Tanzania Travel and Accommodations

I suppose I should pause the story of our African journey for a sec to give an overview of the places we visited and stayed, as well as how long it took us to get there. It’s pretty dang far to the middle of the Serengeti – 6 hours from Arusha if you drive it straight through. About a third is paved.

Click HERE for a link to a map of the Northern Safari Circuit.

Day 1 – Arrive late, overnight in Arusha at a lodge.
Day 2 – Visit a Maasai village and boma in Monduli Juu. Hike through the hills for a couple hours. Camp at Zion Campsite near the gate of Tarangire National Park (90 minute drive).
Day 3 – Game drive in Tarangire. Overnight at same campsite.
Day 4 – Cultural walk in the town of Mto wa Mbu at the north end of Lake Manyara. Game drive in Lake Manyara National Park. Overnight Ngorongoro Farmhouse (90 minute drive).
Day 5 – Drive to central Serengeti with game viewing en route (3 hours direct; we took 8). