(This post is for July 21st and 22nd)
Christina and I woke up at 5:30am to get ready for the safari! We stood outside Parkview Inn (the hotel next to our house) to wait for the tour operator to come, Amani. Just some side info, I had a really tough time finding reviews for these tour operators, so I am going to try to give a review about my experience. I hope that this would be useful for those who plan on going to a safari.
I took a week to shop around for a budget safari, and got various kinds of quotes. I am also going during high season, and petro prices have gone up, so everything was expensive (even park fees have gone up). I was able to finally find a place that would let me go for a 2 day safari for $290. So what does that include? Well it’s an all inclusive price, so that includes food and lodging and transport and everything. The safari I booked was a group safari, so we expected to join others on this trip.
The itinerary for going on the safari was to get transport from Arusha to Ngorongoro Crater, and spend a day driving around the crater. Lunch box was included, and we would picnic at the crater. Before sundown, we would be required to leave the national park, and spend the night at a hotel just outside of the Lake Manyare National Park. Dinner is included as well, and would be served by a hotel in the area. We would then go to Lake Manyara in the morning, and spend the day there. Lunch box is also included for this day, and we left Lake Manyara around 2pm, and got back to Moshi around 6pm.
Our tour guide for the first day was Emanuel and for the second day, it was Herbert. I think that we definitely preferred Herbert as a tour guide, because he was more talkable. But these tour guides don’t always understand what we are trying to say, so sometimes it’s hard to communicate with them. But they were accomodating in terms of stopping for us to take pictures and stuff.
On the first day, our car had 6 people! Christina and me, a couple who just graduated from BU (Graham and Megan, yeah, what a small world!), and two Japanese guys from Osaka. We were very happy with our tour group, because we were afraid that we would get some really obnoxious tourists in our group. Turns out Graham and I know a little bit of Japanese, so we tried to speak Japanese to them. Not really so sure if it was well received, but the Japanese guys were very entertaining. They were also amuzed and would love to wave bye to the animals!
The Japanese guys actually only bought a one day safari, so for the second day, it was just the four of us. I woudl have to say that is the best number of people to have in the land cruiser. The food was also great, and they gave us another fairly large lunch box. Overall, Christina and I were very happy with what we paid for. But I think that the safari could’ve been cheaper, and to have cost around ~$250.
The lodge/hotel we stayed at was in a residential area, and it looked like a large house turned into a hotel. We had a bathroom with a western toilet, a mirror, and a large bed with a mosquito net. The place was a bit loud, since people were talking outside all night, but we were comfortable, ad the lodge was very basic.
I don’t want to go into too much details about the trip, and more details will have to til I upload my pictures!
I can’t wait to upload these pictures when I get home! I miss home!
