15 | February | 2014 | Rob and Linds

After all the traveling, we were happy to take some time doing absolutely nothing on the island of Zanzibar — an small island just off the coast of Tanzania. We came here after a recommendation from our UK friends, Tom and Lynne.

It took us about an hour to get to our hotel at the tip of the island — a very remote place on the island. Once we arrived at our hotel, we were in heaven! It was beautiful!

The ocean waters around the island remain at about 80 degrees year round. This was very warm for us when comparing to the ocean water in South Africa and in some ways did not feel all that refreshing especially with the 100% humidity. Additionally, the tides were some of the biggest we’ve seen! By 10 AM, the tides were about 3 football fields from the shore then within a matter of hours, the tide would smash against the cement wall (see picture below). It was fascinating to watch and pretty unique!

On our way to the airport, our taxi driver got stopped 5 different times by the police. At the final stop, the police wrote him a “ticket” for his front windshield (apparently, it was too dark). When the driver got back in the car, he told us that bribes with the police are a fairly common practice on the island. He had to pay them off to continue driving! It didn’t stop there… once we arrived at the airport, we were checking in and the person taking our bags would not stop staring at Rob. Rob was smart enough not to make eye contact. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice and walked around towards the gate when he stopped me and asked for a tip to “ensure our bags were looked after”. When I told him I didn’t have any cash on me he seemed disappointed – which made me worried about our bags even making it! Next, once we paid the export tax, I went to get a bottled water inside/ near the gate. The store owner asked if I was American. When I responded yes, he began by explaining how I could help him with a problem he’s been having for years. He then proceeded to take out a one-hundred dollar bill and explained that the corner was ripped and therefore he could no longer use it. Since he could not access an American bank, he asked if I could replace his one-hundred dollar bill with a crisp one-hundred dollar bill that I had. I honestly laughed out loud. I couldn’t believe he was asking me to basically give him $100 – as his was clearly counterfeit! By this point, I was ready to leave and get back “home”…

Minus the few minor issues we had getting to the airport, Zanzibar was a beautiful place to visit. We had a great time .. doing nothing!

Kind of strangely, Duma called our safari company to saying we wanted Isaac to be our guide for the rest of the trip. Isaac was the driver who took us to Mt Meru and all we said to Duma was it was nice that he was driving faster than our previous safari guide, Francis. We assumed that Duma was just doing a favor for his buddy but learned after the fact that he had just met Isaac the same day we did.

Anyway, Isaac picked us up at 9:00 am and we started the two hour drive to Tarangire National Park. It was a much smoother drive, only small segments of dirt road. Along the drive, we passed through a number of Maasai villages. The Maasai still live in very simple mud and straw huts, they are nomadic, and still wear simple robes. The robes are always red or blue. Issac told us that many years ago the Maasai moved to east Africa from the Sudan. They were attacked by crocodile as they crossed the Nile so the red represents the blood that was shed and blue represents the Nile River.

We spent about 4 hours driving through the park and saw a ton of animals. Some of the highlights were: spending about 15 minutes right in the middle of a heard of about 40 elephants, seeing several giraffes up close for the first time, a lone female lion looking like she was about to make a kill, and another leopard. We were very lucky to see another leopard, although this one was not as dramatic as Queen Elizabeth National Park. We also saw a lot of ostrich, warthog, elephants, impala, and zebra.

We spent the night at the Tarangire Safari Lodge, which was amazing and by far our favorite thus far. The views from the lounge/ bar/ restaurant area was spectacular! Similar to the Queen Elizabeth Bush Lodge in Uganda, we had to be escorted to and from our room at night because of animals. We saw a lot of birds and monkeys but no big animals at the lodge.

A two hour drive took us to the gates of Ngorongoro Conservation area, at the base of the outside of the crater. While this was not our destination for the day, we did have to drive through to get to where we were going. This gave us a sneak peak of Ngorongoro Crater via a lookout point where we stopped to take a few photos. Absolutely stunning views of the crater which made us excited to drive down in two days. Our first stop was another hour down the road, Oldupai Gorge, home of the earliest recorded human fossils.

To get there we drove through some amazing green valleys, and a number of Massai villages. Again, Linds and I were overwhelmed by how traditional they still live. As we got closer to Oldupai the landscape started to open up and flatten out and we started to see more and more zebra, wildebeest, Thompson gazelle, and giraffe.

We both found Oldupai Gorge very interesting. There was a museum where we learned about the history and then caught a quick lecture by one of the staff. The main attraction were 2-3 sets of footprints of man, woman and child dated back to 3.6 million years ago. While we couldn’t see the actual footprints (we saw a replica of it), the sight was not far away. The footprints were preserved so well by volcanic ash which can have a chemical reaction, turning to cement. Just before the volcano erupted some 3.6 million year ago, the family walked in the path shown below. In addition to the footprints, this gorge is home to hundreds of other fossils, and is still actively excavated today.

We made our way towards Ndutu where we were stayed at the Ndutu Safari Lodge. This was located at the start of the Serengeti and we could see why this translates to “endless plane”. Soon we were completely surrounded by animals as far as the eye could see (which included thousands of wildebeests, zebras and gazelle). This was part of the great migration they go through every year where millions of them follow the rain patterns, literally towards greener pastures. A very cool experience and one of my favorite drives of the trip. Later, we saw another male lion, giraffe, and elephant.

Home was at Ndutu Safari Lodge where we had individual cabin right on the edge of open space. I heard lions roaring early in the morning; although Linds didn’t believe me until two other couples confirmed they heard the noises as well! Very cool experience!

After a quick drive through Ndutu we made our way back onto the plane and into the massive heard. The entrance to Serengeti National park was not too far away where we stopped briefly at the front gate. We made our way to our lodge for the night (primarily so they could start our Mt Meru laundry!). The lodge was very impressive and had the best facilities we have had so far. It was built into the rocks and had a lot of animals around.

The highlight of the afternoon game drive was a close encounter with a leopard. Isaac got us right under the tree it was sleeping in and we were lucky enough to see it wake up and walk down the tree right in front of us. We were literally feet away and got an awesome video. We saw 3 leopards that day which was very rare we were told. We also saw a cheetah and several more lions.

Best part about it – we were able to catch it on video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMpNX_ZrUl0&feature=youtu.be). One of the most amazing parts was the moment as the leopard was walking away. You could hardly see the shape of their body within a matter of feet, since the leopard blended easily into the grasses of the Serengeti. By the fourth picture, you couldn’t even see him – yet he was only 20 yards away!! Truly amazing!

We made our way towards Ngorongoro Crater for our last day of safari. On the way, we saw two hyenas eating a freshly killed wildebeest which was really cool (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24XdcksOKTU&feature=youtu.be). In terms of beautiful scenery, Ngorongoro was by far both of our favorites! From the top of the crater you can see the perfectly shaped crater and the steep walls that create the bowl.

On the crater floor you are surrounded by animals: zebra, lions, elephant, hippos, buffalo, flamingos, and the highlight of the day, rhino. We ended up seeing all of the “African Big Five” – rhino, elephant, buffalo, lion, and leopard. Isaac told us we were very lucky to have even seen one rhino, let alone five! We were able to catch a video (http://youtu.be/dT1INpEqnes) – According to Isaac, this particular rhino was interested in passing the road we were on but could smell that we were there. In other words, a rhino’s vision is very poor but their smell is extremely powerful.