beds during the remaining nights in Tanzania), the sight of the tented camp was a bit scary. The bed sitting on the porch of the tent was the first shock.

But it turned out that there were two beds inside the canvas tent to sleep on. Either the outside bed was there in case they needed to move another bed inside quickly or for more adventurous sleepers. At that point in the trip, I was not that adventurous. 🙂

The tent itself was pretty well built, the two beds inside had decently thick mattresses, and a back area with a shower and flush toilet, so it wasn’t totally rustic. It kind of reminded me of Curry Village in Yosemite, so was somewhat familiar to me.

One concern: Despite the tent walls and the netting over the beds, I got my first mosquito bite that night.

Hopefully the Malaria pills I had been taking for the past 3 weeks (and would take for another week) would do their job and I wouldn’t end up getting Malaria. I found it a little amusing at the time that I didn’t have any bug problems (mosquitoes or otherwise) during the previous 3 weeks in Moshi, Arusha, on Mt Meru, or on Mt Kilimanjaro, only to get bitten after the hard parts of the trip were over.

Other than that, I had a decent night’s sleep and it did have that ‘African Safari’ type feel to it.

Day 2
Today, we visited a local tribe to see how they lived, hunted, and survived in the modern world while still living off the land and being semi-nomadic. ‘Semi’ since it was hard for them to be completely nomadic in the modern world with many of the open areas either developed or protected.

The Hadzabe bushmen lived in the wild lands around Lake Eyashi. While they did have some primitive huts built to use during the dry seasons, during the wet seasons they spent a lot of time under the hollow insides of African Baobab Trees.

We joined the bushmen for a hunt. There were not much large game around the area, so they mostly went after birds and small animals with simple bows and arrows. They were successful in getting a few hits and went back to the village to cook them up and celebrate with some of the kids from the village.

I even took a few shots at a target with a bow and arrows. Got close, but didn’t hit it.

It was nice to see some of how the natives lived in the past and tried to keep their culture and way of life even in the modern world.

The next stop was another tribe of blacksmiths and made jewelry, arrowheads, and other metal items. It seemed a bit too much like a typical tourist trap where they tried to get you to buy stuff.

Then, for some reason, we went to a farm and walked along the fields of mostly green onions. This seemed like more of a time killer than real attraction.

All things considered, this day’s itinerary seemed like a waste of time and was my least favorite of the four days.

We finished by driving to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. After seeing the Ngorongoro Crater from above, we arrived at that night’s accommodation: The Rhino Lodge.

This was a lodge that really gave you the feeling of being in a true African lodge. Very nice, rustic, and built where wild animals would make their way through the grounds or even right by the balcony to my room. As a bonus, no mosquitoes.

While they had pictures in the lobby and rooms of Elephants and other exotic animals walking through the grounds of the lodge, I only saw some Waterbucks and birds during my stay there. Before turning in for the night, I did manage to see some color through the clouds at sunset.

Day 3
Unfortunately, I was woken up by a torrential downpour. That probably kept a lot of wildlife from venturing by my balcony, but I did get to see a herd of Waterbucks up close before we headed down to the crater floor for the day’s safari drive.

Fortunately, the rain and clouds did not follow us down the crater floor and we we had pretty good view across the plain that made up the crater floor.

Our day’s drive started by seeing some Olive Baboons, Impalas, Thompson’s Gazelles, Waterbucks, and Wildebeests early on. Zebras, Ostriches, Hippopotamuses, Warhogs, and Flamingos were also seen in abundance.

One interning sight was a pack of Jackals that chased away a rival pack.

Then we saw some more female Lions sleeping along the hillside, followed by a male Lion sleeping in an other location very near the road. He was surrounded by a lot of Safari Jeeps, so was easy to spot. 🙂

At first, it seemed there was another Lion near him, but it turned out to be a carcass of a deer-like animal (likely an Impala or Thompson’s Gazelle).

After driving around for some more and not finding too much more to see we were headed back out of the crater and passed the male Lion again. We saw that he had woken up and was enjoying lunch. While not as thrilling as it would have been to see him hunt and take down his prey firsthand (or more likely one of the females in in his pride doing it for the lazy bastard), seeing him feasting on the carcass was definitely a unique experience and the highlight of the day, if not the entire 4 day safari.

Sucked for the animal he was eating, but that is the circle of life (first person to start singing the theme song to the Lion King is kicked off the planet).

On the way out of the crater, we saw a single Elephant and I found it odd that in the wide open area we only managed to see a single solitary one the entire day. A large group of White Headed Vultures feeding on some kind of carrion was also an interesting sight at the end of the day.

Circle of life, indeed.

