In 2018 both of my parents turned 60. They decided to celebrate by going on a 3 week safari in Africa and told us kids if we meet them there we are welcomed to join. I couldn’t say no to an opportunity like that.
We started in Nairobi, Kenya and spent a week in an off-road minivan (seriously) travelling down to Amboseli National Park at the base of the Kilimanjaro. While we never fully saw the mountain through the clouds (locals said it is shy) we did see a ton of elephants.
Keep in mind that other than the one main highway basically no roads were paved. This was also our last permanent lodging for our sleeping arrangements. After our sleep in the Amboseli Park all of our nightly stops were in fancy tent campsites. That’s right, all that stopped lions from eating us in our sleep was some thick canvas. And the Maasai guards which guarded the camp.
We had to swap drivers and cars at the Kenya-Tanzania border. This time we got more of a your stereotypical safari jeep. We headed to Unguroguro Crater, probably my favorite part of the trip. We got to drive down and up the crater walls, which were steep enough we were super thankful we were no longer in the off-road minivan. In the crater we managed to get up close to a rhino, something so rare that even our driver-guide was speechless.
After the crater we headed to the Serengeti National Park. Serengeti means “Endless Plains” and let me say the name is extremely accurate. We also saw a cheetah or 2 as well as some leopards but those cats were tricky to capture photos of. We also drove past a ton of scheduled and regulated burns. We even got a goodbye gift from the park, our very own wildebeest migration traffic jam!
Our last leg of the safari was the Maasai Mara National Reserve, also known as the Mara Triangle. While it is still technically a part of the Serengeti this part was back in Kenya so another driver swap and safari jeep. It also is where the trees start showing up again which gave us a nice mix of animals. After stay there we headed back to Nairobi, the safari part of this trip is over.
We spent our last week in Zanzibar, exploring the old town and chilling by the sea. It was a stark contrast to the last 2 weeks spent stuck in our vehicle.
