Lions, leopards and hyenas…
Dan and I decided to spend our first few days in Tanzania by doing a two-day safari. On day 1 we went to Lake Manyara and on day 2 we went to the Ngorongoro Crater. It was a huge success. We saw zebras, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, lions, hyenas, wildabeast, warthogs, a leopard and a cheetah. A female lion walked right in front of our jeep and layed down. Lions are known for being quite lazy and are not scared of the safari jeeps. It was really cool to see her close up, we could even see scratches on her face from past confrontations, perhaps with hyenas. We also got some good giraffe views and was surprised at how much their heads look like camel heads up close. They are not too pretty, but are quite cute, in an ugly sort of way. The warthogs we saw were a full family with babies, which were very adorable. After recently seeing a discovery channel documentary on the hyena, I was hoping to hear their famous cackle, but that wasn’t to be. However I can’t complain too much because I did get to hear our 20 year-old safari companions argue for about an hour about whether a zebra is black on white or white on black.
I will leave you with two great trivia questions, dan and I received from our safari mates:
What are the 10 countries in the world that have only four letter names (in English at least)?
What two countries begin with “A” but don’t end with “A”?
Tags: Tanzania, Tanzania; Safari; Lake Manyara; Ngorongoro Crater;
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March 20th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Off the top of my head without looking at a map I get:
Peru, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Fiji, Mali
and
Azerbijan & Afghanistan
I have a question for you guys. Tom & I are seriously considering a long trip/sabattical and are wondering if you are getting tired of traveling. Are there days where you just want the comfort of your own home and a home cooked meal? Is 6 months too long to travel continuously where things just blend into eachoher or is it still lots of fun?
March 20th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Hi my boyfriend and I are interested in a Tanzania safari the first week of April. Were you satisfied with your safari company and/or would you recommend it? Thanks!
March 25th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Jessie– Good job with the trivia:)
Dan and I are not tired of travelling. We get tired of sightseeing but when that happens we relax at the beach for awhile or do some hiking. There are certain comforts of home that we miss but not too much. Every now and then we find a hostel with a kitchen and the other day we were even able to cook some American brownies, which we had been craving. It’s funny b/c now some things I miss are not even American, like now in Egypt, what I wouldn’t give for some southeast asian food…or for the delicious ice cream I found in Thailand. We miss our friends/family, but you make friends easily while traveling and we have had many good times with other travellers.
I think six months is a good amount of time. There is still so much to see though that we didn’t have time for, but that is okay for us. We know which places we really want to return to.
If you guys decide to do it, let us know and we can pass on what we have learned. For Dan and I it was a great decision and we do not regret taking off one bit.
Paula
March 25th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Valarie- Yes, we were very satisfied with our safari and safari company. The same guy who organized our Kilimanjaro trek, organized our safari. His name is Paul Shayo and dan published his e-mail above on the Kilimanjaro blog. He is very honest and fair. Tell him we say hi.