We made our way to Lake Manyara for the night. Again, we stayed at a tented camp. This one was in a very nice forest and it seemed a bit nicer than the first tented camp.

Still got bitten by a few mosquitoes that night. Still, I didn’t have any symptoms two weeks later so I should be okay.

I did get a nice view of the setting sun that evening, so it was a good ending to a great day in the crater.

Day 4
I have to admit that by the fourth day of the safari I was ready to just go back to Arusha and enjoy not bouncing around in a Jeep while I had a nice pizza, hot shower, and then slept a bunch.

The morning was nice and saw a good number of animals, but mostly the same animals I had seen the previous few days. While the swamp area that Cape Buffalos and Wildebeests foraged through up to their bellies in water was interesting, there were a lot of times when we had driven for quite a while without seeing any animals. When the guide started driving down a long detour, I was ready to ask him to stop and take us back to Arusha.

But I realized that was just the fatigue and exhaustion of the last 3 weeks catching up to me. It was also the change from the high activity level of climbing Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro to the more passive role watching of animals that had allowed a bit of boredom to set in.

So we continued down the road and was rewarded by seeing a herd of Elephants and then some Giraffes along the road.

Then, there was a nice open area along the lake where they had a boardwalk that went out into the lake. Cape buffalos and a huge number of Flamingos were all over the lake shore.

And then we saw a female Lion along the road. Sleeping, but she poked her head up a couple times for us.

And then a pair of female lions were sleeping along the road as we headed out of the park. A nice way to finish the safari.

But I have to admit, the Lions I saw during this trip acted a LOT like my cats at home: Sleeping most of the day, randomly deciding they had to clean their fur for some reason, looking up at me indifferently when I approached them, and then going back to sleep after eating. 🙂

We returned to Arusha and bid our safari guide goodbye at Zawadi House.

I enjoyed a hot shower to wash away the dirt of the safari and refresh myself. Then I got that pizza that I was longing for while climbing Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro. Who knew they had Pizza Huts in Tanzania. 🙂

A partial list of animals seen during my safaris (there were more that I didn’t get the names of or forgot):

Felines
Lion

Apes
Black-and-White Colobus Monkey
Blue Monkey (aka Blue Ball Monkey-you can see why is a couple of the pictures)
Olive Baboon
White Tailed Monkey

Hoofed Mammals
Bushbuck
Cape Buffalo
Dik Dik
Elephant
Giraffe
Hippopotamus
Impala
Thompson’s Gazelle
Warthog
Waterbuck
Wildebeest
Zebra

Other Mammals
Jackle
Mongoose

Birds
African Fish Eagle
African Jacana
Black Kite
Flamingo
Ostrich
The Secretary Bird
White Headed Vulture

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the see any Rhinos or Leopards (or other big cats beside the Lions). Rhinos are pretty rare, even in Africa. Apparently the overcast weather in Ngorongoro Crater made it unlikely to see any there. Leopards are mostly found in Tanzania in the Serengeti, so seeing any of those was a long shot anyway.

Last Day in Tanzania
The next day was mostly spent trying to figure out how to pack my bags for the return flight since I had a bunch of new T-Shirts and souvenirs to take back with me. Despite my impulses to buy a lot of souvenirs and T-Shirts during my trips I either have learned to resist the urge, didn’t find enough interesting things to buy, or was strong willed enough to avoid spending a lot of cash during this trip. Since most of the trip was paid for ahead of time, during the actual trip it didn’t seem to be costing me much out of pocket. Of course, the Tanzanian Shilling was roughly 10,000 TZS = $4.33 USD so it seemed like I was spending a lot of money for a bottle of Coca-Cola most of the time. “How many thousands for that Coke?”

Since my flight wasn’t until later than night, I did take one last trip into Arusha to the Africa Culture Center and Masai Market for some souvenir shopping. There were a few things I had seen and that I had in mind to buy, so this gave me a final chance to get them.

I passed on a bow and arrow set that was interesting and got a nice mini-spear display that would be a bit easier to display in my house. A nice set of carved wooden Elephant bookends also caught my eye as well as several wax paintings and wall hangings. Plus a few Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru bumper stickers for my car to add to my row of summits and accomplishments over the past 10 years. Although it’s now two rows of bumper stickers.

And as I looked through the Masai Market one last time before heading back to the hotel to get ready to go to the airport, I found the holy grail:

A Mt Meru T-Shirt!

I hadn’t seen anything in my previous shopping trips, not even to the little shop at the entrance gate of the park containing Mt Meru. But there it was finally.

