African Safari -July 27, 2001

Position: African Safari -July 27, 2001

We have just finished a 12-day Safari in the animal country of Tanzania with 3 of our oldest grandchildren and our daughter Teri. Our grand children are 10 and 11 years old, Jonathan Kirkman from San Antonio, Texas, Kaitlyn Hooper from Aspen, Co. and Jack Campbell from Eden Prairie, MN. We all flew together from Mn to Kilimanjaro via Amsterdam.
Daughter Tamie found this tour on the internet, especially for families with younger children. It was well planned by Thompson Safari Tours. We had excellent accommodations, food, transportation and guides throughout the tour. Our guide, Mohamud, did an exceptional job with the children and adults. He has been guiding for 15 years and was perfect for our family of 6.

We started with a visit to a local school in Sakila which is isolated in the hills. The school has all grades, 1 through 8, with at least 100 students in each class of the lower grades. Some of the upper grades were smaller as the students drop out to work in the fields and herding animals. There were 100 students sitting on benches, with four to a bench and another bench to write on. There was one teacher for all of the lessons in each grade. Our Grandchildren each met a pen pal that they hope to correspond with. It was very enlightening to see the poor conditions under which these students are trying to learn a basic education, including English. Some walk at least 2 hours to arrive at school and another 2 hours returning home through fields and muddy roads. We hope we can offer more help in the future.

We stayed overnight at Gibbs coffee plantation to learn about the coffee grown in the higher elevations and do some tramping thru the hills. We spent two nights in the Tarangire National park at the Safari Lodge in tented units. The lodge is on a bluff overlooking a river abundant with wild life. Baboons roamed freely around the tents making it necessary to close our tent to keep them from walking off with anything they could find. We saw a lion with a cub feeding on an overnight kill of a wildebeest. There were many elephants feeding in the grassland along with their young and zebras, wildebeest, gazelles, giraffes and hyenas were abundant. All of these were close to our truck, which had an open top for good photo shots or just watching and feeling close to these animals in the wild.

Two nights were spent at the Ngorongoro Carter. This is one of largest craters in the world, 15 miles across, with many wild animals living in and around the carter. It has a fresh water lake and plenty of grassland for food. There are lions, hyenas, rhino, hippos, zebras, wildebeest, flamingos and every kind of local birds. A trip to the carter can be a complete trip for a short tour as it is possible to see most animals completely in the wild.

Moving on north to the Serengeti plains we passed through the Olduvai Gorge where a 1.8 million year old skull was found in 1959 giving rise to a heated debate about human evolution. They also uncovered footprints dating 3.7 million years ago.

In the middle of the Serengeti Plain we spent two nights camping in tents with wild animals roaming and talking thru the night. Thompson set up these tents just for our group of 6, with a complete crew of 6 youthful and experienced locals that enjoyed entertaining the kids. We were served elaborate and delicious meals in a separate dining tent. This was very deluxe camping! They even had a freezer, gas grill, and of course the works! The treat was a campfire and smores!

Very early we left for a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the migration area on a beautiful morning that proved to be an exciting part of our trip. We drifted over one of the largest Cape buffalo herds the balloon Capt had seen. All the animals would flee as we passed overhead. Our flight was followed by a champagne breakfast under a tree set with crystal and china. A delicious hot breakfast including fruit, croissants, ham and eggs and delicious hot African coffee was served.

The majority of the migration had moved to the Northern area of the Serengeti. We decided to charter a plane, which took us over the larger herds of the migration. We were fortunate to see thousands of wildebeest grazing in the plains, which gave us a picture of the masses of animals as they migrate. The herds move south during the rainy season, have their young and migrate north feeding on the new grass from the Jan. and Feb. rains. The lions and crocodiles and hyenas feed on these migrating animals.

Our last camp to the north was the migration camp. This is another deluxe tenting camp that gets its name as it is in the middle of the migrating animals. During the night we were serenaded by hippos grazing in front of our tent in their close-by pond and the lions talking to each other. This was our last night of the safari filled with 2 weeks of unforgettable memories together. Next we flew to Zanzibar to spend a week on Seaquell.

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