Hurry, boy it’s waiting there for you. The Serengeti!

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Hello again, Jarrod and friends! You’re right, it has been a while. But after a six month hiatus from travel blogging I’m back, and to atone for my absence, I’ve created the blogging equivalent of self-flagellation. I’ve done an eight week overlanding trip across Africa. My journaling whilst there? Patchy at best. Committed to sharing but struggling +++ with recalling details. This trip may well take eight months to write up.

I toured with Absolute Africa on their Southern Safari (Nairobi to Cape Town). 52 days for about $2500 Australian plus a local payment on arrival of US$625. It’s participatory camping the whole way-that means setting up and taking down your own tents, chipping in with cooking meals and cleaning up, basic toilet and bathroom facilities at camp sites and long days driving long distances in a non-airconditioned giant yellow truck.

The frankly impossibly low up front cost is offset by the fact that you pay for most activities as you go. The pre-departure trip notes put the fear of God into me about ATMs being inaccessible and/or unreliable so I arrive in Nairobi with most of my money (US$4000, gulp!) in a money belt around my waist. Now, I hate carrying more than $200 on me at the best of times, so I pray the waist band money belt I’ve purchased will deliver on its pledge to be ‘discreet.’  Much like the ads for sanitary napkin or adult continence aid commercials that promise (sly wink) “hey, nobody will even know you’re wearing one!!” And it works, this thing is literally undetectable. LOLOLOL. Kidding. I can kiss goodbye any notions I might have about this looking discreet. It’s a big fat motherf%&$ing wad of cash. I look like I bloody well have Game of Thrones novel or a brick of cocaine strapped to my stomach.

Thankfully I have to make the local payment immediately, and one of the first excursions we have is the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater (US$650) and then the money belt goes into a safe on the truck. Aaaaand I exhale.

I’m met at the hotel day one 7:30am sharp. We have a drive of ~280km to get us to our camp in Arusha. At home, that would ostensibly take around, oh, 3 hours but This Is Africa and it takes closer to 7. But what does any of that matter because the next morning we are up bright and bushy tailed, or in my case jet lagged and barely able to walk straight for pick up in our 4×4’s to go to THE SERENGETI

Regretfully, I’m going to have to break the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater into two separate blogs or this entry will risk reaching aforementioned Game of Thrones word count. We’re touring the Serengeti in 4×4’s with a local guide, Erasto, who’s completely lovely, exceedingly accomodating with our pedantic requests about inching ‘forwards just a bit’ for perfect photos, and a wealth of knowledge to boot. In our 4×4 is myself, my roomie, or rather, or tent mate Priscilla, from Brisbane; Will who hails from Bristol, and Christian and Anna from Finland.

To say the roads are a bit rough is an understatement. Ladies, if you’re going to Africa for the love of God, pack supportive sports bras for the roads. You’ve heard of the pencil test that ladies can do to assess boob perkiness? (You put a pencil underneath your breast and if it can be held there when you take your hands away, it’s indicative of some boobage droopage). Well before this trip I couldn’t hold a pencil at all, and now I can store away a 72 pack of Derwents no worries.

It’s also a bit dusty. As in, visibility entirely optional dusty. It’s a testament to our faith in Erasto, or possibly our sleep deprivation, that we were completely relaxed with this scenario playing out over and over and over for two days straight.

I’ve been forewarned by Africa veterans that everyone gets hugely excited the first couple of days of a safari and the vibe will be “OMGOMGOMG A ZEBRA 400m AWAY!” -> takes 50 photos…but then after a couple of days we’ll be like “a lion. Sigh. Right. Is it doing anything interesting? Anything. Interesting. Like, I don’t know, an inter-species orgy? No?” -> slumps back in seat, camera still holstered.

So, apologies in advance for the volume of photos, but I am a ~total~ cliche, and I’m manic with excitement at our first sightings.

We sight one leopard up in a tree, draped over a branch but he’s shy and not participating in a photo shoot despite our frantic whispered pleas and prayers.

Not that any of that matters, mind you because the universe delivers very shortly afterwards in the form of another big cat stalking in the grass. And without wanting to anthropomorphise, this one seems to work a camera like nobody’s business.

After stalking along in the long grass on the left side of the 4×4 for a few hundred metres, it decides to cross the road and demonstrates admirable road safety, looking right and left…

…. eventually making a beeline for a rock in the long grass on the right, which I think was actually placed there thousands of years ago by the photographic Gods. Because really-

As if we’re not already worked up into a veritable lather thanks to supercheetah, we then have a toddler elephant make a guest appearance just as the sun’s beginning to set.

The Serengeti sunsets themselves are also worthy of a snap or two. Even sans animale!

Serengeti Day 2 I’m woken at the horrifically early hour of 4:50am because I’m being picked up for a *swoon balloon ride over the Serengeti. In a genuine #blessed turn of events, my beautiful family have all chipped in and bought a flight for me as a gift. Anyway, 4:50am, did I mention it was only 4:50am? My alarm is trilling and I’m scrambling for my phone so as not to wake Priscilla but it’s buried in my handbag which is in turn buried in my sleeping bag somewhere so the whole thing is a very loud acoustic babushka doll scenario. Alarm addressed, it’s then a matter of trying to get ready in a tent in the dark, with someone sleeping 40cm from you. Every noise you make seems magnified-I roll up my sleeping bag and the sound seems almost deafening. No time for glamour, this is a 5am pick up so I pull on my polar fleece, run a comb through my hair and brush my teeth and that’s as good as it’s going to get. After an hours drive we arrive at the launch site, there are 3 huge balloons lying on the ground like enormous stripey bladders.

The baskets we ride in take 16 passengers divided into 8 compartments. We go through the safety briefing and instructions and then it’s time to clamber inelegantly into the basket which is lying on one side. We lie on our backs in the astronaut position

and then as the balloon inflates we get tipped into the vertical position and start to take off..

It’s absolutely beautiful, just gliding over the Serengeti above the treetops. We see pods of hippos in the water and descend the balloon low enough to see their faces and smell their faeces. They have a very unique stink. (They’d probably prefer that we refer to it as their musk?)

Special mention to the adorable tiny hippo popping his head up who looks like he’s wearing veneers or false teeth :’)

There are impala leaping, antelope leaping grazing on the plains…

Warthogs, lions looking up, nonchalant as anything as we coast above them…

but the main drawcard is the amazing views. The Serengeti plains, sprawling out and dotted with acacia trees, lush green waterways, hippo tracks visible from the sky criss crossing the landscape, the beauty of the other two balloons backlit by the rising sun. It was absolutely magical

 

After we land we’re served champagne to toast our safe flight and we’re transported to a beautiful shaded area for breakfast

But like Cinderella, before we can get too used to the champagne and balloon lifestyle, we must return to the Overland tour. Back to the 4×4 for another morning of game driving. More lions, more giraffes, more hippos:

Including this guy who smirks exactly like Kevin from The Office- right???

We round off Serengeti Day 2 with a visit to a traditional Masai village to learn about their customs and lifestyle.

That’s two jam packed days on the Serengeti and we haven’t even hit the crater yet. Just you wait. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on Tanzania so far? 4X4’ing in The Serengeti: Jarrod, would you go there?