Safari njema

Meaning good journey. Just a quick post to let y'all know that I survived my safari! I am leaving my 'home' of Arusha this afternoon to start on my l-o-n-g journey to Canada.

I left Arusha on Monday morning for a short 3 day safari. First we visited Tanganerie National Park. It is about 2.5 hours drive from Arusha. Tanganerie is what I would describe as the 'classical' African landscape; rolling hills, arcadia & beautiful baobab trees and massive herds of elephants! Apparently it is the best place to see elephants here in Tanzania, with up to 2000 in the park during the wet season. And having been there, I'm not surprised. Within the first 30mins, I had seen about 40 elephants. I stopped counting at 60. And during the course of the day I probably saw in the order of 150-200 elephants, including lots of baby elephants which of course make me think of dumbo! Aside from lots of other things, probably my highlight of this park was seeing not 1 but 2 leopards together! Leopards, apparently, are solitary animals which are rarely seen. They live in the trees and so are difficult to spot. However at the moment it is mating season so we were lucky enough to see 2 leopards - male and female - laying in some grass by the side of the river. Gorgeous creatures!

Day 2 we headed off to the Ngorongoro Conversation Area to visit the Ngorongoro crater. The crater is actually a world heritage site and was formed when a volcano collapsed. The crater height is about 600m and too steep for most of the animals to get out off so (thankfully to the water springs in it) is permanently home to most of the animals who don't need to migrate during the dry season. It is about 20kms long & 10kms wide and home to something in the order of 200,000 animals - everything from rhinos, hippos, lions, cheetahs, zebras, warthogs, about 10 species of antelopes etc etc. It was very different from Tanganerie in that the floor of the crater was grass-covered; there are very few trees in the crater.It is also a conservation area rather than a national park for the reason that the Masaai are allowed to graze their cattle in the crater (as they have done for hundreds of years), sharing it with the resident wildlife. The highlight for me was probably seeing the cheetah laying in long grass and watching a lioness stalk some zebras by a waterhole. I felt like I was in the middle of a David Attenborough show. The zebras (and some nearby wildebeast) certainly knew she was in the area. I could just about hear David's voice in the background - "The lioness stalks closer to her prey, using the long grass to hide. The zebras take a short drink while staying watchful of her presence. The lioness cannot get any closer without giving away her location so the zebras live to survive another day. The lioness goes hungry - for now." LOL.

Finally we visited the Lake Manyara National Park which is home to a huge number of flamingos (the word flamingo is actually a Swahili word!) as well as (apparently) the only tree-climbing lions in the world. I said apparently because I didn't manage to see any. However I did see lots of giraffes (one of my favourite animals) including 2 male giraffes fighting over a girl as well as a herd of about 20 giraffes which was very special.

My guide was a lovely man by the name of Jepphat (pronounced Jeffhat) who paid me a beautiful compliment on the first day. He was very surprised by the amount of Swahili I knew - Swahili is now my second language it seems - and so he told me that he considered me "one of us, Swahili like me". So touching. I felt quite honoured by it.

I had better go & get some food and finish my packing. I fly out of Arusha this afternoon for Dar es Salaam (the capital of Tanzania) for 1 night before starting an epic journey to Canada. More tomorrow once I can string some final words together about this beautiful country & its people.