Very excited to get to recount quite possibly the best experience of my life, safari.  When I was in Tanzania for my volunteering placement, volunteers had the opportunity to arrange weekend (though they often took longer than just the weekend) trips to see the beautiful attractions Tanzania has to offer.  I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to book a safari through three stunning national parks: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater.

The trip began with six other volunteers and I packed in a safari jeep for the long drive from Arusha, the town we lived in, to Lake Manyara.  That first day of seeing the wild animals was amazing.  At first, we felt like it must be a zoo or some ride at an amusement park.  It was hard to wrap our heads around the fact that we were truly in the African plains.  The animals we saw were not staged, so we were extremely fortunate each time we encountered them.

The first day we were at Lake Manyara National Park.  As the name suggests, the center of the park is a large lake, and all around it is a lightly forested area that is home to many of the classic African animals including lions, elephants, and zebra.  As we drove through the trees towards the lake, all the jeeps ahead of us suddenly stopped.  We knew it must be because of an animal sighting.  Then out of nowhere, we saw elephants so close up I could hardly believe my eyes.  I probably could have touched one if I reached my hand outside the jeep.  Our guide told us how lucky we were to have seen the elephants at all, not to mention how close up they got.  That day we also saw zebra, giraffes, and wildebeest in the distance, and blue monkeys climbing through trees above us.

Elephant at Lake Manyara National Park (Madelaine Olsen)

The next day we was spent mostly in transit between parks.  However on the way to Serengeti National Park we stopped briefly above Ngorongoro crater.  That was quite literally the most stunning view I have ever seen in my life.  I was awestruck by the size and beauty of the crater below us.  The rest of the day we drove through green hills where the Massai people live and raise their livestock alongside the wild zebra and giraffes and then the flat open plain of the Serengeti.  In the evening after dark a few volunteers and I were walking towards the campsite bathroom when we heard a low gruff noise sort of like a cough come out of the darkness.  We froze thinking it was a wildebeest nearby, but our guide told us it was actually a lion patrolling its territory.  We did not walk over to the bathrooms for a long while after that.

Ngorongoro Crater (my iPhone)

In the Serengeti we saw the most variety of animals.  The first day started early so we could see the sunrise like in Lion King.  After that we saw hyenas, which are actually not nearly as big and ugly as people expect them to be.  We also saw lions for the first time.  It was hard to see them on the ground because the grass was really tall, but some were in trees so we got a good view of them.  Later that day we saw the animal I was most excited about of the entire trip, a leopard.  It walked right across the road behind us, it was less than 100 feet away.  It crossed the road and bounded up a tree where it just sat in the branches.  I was truly not expecting to be fortunate enough to see one, which made me that much more appreciative when we did.

Lion perched in a tree in Serengeti National Park (Madelaine Olsen)

Our last stop of our four day trip was going down into Ngorongoro Crater.  We saw lots of the regular zebra, gazelles, antelope, and wildebeest there as well.  The most memorable parts of that day were definitely seeing a rhino far off in the distance, watching a wildebeest give birth, seeing lions lying in the shade of other groups’ jeeps, and watching a zebra scratch its belly on a small boulder.  The trip as a whole was an absolutely amazing and humbling experience.  I felt so fortunate to be able to see all the beauty of the wildlife there and to see some rare animals that not every safari group gets to see.  If there is one thing that I think should be on everyone’s bucket list, it is going on a safari in Tanzania.