“I believe there is no sickness of the heart too great it cannot be cured by a dose of Africa. Families must go there to learn why they belong together on this earth, adolescents to discover humility, lovers to plumb old but untried wells of passion, honeymooners to seal marriages with a shared sense of bafflement, those shopworn with life to find a tonic for futility, and the aged to recognize a symmetry to twilight. I know this all sounds a bit much, but if I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.”
— John Hemingway
My wife and I could not agree more — a safari to Tanzania, and especially to the Serengeti, home to the largest concentration of animals in the whole country, is truly a life-changing experience.
The Serengeti is arguably the finest national park in Africa and offers a cornucopia of wildlife viewing. Just about every large animal in East Africa can be regularly seen in the ecosystem, and truly extraordinary animal and bird sightings are frequent. No matter how many times you go back, there are always moments of rare animal behavior that thrill even the most jaded guide or guest. That’s why we’re going back for our third safari next spring. The lure of this magical land is too much to resist.
In the past, our safari has begun with an overnight flight from Atlanta to the Netherlands. We flew out in the early evening so we arrived in the early morning in Amsterdam. This schedule allowed us to refresh and acclimate to the time change or take the train into Amsterdam for a day of touring. We spent the night in a hotel at the airport and resumed our travels the next morning.
Our flight then continued on to Kilimanjaro, where we arrived early evening. We were then met at the airport by our tour company, quickly escorted through immigration and whisked off to a lodge in the small town of Arusha.
After a late dinner the first night, the sleeping accommodations were a welcome sight. Nothing disturbed us now except the occasional skittering of the monkeys on the rooftops. After a restful evening, the next morning we joined others for breakfast and then explored the lodge facilities, or, on other occasions, asked the host for a minibus tour into the bustling town of Arusha.
Early the next morning, we were taken to a local airstrip to board the 20-seat airplane for the start of our adventure. After a short flight over the Serengeti, with views of the changing landscape from arid scrubland to lush green vegetation, we landed in the Seronera region of the Central Serengeti. It is here we met up with our Tanzanian driver and guide, who welcomed us to his Land Rover, which provided transportation for the next seven days.
The well-trained and experienced guides we have traveled with are wonderful, and they are walking, talking encyclopedias of knowledge about the animals, the land, the culture and their own nation. From the smallest bird to the biggest elephant, be prepared to learn about the habits and habitat of the wonderful creatures that roam the 10,000 square miles of the Serengeti.
At a quick glance, the numbers are astonishing — 1.7 million wildebeest, 250,000 zebra and 440,000 Thomson’s gazelles. Hyenas are the most numerous carnivores at about 9,000. The area includes about 2,800 lions, 1,000 leopards and 500 cheetahs. The ecosystem supports an incredible diversity of large mammals, including elephant, hippo, rhino, giraffe, Cape buffalo, warthog, 19 species of antelope and three species of primates. We were fortunate the first time to see most of them — up close and personal — with our second trip just as breathtaking an experience as the first.
On our first safari and within 15 minutes of boarding the Land Rover, we came upon a herd of Cape buffalo, known as the meanest and most ill-tempered critter we saw. A few minutes later, a herd of elephants wandered by, unfazed by our presence until the male turned around, raised his trunk, straightened out his ears, trumpeted and prepared to charge. As we prepared to drive off, the male gave a satisfied grunt as if to say, “Well, I scared them, didn’t I,” abruptly turned tail and wandered off to resume his leadership of the herd.
Every day has been a new experience as we took the time to watch a lioness stalk a wildebeest, start the chase and bring it down to provide a meal for her cubs and the rest of the pride, then fighting off the hyenas looking for a free meal and then watching the hyenas battle the vultures for leftovers. On the safari, travelers see the famous great migration of wildebeest, zebra and gazelles take place before their eyes.
The migratory movements are slightly different for each species, but the pattern is generally clockwise using the Southern Serengeti plains in the green and rainy season and the Northern Serengeti woodlands in the dry season. The wildebeest is at heart a giant lawnmowing machine that quickly exhausts the pastures and has to move on to find food, followed by the zebra and gazelles. We found out that the wildebeest brave the rain-swollen rivers first, satisfying the hungry African crocodiles that gorge themselves on the fresh meat. The zebra are smart. They cross the rivers weeks later, after the crocs have had their fill and losses to their herds are less. Without our personal guide to explain how the whole ecosystem works, we would miss out on so much knowledge.
For seven days, we experience the awesome sights of this wondrous place, savoring all we have learned from our new best friend, the driver and guide, but then it was time to leave. The safari concluded back where we started in Arusha, where we return all too soon to the lodge by midday, have a quick bite and attend to last-minute packing in a day room before leaving for the airport early in the evening.
With luck, we got a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro on the way. Our mid-evening flight got us into Amsterdam by the next morning, and later that day, to our final flight home.
Lance Jensen and his wife, Marge, are travel agents living in Tellico Village.
