While I wait for pictures to develop I thought I'd provide a trip summary. The Safari Serengeti trip we took with OAT also included two possible extensions: a pre-trip to Meet the Maasai in the northern region of Sinya and/or a post-trip to Cape Town & the Peninsula in South Africa. Of the 14 travelers who participated in the main trip, eight took the pre-trip and none took the post-trip. My family plus two Minnesotans, Joan and Denny Dvergsten, and one Californian, Frances Kirchner stayed three nights in Kibo Safari's exclusive permanent camp in Sinya. Absolute Adventure Travel, a group that organizes international luxury adventure travel in Nepal, South America, and Africa, calls Kibo's Sinya Camp, on the Western side of Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the "Top 5 Destinations in Africa." The camp is located in a private Maasai concession and is exclusive to Kibo Safaris. Our Kibo guides for the pre-trip were trip leader, James Mazigo, and Pascal Foster.
After three wonderful nights in Sinya, the pre-trippers traveled back to Arusha to meet up with the rest of the gang at Mama Wilson's House: New Yorker Harry Pinsky; four more Californians: Kathy Shaddox, Mary Ann Heinzen, Bruce Carlson, and Robin Serfass; and, Connecticut native Beth Abrahams. We are also joined by Alex Saul, a third Kibo guide. From our base at Mama Wilson's we explored Arusha National Park by foot and by Land Cruiser vehicles. Arusha is known for its black and white Colobus monkeys. We did see them.
The group then traveled south to our next base for two nights at Tarangire Tented River Camp. This camp, set on a bluff overlooking the Tarangire River Valley, is also owned and operated by Kibo. We spent two days doing vehicle safaris in the Tarangire National Park, Tanzania's third largest national park.
We then head in a Northwesterly direction to our next base, Ngorongoro Farm House, another Kibo-owned facility. On the way we visited Lake Manyara National Park, located at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment. This park includes forests, woodlands, grasslands, swamps, and of course, lots of flamingos. On the second day of our stay at the farm house we climbed and then dropped down by vehicle into Ngorongoro Crater, one of the world's most unique geological and wildlife environs. The crater is the largest unbroken caldera in the world (610 meters deep and 260 km squared). Back to the farm house for one more night before heading off to Serengeti National Park.
The trip to the Serengeti takes us along the southern rim of the Ngorongoro Crater and down sharply to vast grassy plains the Maasai called Siringitu -- "the place where the land moves forever." Before reaching the Serengeti we make two stops at Olduvai Gorge and Shifting Sands. Olduvai Gorge is the archaeological site where the Leaakey made their famous discoveries of the earliest hominid remains including a fossilized pathway of the footprints of three of our earliest ancestors. Shifting Sands, discovered in the late 1960's, are dunes of volcanic ash deposits from an extinct volcano in the area of Ol Donyo Lengai. The crescent shaped dunes move at rate of about 5 meters per year. Markers indicate yearly movement. Since 1969 the sands have traveled over 2 kilometers. The Maasai consider the sands religious sites. We spent four days in the Serengeti in a private tented camp site serenaded nightly by lions, hyenas, and leopards.
Our return trip back to Arusha took us back to Ngorongoro Farm House for one night. Rains had transformed Lake Manyara from what seemed a puddle five days earlier to a significant body of water. We spent our last day at Mama Wilson's House before returning home. Detailed day-by-day postings with pictures to follow.
