The Tanzania safari: epilogue

A few more photos & an observation

Hello ~ I’m Scott and welcome to your 5-minute vacation for May 21st. I share these snippets of our travels in the hope that my photos and stories will allow you to go on a vicarious vacation and “get away from it all,” if only for a moment. I appreciate you inviting me into your inbox today.

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This is the younger leopard from the “two leopards in one tree” story I shared in the last postcard.

And this is the older, victorious leopard. I don’t think he sustained the injury to his nose in that tussle but, since the wound looks fresh, I’m not sure.

Even though the safari ended in the last email, I still have a few more photos I’d like to share. But first, an observation.

This safari allowed us to get much closer to the animals than is possible in a zoo. You’ve seen how close the animals got to the land cruisers; at one point an adult male lion brushed up against the Land Cruiser as he walked by (talk about moxie!). You’ve seen how close we parked to the animals ~ 20, 30, 40 ft. ~ and then stayed for over an hour to watch them, even if they were just sleeping. Being that close to them, protected only by the safety bubble of our Land Cruiser, it felt like civilization was far away, or at least as far away as the nearest lodge.

I was wrong. Consider:

Many times while we were watching the animals, our driver was texting. Texting on his phone in the middle of the Serengeti. This isn’t a criticism of him texting, it’s an observation that he had signal in the middle of the Serengeti. Wow. I don’t recall seeing any cell towers. (Speaking of signal: there was good wifi at the lodges.)

We visited two picnic sites (picnic sites in the Serengeti!) that had plumbed bathrooms, not the port-a-potties I expected. Once you took advantage of the safe, clean and completely plumbed facilities, there was a food truck (a.k.a. gut bucket / chow wagon) outside hoping to sell you a cold beverage or some chips (I didn’t realize there were so many flavors of Pringles). I never asked if the lions ever came by for a Coke.

As I’ve said, the roads were bumpy, dirt roads but they were maintained bumpy, dirt roads, not tire ruts running through the fields. (In some places, like the Ngorongoro crater, going off-road wasn’t allowed.) And there wasn’t just one road, there was a network of roads.

In many places where those dirt roads crossed a stream, a concrete culvert had been installed. How did those installations go: were there armed guards?

All this civilization ~ maintained roads, concrete culverts, cell signal, picnic sites, the very comfortable lodges, etc. ~ so that more people can come see the animals. I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t expect this level of infrastructure.

At this point, you might be expecting me to go into a discussion of how this infrastructure enables more people to visit and the subsequent effects on the animals, the local people, and the ecosystem. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that. This is your 5-Minute Vacation for today and that discussion doesn’t sound very much like a vacation.

What I am going to say is that if you get the chance to go to Africa, go. For some, a trip to Africa was a life-changing experience (looking at you, KK!). For me, I’ll never look at lions, zebras or elephants the same way again. Is that life-changing? Or maybe just a broadening of perspective? For you ~ if you haven’t been yet ~ who knows? But I guarantee that at a minimum, it will be a trip you’ll never forget.

Now, let’s finish this series with a few more photos:

This is not one of the leopards in the aforementioned tussle. This is another of the five leopards we saw on this safari.

I’ve seen many lions in zoos but until we went on safari (both here and in Kenya), I never understood how social lions are. Watching them snuggle with each other or play gently with one of their cubs, it’s easy to forget what formidable predators they are.

Can you spot the second cheetah? Hint: his head is barely visible in the left side of the shaded grass.

Our guide told us that the wildebeest migrate with the zebras because the zebras are very smart and they have good eyesight. I didn’t realize this. Here’s lookin’ at you, zebras. I will never look at you the same way again.

Three giraffes amble by like ghost ships on the horizon.

Is it just me, or does this look like how Monday mornings feel?

I’ll conclude this Tanzania safari series with a happy thought: according to Serengeti.com, an aerial survey in 2014 counted over 8,000 individual elephants in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a four-fold increase from the 1986 tally of around 2,000. The trend is in the right direction.

In zoos, I’ve seen two, three, maybe four elephants together in the same pen. Here, we saw herds of around 30 individuals and got a glimpse of how social they are. After witnessing this attribute both here and at Amboseli on our 2022 Kenya safari, I will never look at elephants the same again.

Next time, in preparation for the summer travel season I’m going to offer a few suggestions about travel planning.

Until then ~

Cheers!