We started out in Tarangire which is quite famous for its baobab trees and herds upon herds of elephants. It was so amazing and probably my favorite out of all the parks because getting so close to so many beautiful creatures was just awesome. We also saw several lions, baboons, warthogs, ostrich, and giraffes upon other things. After Tarangire, we drove up to a campsite atop a mountain that overlooks Lake Minyara which was fun for watching the sunrise the next morning. We also spent a good day in the Serengeti, which we had to drive through the Ngorongoro crater conservation area to get all the way out to the Serengeti (Masai word for plain). And boy, the Serengeti is the African Kansas, a vast expanse of grasslands with the occasional tree and watering oasis scattered about. We saw tons of wildabeast and zebra on our drive out; the wildabeast migration from Kenya is about to peak here in March/April, so it was a great time to see literally a countless number of these creatures. The Serengeti was also great for leopard spotting as they sleep in the trees (we saw 3 which is quite rare to see so many on just one trip). We also saw more lions, water buffalo, giraffes, another elephant or 2, lots of hippos in those watering holes I had mentioned. Serengeti was a fantastic time, but the population of animal life was not nearly as dense as in Tarangire, where there were animals and elephants around every bend in the road. Lastly, after departing the Serengeti, we spent a night & day in the Ngorongoro crater where we got to see even more herd animals, hyenas, literally thousands of flamingoes blanketting the lake at the crater floor (a carpet of pink!) and 1 black rhino! With our finding the black rhino we completed our task of catching a glimpse of Africa's BIG 5: the elephant, water buffalo, lion, leopard, and the rhino. So exciting and all of us on the trip were hoping and praying that we could at least do the top 5! In the end, we got to see so so much more, a very successful safari to say the least. Pics that you won't see are of the leopard (well, there's a poor one in the album I shared above) and then the rhino is completely missing because we only got a good view through binoculars. More on the Ngorongoro Crater, it is a very interesting geological feature b/c it used to be Africa's largest volcano before is spewed out all of its internal contents which left a hollow cone pillar that then imploded, collapsing in upon itself to form the bowl shaped feature, a flat plain making up the valley floor with impressive mountains all surrounding.
Besides the animal life, I will comment that the star gazing and sunrises in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro were absolutely incredible. I was most impressed with the stars. About 5:30am each morning the moon dipped below the horizon leaving the brilliance of the milky way completely uninhibited. I've never seen stars so bright, and the milky way looked like clouds in the sky; it was so prominent. Furthermore, I got to see something that can only be seen along the equator, the southern cross on one horizon with the big dipper on the opposite horizon. Absolutely spectacular!
Here is a pic of my safari mates; 3 Australian medical students from a school in Sydney who were heaps of fun! Henry, Henry, & Sheektah, and that's our beige colored (not the green one...that one just pulled up as I was snapping the pic) Toyota land cruiser in the backdrop. Cheers guys!
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