But in a large size. 🙁 Well, darn. I resisted just buying it anyway (I have several too small T-Shirts from Japan due to their smaller average sizes and my inability to resist an impulse buy) and continued looking through the shops. But since I had seen the T-Shirt and the color it was, I tried to scan the T-Shirt piles as I looked around the rest of the market. Score! One dark gray, X-Large, Mt Meru T-Shirt at the bottom of a tall stack of T-Shirts.

It’s silly, but that seemed to be a big thing for me to be able to find at the last moment.

One thing I couldn’t find in Tanzania (or even online after my trip) was a Mt Kilimanjaro 2020 calendar. I did find a few calendars online for previous years and one Tanzania 2020 calendar, but the pictures in it kind of sucked. Maybe as the new year approaches I’ll find a good one.

If not, I’ll just go through my thousands of photos and make one myself. 🙂

And on the way to the airport I got one last thrill for the trip:

Some spectacular clear views of Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro! Unfortunately, I had packed my camera into my carry on bag, so I only had my iPhone handy to take some pictures. Regardless, it was a nice way to end my time in Tanzania.

Wrapping it all up
Despite carefully weighing my bags and keeping my big one under the 50 pound limit, they ended up just weighing my two checked bags together so in the end I didn’t have to be as careful about shifting some things to the smaller duffel bag as I had been.

Naturally, I ended up buying a few things at the shops at the Kilimanjaro International Airport. Too much free time before my fight departed (it was an hour and half late in departing) was my undoing.

Fortunately, I made my connection in Dubai with plenty of time to spare, but the flights home were long (26+ hours on planes and in airports) and left me even more exhausted.

But it was nice to get home and relax a bit before having to unpack, do my laundry, start organizing my souvenirs, and get started looking through my thousands of photos and writing up some reports for my friends, family, website, and anyone who ask me about my ‘I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro’ T-Shirts. I think I ended up with about a dozen of those. 🙂 🙂

Oh… had to go back to work, although I did have to take an extra day off than I originally (somewhat unrealistically) thought I would have to. Even with the 4 days of safari to get over some of the aches and pains of the treks up Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro, I was in no condition to go into San Francisco on BART and try to fix things.

My mind and body needed more fixing at that point. 🙂

But overall, I think I held up pretty good considering what I all did during those three weeks. Unlike what sometimes happened after my other big treks, I never really had a huge crash and burn where my body was so sore and stiff I had trouble even moving around for days. Either my training had gotten me into better shape, the schedule I worked out helped keep my body in motion by not taking any long rests, or my body enjoyed the grueling climbs I put it through. Probably not that last one. 🙂

Two weeks later, I felt mostly human.

Mostly.

In retrospect, there are some things I should have done differently:

I should have gone in September instead of October. While the historical weather records didn’t indicate Tanzania getting a lot of rain during October, tall mountains tend to create their own weather patterns that are hard to predict. While the weather didn’t ruin the trip or diminish the successful summiting of both Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro for me, the rain did (literally) dampen my time there and cost me some of the grand views I was was hoping for at the summits and along the trails.
As usual, there are a few souvenirs I wished I’d bought after all and few things I wish I hadn’t.
The second day of the safari seemed a bit like filler and the kind of thing typical travel agencies put together for regular tourists in order to pad out an itinerary. Not quite the cultural experience I had thought it would be and wouldn’t have been missed if I skipped it. Of course, I only know I could have skipped it without regret because I had experienced it.
Otherwise, the actual itinerary for the treks and other days of the safari worked out pretty well.
Only in the days leading up to my flight to Tanzania did it occur to me that both my flight into Tanzania and out of it were in full darkness. I figured this out when I was trying to decide on what side of the plane to get a window seat on so I could see Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru from the air and then realized it didn’t matter since it would be dark. When I was buying the plane tickets, this didn’t occur to me. Bad foresight on my part, but six months before the trip it was hard to picture everything.
I wish I had investigated a scenic air flight over Kilimanjaro more before the trip, but didn’t think I could squeeze it in and the weather would be hard to predict ahead of time. Ironically, the only time I was in Moshi or Arusha with great clear weather was the final day.

In the end, those are minor quibbles.

I can’t complain too much since I did manage to summit both Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro, after all.

Those will be accomplishments I can be proud of for the rest of my life.

And while I don’t plan on returning to Tanzania any time soon, I do think I’d like to climb Kilimanjaro again someday.

Can’t be any more successful doing a big climb than that: Being successful and STILL wanting to go back for more.

Onward and upward!!!

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A collection of all of my Tanzania 2019 Photos and Movies:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wanderingjim/collections/72157711519926736/

Safari movies:

Note: Movies are very shaky and mostly unedited. I normally try to edit my posted videos to remove glitches and bad pans, but there were too many movies for the safari. So, enjoy as is.

Day 1 Tarangire Highlights: