Steppes In Africa; A Disney-inspired Safari-W is for: What a Wonderful Last Game Drive! Updated (10/11)

[buzzrelly]

How could this scene be described as anything but Heaven on Earth?!


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It can't! Literally so beautiful

Another morning treat was this mother and baby giraffe pair appearing to “play”.

Awwww...I love them

I was just drinking from my mug of warm delicousness, minding my own, when all of a sudden, I decided to nearly drown myself with a sip. It was one of those fantastic, explosive chokings in which the entire contents of your mouth come vomiting out in a volcano of spray. I then proceeded to sputter for a full 3 or 4 minutes before I could even say “excuse me!”. It was so embarrassing and I’m sure the next camp over was about to send a rescue squad it was so loud. I did recover, but that was a close one!


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Oh my gosh! So sorry but I'm cracking up! . So glad you lived to tell the tale!

On arriving, we first spotted a pair of female lions resting in separate trees, awake and watching.


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Just incredible!

This was absolutely hands-down one of the most fascinating scenarios I’ve ever seen and definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

That is so cool, and most of us will never get to experience that!

From the looks of it, it had narrowly escaped a run-in with a predator, and I was astonished it hadn’t already succumbed to infection. Yikes!

Yikes is right! I was confused looking at the other zebras at first, then I got to him! Ouch!

We turned towards camp under the thick of dusk when Hashim negotiated the truck to give a glorious view the full moon hung beautifully in the sky amongst wispy clouds. He and Sawaume were very patient as I fiddled with my camera settings for many minutes. More importantly, we took time to admire this exquisite display of Creation, content to call this a most successful day!


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Oh that moon

 

[Wood Nymph]

I love the elegance of the Great Crowned Cranes and the cute face of the mongoose.

It was now squarely dusk, a time when other, rarer, animals exchange slumber for prowling. Tanzania has 10 species of feline, but the African Wildcat is perhaps the most difficult to spot.

Where do the felines hide during the day?

And yes, I ate the Ugali and Stew with my hands as you are supposed to. It tastes better that way.

The food looks delicious, as usual. I think that I would want a spoon.

 

[Steppesister]

How lovely!

All of these little pop-up picnics they set up were just so lovely. Elegant in such a natural way.

Wow they captured the likeness pretty well. I can actually hear Rowan Atkinson lol!

HA, now I need to watch it again!!

What a shame. When I was a kid living on acreage we saw a couple of large lizards like that (probably not quite as big - I've just googled 'racehorse goanna' and apparently they only reach about 5ft). They are really beautiful creatures.

Such fascinating creatures!! The largest goanna we saw on KI were about 3 ft long. But I'm sure they can get MUCH larger than that!

That is an epic photo.

It's a Hippo Stink Eye!

Always nice to get photos, but the main thing is that you saw it

Exactly!! And I really didn't think I'd have even the slightest chance of seeing one of the smaller cat species at all. Such a lucky find!

What a shame. I like your idea to somehow utilise the remaining earring in a display.

At least it'll be a nice reminder of such a great time that visit to the little market was!

 

[Steppesister]

Awwww...I love them

Such a tiny little tot!

Oh my gosh! So sorry but I'm cracking up! . So glad you lived to tell the tale!

Oh, trust me, it's funny now. It was even funny then once I was done sputtering. LOL!

That is so cool, and most of us will never get to experience that!

You'd have to go a long way to see that, but oh is it worth it!

Yikes is right! I was confused looking at the other zebras at first, then I got to him! Ouch!

That wound was crazy! Surely, its days were numbered.

Oh that moon

Romantic, no?

 

[Steppesister]

I love the elegance of the Great Crowned Cranes and the cute face of the mongoose.

I will always see them with such fond memory at WDW now. I'm super glad they've included these in the AK(L) animals!

Where do the felines hide during the day?

That's a great question! I honestly don't know except my best guess is maybe in small holes, or hollows of trees or under fallen brush. I think though that the Wildcats are actually very easily habituated to human presence so it wouldn't surprise me that this one hangs out near camp at times. (We found him very near to camp.)

The food looks delicious, as usual. I think that I would want spoon.

Oh we did have cutlery and I did use it for the other stuff. But it was fun to channel my inner African and do like they do with some things.

 

[pkondz]

the staff had set up a little table under the shade of a nearby tree facing the savannah

Very nice. Food looks amazing… again.

Dreamy, no?

Once again, this was a very bird-heavy drive

I’m shocked!
Were the others with you also birders?

The Great Crowned Cranes NEVER got old!

So beautiful.

RED-BILLED HORNBILL!! I FOUND ZAZU!!!

Did he start singing “It’s a small world”?

Hamerkop- the dinosaur of birds

How weird looking!

The first was a sweet little skink. Wouldn’t you like to take him home as a pet?

Yep!

Nile Monitor, easily 6 feet long stem to stern

Such a shame to see such a formidable specimen of its kind now subject to a menagerie of scavengers ready for a meal.

Circle of life… believe you witnessed that earlier in the day.

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Awwww

Notice I said, “next to”; I mean I was able to get something.

Pictures or it didn’t happen.

He and Sawaume were very patient as I fiddled with my camera settings for many minutes.

Nice shots.

she took some time to explain that tonight we’d be enjoying a very authentic meal of traditional Tanzanian fare.

Super nice of her/them.

Holy cow!!!

Indeed!!

And yes, I ate the Ugali and Stew with my hands as you are supposed to. It tastes better that way.

I’ll take your word on that. I’d have no idea.

Sadly, in my packing I noticed I'd lost an earring that I’d bought in the little market near Lake Manyara.

Thats too bad.

 

[Steppesister]

X is for: Xfer to Zanzibar
May 13, 2025​

The day would start early and be a fairly tedious one; travel days always are.

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been able to put another chapter up here, but perhaps you might recall that the camp I was in at this point was very near the village of Kirawira and the Grumeti Airstrip…. not anywhere near the Seronera Airstrip 3 hours away. But that’s exactly where I was headed this morning at 6:00AM. Why?! I honestly didn’t have any gripes about this trip, even remotely. Everything up til now was perfectly amazing in every way, but why the company hadn’t re-booked me out of Grumeti was beyond me. Perhaps the flights were full. Perhaps the times didn’t line up with my connecting flight out of Arusha, but it seemed to make a lot more sense to not have the driver and guide spend 6+ hours driving me all the way back to Seronera and then back. When I had my de-briefing call with Andrew, my trip liaison, there was no explanation given but he did say that indeed that would have been much better and he would take it back to the team to look at.

The sunrise made the early morning not quite as painful

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My flight from Seronera to Arusha via Lake Manyara and Kilimanjaro was scheduled for around 10:30 and the 3-hour drive would get me there in plenty of time for checking in and all. A beautiful breakfast was packed for us which included a “Chaffle”, some yogurt, juice and a piece of fruit from what I recall. Chaffles are basically George Foreman panini-style sammies with ham and cheese, but these are extra amazing because they are cooked in an iron over an open fire. Yum!!

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Before the truck left I had a cup of coffee and some small bites of homemade granola bar and other goodies that had been set up by the fire and were a perfect way to start the day. The truck actually left a few minutes later than Hashim wanted to because one of the tires developed a flat overnight. That had to be changed and a new spare one mounted in its place before we could leave.

The roads were very wet and rutted along the way as it had rained pretty heavily during the night. There was really no time for any game sighting stops, but along the way we did spot the following: Slender Mongoose, Zebra, Buffalo, Giraffe, Wildebeest, Topi, Impala, Lion, Warthog, Zebra, Marabou Stork, Secretary Bird, Lilac Rollers, Guinea Fowl, Francolins, Black-backed Kite, Hamerkop, Elephant, Brown/Meyer’s Parrots, and Wooly-necked Stork. Here is the one photo I got during the entirety of the drive:

(Wooly-necked Stork)​

The impeccable concierge service lasted right up until the minute I boarded the Cessna. Hashim and Sowaume made sure to see me actually ON the plane before they left. I guess I was a bit grumpy that morning because here was another thing that sorta chapped my hide: Before the trip, my tour company gave me very strict instructions and rules about the type of luggage the bush planes would allow. There were hard and fast size and dimension limits, instructions about wheels, etc... and I was very careful to follow them to a "T". I went out and spent a couple hundred bucks on a new duffel bag to keep within the allowed specs only to show up at the airport to see this:

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What the actual HECK!?!?

Anyway, the airstrip was very lowkey and even had some interesting art and information to look at. I bought a little pin for my pin board of the Tanzanian flag for a couple of bucks and waited for my flight to board.

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As we flew over the vast Serengeti one last time, I was able to spot enormous herds of animals that looked like ants swarming below. I was sad to be leaving the plains of East Africa and definitely left a piece of my heart there.

Lake Manyara was still flooded:



Back to Arusha area:

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I arrived in Arusha at 12:40 and actually had a bit of a stressful time getting through security there. Nothing bad happened, it just seemed a little chaotic and I was glad to get finally settled at one of the little airport “cafes” past security. I ordered a latte and took some time to leisurely enjoy the packed lunch that Usawa had packed for me: A little wrap with beef and carrots, chips, fresh fruit, a cookie, and a juice box. I also spent a few minutes browsing in the several gift shops that had souvenirs. Up to then, I hadn’t bought a Massai Necklace and I really still wanted one. The prices were not unusually high and I was fine with what they were charging, but unfortunately, they didn’t have the style or colors I was really looking for. I wanted one with some longer strands that hang off the bottom but not a single seller had one like that. I ended up with this one and am fine with it. If I ever get back to Africa, I will look again and not delay my purchase as I’m so oft in the habit of doing. In hindsight, I should have bought one at the Massai Village on my first day in the Lake Manyara area.

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And then it was time to be off to Zanzibar- a completely different experience in every way possible as you’ll see. The landscape changed below me as the flight went on, from flat, earth-colored hues to the tropical, hilly kind of coastal E. Africa. We approached the shoreline, and the outline of the island came into view. It was surrounded by azure waters and dotted with traditional fishing boats alongside massive freighters. Stonetown, the island’s capital, hove into view- a tangle of densely packed shanties with a mix of rust-colored and blue metal roofs. The thatch and dirt roads of the savannah were replaced with a web of narrow, pot-holed roads and alleys.

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I landed at 5:00 and I was out of the parking lot with my rental car by 5:30.

A word of caution: I’ve never experienced this before but your rental in Tanzania will come with only JUST enough fuel to get to the closest gas station. I’m certain that tourists fill the tank full but don’t use it all by the time they return it. It is then drained off and used by whoever can get it and the cycle repeats itself endlessly. On top of that, they will charge you about a gazillion bucks in exchange fees for using either dollars or your debit card at gas stations, so best to have some local cash on hand at that point. I didn’t. Lesson learned. I can tell you this, when I returned the car, I was incensed enough that I was sorely tempted to leave the car running in the airport lot just to burn off the extra fuel. Or sell it as I could. I dunno, maybe it’s petty, but it really irked me that this goes on.

The car was pretty much a crap-mobile. It was very difficult to see out of and the trunk would barely latch shut. But it got the job done at getting from Point A to Point B. What really made that job tough was the fact that Google Maps was perfectly useless in its directions to the hotel which was on the exact opposite end of the island from Stonetown. Basically, it was a 2 ½-hour drive in Hell with constant re-routings and Google telling me to turn when there was absolutely NO road to turn on. Here’s an example of the shenanigans that are a regular part of traffic in Stonetown:

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Once out of the urban glut of Stonetown, navigating the dark, unlit narrow roads of the villages was even more stressful! There were pedestrians all over the place and it was tough to see them until they were basically run over. By the time I arrived The Zanzibar Queen Hotel, I was an absolute nervous wreck and more than ready to go straight to bed at 8:00. Driving around Zanzibar is NOT for the weak; I don’t recommend it.


Next up: Day 1 of 4 on the Island of Zanzibar…

 

[Steppesister]

Very nice. Food looks amazing… again.

It was!!! But just wait.... my favorite meal of the WHOLE trip is coming up soon....

I’m shocked!
Were the others with you also birders?

They seemed enthusiastic.

Did he start singing “It’s a small world”?

Faintly, yes. And in Swahili, no less.

Pictures or it didn’t happen.

I delivered. I mean, sure, it was a crappy shot on the fly, but it IS there.

Super nice of her/them.

Very! I think all the guests really enjoyed it too, besides myself. It was a very special meal.