6-Day Safari in Tanzania's Northern Parks

We have booked a private, tailor-made 6 days/5 nights camping safari and could not have made a better decision than choosing this company. We visited Serengeti NP, Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara. From the moment we sent the inquiry, WALTER was very responsible, patient and clear in his explanations regarding any details or changes we wanted to make in our itinerary. He ensured that the final version of the itinerary is exactly what we wanted, especially that we were changing it multiple times (timeframe, parks)! Walter was also available 24/7 for us during the safari in case there would have been any questions or complications (but there weren’t any, of course). He also picked us up the day after our safari to take us to the airport and collect feedback. As for the safari experience itself, our driver and guide, MR. SHARIFU, was a knowledgeable and patient expert. He knew numerous interesting and surprising facts about each animal we enquired. What is more, he has eyes everywhere – behind his head, on the sides!!! He spotted rare animals from very far away without binoculars, which made it possible for us to see all species we wished to see. Here are a couple of examples: - Big 5 (rhino being rare in Tanzania!) - newborns (cheetah, elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, lions, warthogs) - lions hunting - Great Migration of zebras and wildebeest - seval cat - dik dik, eland, waterbuck Our cook, ALEX, is the sweetest man in this country. He was always available, positive and enthusiastic about cooking for us. He quickly learned what we like and ensured each meal was special. He even made ugali and pilau for us after I told him we want to try as many African dishes as possible. When we were on a full day game drive, ALEX packed lunch for us – it was massive amount of delicious food! There were days when we finished dinner at 9 pm, and already ate breakfast at 5.30 am the next day, and everything was always on-time and tasty (bearing in mind that Alex had to clean our dishes after we had dinner, then prepare lunch to pack for the next day, and then wake up much earlier than us on the next day to prepare breakfast the best Spanish mayaj!). Since my girlfriend started learning Swahili before we arrived in Tanzania, MR. SHARIFU and ALEX quickly picked it up and taught her new words and phrases during the entire trip. This was very entertaining and educating. Asante sana rafiki yangu. We really had the time of our lives, our dreams came true and the worst part of this trip was that it had to come to an end too quickly. We would do it all over again, with Mr. Sharifu and Alex in a heartbeat. We will remember this for the rest of our lives, and tutaonana!

Tarangire and Lake Manyara had elephants up close - one group came right up and continued feeding, peeing, pooing, milking, literally 3-6m from our safari vehicle, wow! Saw 11 giraffes and 9 elephants at the same time crossing a river in Tarangire! We also saw an African Fish eagle perching above water only 5m away. The endless plains of the Serengeti were as I dreamed of, we saw a female lion hunting a warthog, several prides of lions, several males and females resting only 5m away, giraffes, 2 leopards (each resting in tree-tops about 150m+ from the road), 2 snakes including a spitting cobra crossing road, 3 cheetahs hunting Thomson's gazelle. In Ngorongoro Crater we saw 2 black rhino, over 400m away - they have closed off the roads to their favourite sites to help these endangered animals breed so I was very happy keeping a good distance away to help them. We saw hundreds of other animal species which are just as memorable - pools full of hippos, monkeys and baboons with baby's, crocodiles feeding, herds of zebra, wildebeest and cape buffalo and so many more. We were there in early July so lots of baby animals which was a bonus and very few mosquitoes. Late July-August will be even less mosquitoes and more animals gathering at the fewer remaining water holes. I've waited 50 years to do this trip of a lifetime and it didn't disappoint. I stay at cheap hotels in countries with good services at hand but stayed at top end hotels here and was pleased to have the comfortable facilities at the end of each day. They tar sealed one national park in Tanzania and discovered that vehicles travelling faster frequently run over the wild life so all of the parks I visited are deliberately left as bumpy gravel roads so expect a "Serengeti massage". Having the pop-up roof was fantastic and I'm glad I bought a cheap camera with a powerful lens - my wee P900 got some fantastic shots and was way more portable and powerful than my D800 with a 600mm. I used my iPhone on pan-o for all the wide angles. I'd definitely recommend malarone which we used with no problems - my daughter used doxyy when in Malawi for 6 months and got malaria, like all her friends on doxy, but all her friends on malarone didn't get malaria (group of 20+ volunteers).