Day 1

I hate 3:30am wake-up calls, but with a 6:00am departure, it is a bit of a necessity. Public transportation doesn't run that early, so we booked with Andrew Le Cabbie, who we have had great luck with in the past for our early flights. We ended up leaving on the day of a National Strike against a proposed retirement reform, but luckily for us, none of our flights were cancelled. Everything went quite smoothly with the pickup and the flights. Our KLM flight went from Toulouse to Amsterdam, and then on to Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania. The AMS airport is a great transit airport as it is very efficient, including having the automatic passport channels.

Note that our flight destination is Entebbe as the flight goes from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro and then to Entebbe before heading back to Amsterdam. On our return flight, we did a stop-over in Entebbe. If you don't know why "Entebbe" sounds familiar, there was a 1977 NBC TV movie called "Raid on Entebbe". In 1976, a set of terrorists hijacked an Air France flight at Athens and diverted the plane to Entebbe Airport in Uganda (with President Idi Amin's blessing). The objective was to free a set of prisoners in Israel (and 4 other countries). They separated Israelis and non-Israeli Jews from the rest of the passengers, releasing the non-Israeli/non-Jewish hostages. The Raid was a hostage rescue mission carried out by commandos from the Israeli Defense Forces, who successfully rescued all but 4 hostages. All the hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and 11 Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed.

The plane itself seemed fairly old, since while every seat had a personal entertainment system, it wasn't a touch-screen and required the little remote. The headphones that were given out by the airline also required a little adapter.

We arrived on-time and walked off and across the tarmac to the terminal building (seems that this airport doesn't have jetways or buses). We had already gotten our visas (instead of doing the Visa on Arrival) and met our guide as we exited. It seems like Toyota has a monopoly on safari vehicles, since probably 99% of what we saw were specialty Toyota Land Cruisers.

Since our flight arrived in the evening we stayed overnight near Arusha. It was only 33 miles but took 90 minutes to get there with the less-than-ideal-roads and traffic. We were staying there for 2 nights, so I'll include the pictures in the Day 2/Arusha National Park page below.

I should also make a note here that, while I do have LOTS of pictures and videos, this was more of an experience for us than a photo opportunity. We did not bother trying to get a better camera with a serious zoom lens, but instead, just used our iPhone camera for everything. We had 2 pair of binoculars that we used so while some animals were quite a ways away and are pretty much impossible to see in a picture, we could see them quite well with the binoculars.

Day 2

We slept well and had a good breakfast. Unlike most of the places, this was not a breakfast buffet, we got to select from about 10 items on the menu. The most interesting thing here is that we had mango juice and we knew it was fresh because we could hear it being juiced/blended. My day 2 blog will include the Arusha National Park game drive (#1 on the map) and our hotel (the red hotel icon).

Day 3

Another good nights sleep and breakfast before we checked out and got on the road for a 2-hour drive to the Lake Manyara National Park for another game drive. The park was nice and had quite a few more trees. The lake is really big and the guide said that it gets quite a bit larger during the rainy season. We saw more animals than on the previous day, especially elephants. Our hotel for the evening was perched on the top of a ridge of the Rift valley and we had a great view. A much larger complex than our previous place but it was very quiet as there were only 3 rooms taken. My day 3 blog will include the Lake Manyara National Park game drive (#2 on the map) and our hotel (the green hotel icon).

Day 4

Today was mostly a travel day although we did get to see a few things along the way. We drove through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (#3) on our way to the Ndutu region (#4) where we stayed in a "migration camp" for 2 nights (yellow-colored hotel icon). The drive took us up to the rim of the crater, up to over 8,000 feet above sea level, and we could get a great view of the crater itself. The Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest inactive, intact, and unfilled volcanic caldera. It was created some 2-3 million years ago when the volcano exploded and collapsed on itself. From rim to floor is 2,000 feet and the floor covers about 100 square miles. My day 4 blog will include various pictures and videos from the drive across the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (#3). A few animals, a few views of the Maasai, and some other nice pictures.

Day 4 Continued

Once we made it to the Ndutu region, we started a game drive there. This area is at the Southern edge of the Serengeti and we selected this area instead of going further North into the Serengeti because the "great migration" of zebras and wildebeests comes through here in February. They give birth to their calves here and they grow as the families migrate further North through the Serengeti from March through August, culminating with the river crossing between Tanzania and Kenya in August-September timeframe. This is where we probably saw the most animals and close-up since the vehicles are allowed to go off-road. You'll see a couple blogs in the Ndutu region, since we spent the most time here and probably saw more animals here (and closer) than anyplace else. I'll start with the first game drive in Ndutu (#4) and the migration camp(yellow-colored hotel icon).

Day 5

Day 5 was a full-day game drive in the Ndutu region of the conservation area. More animals in the Day 5 Ndutu game drives (#4).

Day 6

Another VERY EARLY morning, but this time it was not to go to the airport (which is not fun) but rather, to take a hot-air balloon ride in the South Serengeti (#5) (LOTS of fun!). They picked us up and drove us back into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where we took off from. After 45 minutes, we landed inside the Serengeti National Park for a little champagne before our gourmet bush breakfast.

We visited a Maasai tribe village on the way to our hotel, which was right on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater (blue-colored hotel icon).

Day 7

From the rim, we headed down into the crater floor for an all-day game drive within the Ngorongoro crater (#6) and then back out for a different hotel on the other side of the crater rim (purple-colored hotel icon).

Day 8

This was a travel day back to the airport, with a couple shopping stops for souvenirs on the way. On the way back to the airport, our guide bought us some red bananas, which I had never seen before. They tend to be slightly smaller and plumper/fatter than the common yellow banana and the skin is a bit thicker. They are eaten just like yellow bananas and are slightly sweeter (but not as sweet as baby bananas).

We took a selfie (I am still trying to learn how to take good selfies) of us with our tour guide/driver for the entire trip as we were heading home.

We had a truly amazing time and really enjoyed the safari. We hope to do another safari in a few years, maybe this time in the Northern part of Tanzania at the migration river crossing in September timeframe.