Out of Africa, Part 1

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March 31st, 2010

by Erika Hueneke

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This month, I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit Tanzania, a coastal country in east Africa. The experience was hard to capture in words or on film — the welcoming people, otherworldly landscape and exotic wildlife were simply magical. We visited three protected wildlife areas, each with its own personality but all equally awe-inspiring.

Serengeti National Park More than 18,000 square miles in size, this reserve is home to one of the largest concentrations of wildlife in the world. We spied four of the big five (lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo) here in two days, as well as copious numbers of giraffe, baboon, warthog, mongoose, topi, ostrich, impala … you get the idea. The area is most famous for the great migration — some 200,000 zebra and more than a million wildebeest that make an annual circuit through the region, chasing the rains. We were lucky enough to encounter them at the southern tip of the park, and being completely surrounded by hundreds of thousands of wild animals in their natural environment is a rush I’ll never forget. Another unforgettable moment — getting a bird’s-eye view of these endless plains in a hot-air balloon.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area Seventy-four-hundred feet high at the rim, the Ngorongoro Crater is fed by a spring that gushes 3.5 million liters a day, supplying all the food and water its permanent residents — from jackals and hyenas to flamingoes and rhinos — will ever need. Inside this unique habitat, we got up close and personal with a baby elephant and had the good fortune to spy a cheetah sleeping in the grass. Unlike in the national parks, local tribes are permitted to live within the borders of this UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a big part of its allure was getting to visit an authentic Maasai village, where we witnessed the villagers’ traditional singing and jumping.

Ruaha National Park Though this area is the second largest national park on the entire continent of Africa, it sees less than 20 percent of Tanzania’s tourism. If you spot a lion, elephant, leopard, kudu, crocodile or hippo, you’ll have the viewing all to yourself. Located in the southern part of the country, this region is hillier, hotter and more humid, and spindly acacia trees are replaced with stately, thousand-year-old baobabs. Lions rule these parts, and it was in this park that I got my one and only chance to see grown males with full manes.

Here are just a few of the photos from my journey.

A big thank you to Africa Adventure Consultants’ Kent Redding, who arranged our itinerary! Visit their website to check out all the honeymoon safari trips they offer.

Stay tuned: Next week, I’ll share about the amazing camps and lodges we stayed in (which is half the adventure!), and part three will be all about the spicy isle of Zanzibar.