Africa - Tanzania Safari Time

Safari in Tanzania

Carrie and I like to travel, if you couldn't tell. It has long been one of our goals to travel to all seven continents. Actually the original goal was to travel to six of the seven continents prior to having children (we are still a long ways from seriously contemplating children - sorry mom) but due to a fortuitous once in a lifetime type trip a couple of years ago to Antarctica (thank you to those who made it possible - you know who you are) we
revised this goal to traveling to all seven continents and Carrie refined it even further to get all seven continents on one passport. Therefore with a long winded introduction I am writing about our trip to Africa which is our seventh continent together and yes Carrie did manage to get all seven continents in a single passport Gust barely).

In August we traveled from Singapore to Kilimanjaro Tanzania (via Dubai and Nairobi) to start a one week African safari. 

On Emirates excited for Dubai and eventually our Safari

McDonald's in Arabic - read right to left. Make sure to order the McArabia

Are we there yet?

These posts will be very photo heavy with brief comments on the actual locations we went, and really the pictures speak for themselves as the scenery and wildlife were simply stunning (to put it mildly). The documentaries, photos, and whatever else you have seen or we can show you does not do the safari experience justice.

Arrival and Arusha

Like most travelers we arrived in Arusha (the starting point for most Tanzania safaris) after a long trip through various airports (Dubai is a nice airport and Nairobi is one of the worst). We arrived in the evening with a glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the sunset and were picked up by our Discovery Adventures jeep (which would be our limo for the next week) and driven to our hotel. 

Mt. Kilimanjaro

My first impression of Tanzania was "this is amazing". The people were very nice, the airport including immigration was exotically rustic, small and efficient (luckily they only get one flight every few hours), our driver spoke great English, the Masai tribal people looked just like in every documentary I had seen, the smell was so different than our travels around Asia, and I really was in Africa. My second thoughts about ten minutes later was while I already know I will love this adventure how come the power keeps going out and the roads are so rough.

Arusha doesn't have much to see except for an interesting central market, which took about an hour to tour thanks to our enterprising young guide who tried to rip us off, as if we hadn't seen that trick before. The market was interesting though and I was amazed at the amount of produce, the crammed stall spaces, the beautiful textiles and handicrafts and the great people who were smiling and talkative and seemed happy to show off their wares to Carrie and me, as there were not many tourists who actually walk around town. This can be confirmed by the fact that our hotel only had one city map, which we had to return to them so it could be used again.

After a day in Arusha, we met our amazing and friendly travel mates got a briefing about our itinerary (Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, and Ngorogoro Crater as the highlights). We popped some champagne to start the trip off right and celebrate and then nodded off for the night before starting our jeep ride into the wild.