Safari Day 1

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I have done a blog post, Scott and I took a little holiday in Tanzania! We went on a safari for a week and then to Zanzibar for a few days :) But we are back on St Helena now and I am back to writing posts. I hope you enjoy the following few full of animal photos!

(Sept. 5, 2023)

Over the past two weeks Scott and I have been traveling through Tanzania. We went on a safari starting in Arusha, going to Tarangire National park, Lake Manyara and then through the Serengeti and the Ngorogoro Crater.

Our first day began after a long multiple flight journey to get to Tanzania from St Helena. We left Monday afternoon from the island, and got to Arusha, Tanzania by 9am on Tuesday. It took us three flights, transitioning through Johannesburg and Nairobi to finally get to Kilimanjaro airport, at the foot of the Mount Kilimanjaro. Here we were picked up by the safari company and then began our drive toward Tarangire National Park to meet up with the rest of our group who had begun earlier that morning.

After about a two hour drive, traveling through little towns and Masaai villages where the men and women were draped in colorful wraps and scarfs to protect them from the sun, dust and sand, we made it to the park and began driving around looking out for animals. Some of the first we spotted were zebras and wildebeest having some lunch in the fields. As we continued we came to a roundabout where a small family of lions were resting in the bushes from the sun.

We drove around for about half an hour before we made it to the picnic area. Here we met up with the rest of our safari group and had a lunch of rice, beans, vegetables and chicken which was cooked in a coconut curry sauce which was super delicious - and also our first real meal since leaving St Helena (because of being on planes and plane food doesn’t count). In the picnic area were small monkeys who were taking advantage of the “free” food and jumping around to the different tables seeing what they could get. From here we could also look out over a river where we saw giraffes and elephants having a drink of water from a stream.

After lunch we continued driving through the park (this time with the rest of the people from our tour). And we came across two large herds of elephants, and one big bull who walked right up and past the car, so close we could almost touch him.

As we made our way out of the park we came across more zebras, colorful birds, and when we got back to the entrance, there was a whole mob of mongooses scavenging around and making high pitched squeaks.

We ended our day at the accommodation which was a private hut overlooking Lake Manyara - our destination for the next day.