We bopped around Tanzania in an open pop-top safari vehicle for 14 days during "the great northward migration". Places visited included Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara, Tarangire, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Northern Serengeti and Mara River to the Seronera River in the Serengeti National Park. Following the safari, we flew to Zanzibar and had a few relaxing days in the old stone town. See the map of our journey or our itinerary.
Here begins our photo tour. Click on the individual sections for more photos than you probably
want to look at.
It's a dog eat dog, er ... hmm ... hyena eat zebra world out there.
We saw 249 species of birds and added approximately 234 to our life list on this trip. After seeing the world's smallest bird, the Bee Hummingbird in Cuba earlier this year, it was great to go to the other extreme and see an Ostrich in the wild on this trip.
Fun and colorful sights abounded in the markets, John jumped with the Maasai, and we found 11 geocaches during this trip. After the find in Arusha NP we celebrated having geocache finds on each of the 7 continents.
A sounder of warthogs, an implausability of gnus, an obstinacy of buffalo, a crossing of zebras .... We saw them all.
Along with neighboring Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro forms a huge interdependent ecosystem, containing the largest concentration of wildlife on earth and the world's largest caldera, Ngorongoro Crater. It was established as a multiple land use area in 1959 with wildlife coexisting with semi-nomadic Maasai herders. Extensive archaeological research in and around Olduvai Gorge has yielded many finds, including early hominid footprints (Laetoli) dating back 3.6 million years.
The vast plains of the Serengeti comprise 1.5 million ha of savannah. The annual migration to permanent water holes of vast herds of herbivores (wildebeest (aka gnu), gazelles and zebras), followed by their predators, is one of the most impressive natural events in the world.
After our safari, we spent a few days on our own on the island of Zanzibar located in the Indian Ocean approximately 25 miles off the coast of the mainland. We spent most of our time wandering the narrow streets in the historic center, Stone Town, a World Heritage Site.
The endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey (Procolobus kirkii) was classified as an endangered species and in the mid-1990s. It is only found in three forests on Zanzibar.
Tanzania Map.
Lynn and John Salmon <>{