Sabbatical Activities (Part 2 of 3) - Africa

Dawn. Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

Africa.

We went on a 11-day safari of Tanzania & Kenya with Tauck World Discovery. We did the Classic Safari - which was 11 days, now a more upscale 13 days. All in all, quite the adventure. We flew from Amsterdam into the Arusha Airport at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, arriving in the late evening. It was the first time I remember getting off a wide body jet without a jetbridge - yep, all the way down to the ground, where we walked over to the single story airport terminal.

I was a bit nervous, as I wasn't able to get my Tanzania visa, but was told I could buy this at the airport without any major issues. Sure enough, that was the case, and we were soon collecting our luggage and met our Tour Director, Genevieve from Quebec, Canada. Once we had the other members of our group arriving that night, we got into the vans and headed for the hotel.
Was surprised to find the hotel had wireless internet available too! I was able to pick up a Tanzania SIM card for my cell phone in the hotel gift shop too.

The next morning, we met the rest of our group - 24 of us in total. Genevieve introduced us to our drivers, and laid out the plan for the days ahead. We would be heading to Lake Manyara National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti plains before we would cross the border into Kenya - Amboseli National Park (famous for their elephants), Samburu Game Reserve, and the Masai Mara. For the most part, we had game drives in the early morning (before breakfast), and usually a tourist type activity (visit to Coffee Plantation, Olduvai Gorge, Maasai village, etc) in the late morning/early afternoon, followed by another game drive in the late afternoon, then dinner.

Some pictures below, the rest of the pictures here.

Lion cubs, Serengeti Plains, Tanzania

Elephants, Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Beisa Oryx, Samburu National Park, Kenya

Cheetah, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

Hippos, Mara River, Kenya

Masai Giraffe, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

White Rhino, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

Footnote: A lot of people have asked what sort of camera gear I had for these pictures. In truth, I had about 36lbs of camera gear in a photo backpack - too much. I had 2 Nikon camera bodies (D2X & D200), 300mm f/2.8, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, 70-200mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4, 1.4x & 1.7x Tele-converters and a Mac Powerbook 12". And a beanbag, since you can't fit a tripod in the roof opening of a Land Cruiser!