Tanzania

After our time in Kenya we crossed overland into Tanzania to continue our safari adventure.

First up we went to Serengeti. Serengeti is of course world famous (together with the Maasai Mara) for the big migrations. Unfortunately we were not there in the right season to see the migration but we still saw some huge herds of wildebeest and zebras roaming the lands.

Compared to the Mara, the Serengeti has some more undulating landscapes, some hills and a lot more forested areas.

Once again, we were blessed with many animal sightings, including a close up cheetah encounter, many many elephants which I never tire of watching, hippos yawning, gazelles fighting and a tree-climbing lion perched up in the branches of a fig tree.

Next, we went to the Ngorongoro Crater. This park is special because it literally lies inside the bowl of an old volcano crater and is surrounded by steep cliffs. This means that some of the wildlife never really leaves the crater and it makes for a very rich and dense animal population.

Here, we probably had one of our best days of safari ever. We saw a Zebra giving birth and the baby Zebra taking its first shaky steps after about 20min. We also saw a freshly born wildebeest who still had the umbilical chord attached. And then we came across a pride of lions sitting on the road, very close to a herd of unsuspecting wildebeest. We waited for a while and it seemed like nothing was going to happen, the lions were just sitting, doing nothing. But then, one lioness got up and slowly started stalking through the grass in a big circle around the back of the herd. Then out of nowhere she exploded into a sprint, causing the panicked wildebeest pack to disperse and run away. One of the wildebeest made the mistake to run straight towards where the rest of the pride were sitting in the grass. One of the other lions jumped out of its hiding place, and buried its teeth into the wildebeest’s throat. Together with 2 other lions they managed to drag it to the ground bringing this hunt to a successful finish. We got to witness it all up close from a few meters away. Given that only 30% of lions hunts are successful, it was an incredibly rare thing to see and left us all gobsmacked.

After all this excitement and many hours driving around in the safari vehicle, we needed some R&R. My brother flew home to Switzerland, back to work, but my parents joined us for a week at the beach in Zanzibar.

Zanzibar has some lovely white sand beaches, palm trees, hot weather and the sweetest pineapples ever. But it also feels quite touristy with hotels and beach bars lining the coast. The capital of Stonetown still has more of an authentic feel with its beautiful wooden doors and winding alleys. The island is predominantly muslim and as we were sitting on a rooftop for dinner, we could hear the call to prayer around us at sunset which made for a very cool experience.

One day, Hadleigh and I rented a scooter and went for a drive along the coast. We had read beforehand about possible police roadblocks and corruption on the island and of course it happened to us. A policeman stopped us and asked how fast we had been going. We said probably around 50km/h and he then said: “well, here its only allowed 40km/h, this is your first offence”. There were no signs for speed limits anywhere.. He then proceeded with “also, when I waived for you to stop you did not set your blinker before stopping on the side of the road. That’s your second offense”. I had to laugh out loud, it was so absurd and obvious what he was doing. He goes “do you want to go to the courthouse with this? Otherwise, you give me 50’000 shilling and it goes away”. We didn’t feel like arguing or wasting lots of time going to a police station, so we paid up and were on our way. But it left a bit of a sour taste in our mouth...

Nonetheless, Tanzania provided us with some very varied experiences, from hot beaches to wet forests and volcanoes, from wild animals to pushy souvenir-sellers, it was definitely never boring.