A Tanzanian Safari

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Edward and I spent 3 days on safari in Northern Tanzania. We visited the immense Ngorongoro Crater, the lush Lake Manyara and the majestic Tarangire Park. Hopefully this blog is informative and helpful for any people out there planning a safari in Tanzania.

Day One - Ngorongoro Crater: On our first day we were picked up from Arusha; where we had been staying for our first days in laid back Tanzania. It was a short drive to our first national park: Ngorongoro Crater. My first impression was that the park was vast and impenetrable. Once we’d entered the gates, we had to descend to the crater via a narrow, winding dirt track. We saw plenty of monkeys and other wildlife on the descent.

Once in the crater we saw lions, zebra and wildebeest. We also managed to catch a glimpse of two black rhinos, which made us feel incredibly lucky! Despite a really enjoyable day, I would have to say Ngorongoro crater was my least favourite of the national parks we visited in Tanzania and Kenya. I think the reason for this is that the park is huge, making it hard to see a variety of wildlife. Our driver also informed us that wildlife visibility is very dependent on the climate: we visited on a particularly hot day, meaning wildlife was more hidden.

Having said this ^^, Ngorongoro crater was still a lot of fun and worth the visit!

Day two - Lake Manyara: Flocked by flamboyant flamingos, Lake Manyara was a truly beautiful national park. It was lovely to experience a park with extremely different landscape: as we drove along the track, vines of trees streamed across our path like ribbons. The landscape was so fresh, lush and green.

Our day was dotted with baboon and giraffe sightings. Through the trees we watched elephants shred tree trunks, their muscular trunks winding around and around.

We had a really amazing time at Lake Manyara and would definitely recommend it as a cheaper safari option (when compared to the Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater).

Day three - Tarangire Park: My absolute favourite park was Tarangire National Park: covered in huge twisted trees, with gnarled trunks resembling knuckles on a fist. The park was absolutely full of elephants of all shapes and sizes, as well as small vibrantly coloured birds flitting between ancient baobab trees. The park is definitely underrated and is absolutely teaming with subtle beauty, with winding weeds crawling up tree vines like sly serpents. Spending a half day here was a perfect ending to safari. We’ll tell you about our experience being vegan in east Africa in our next blog!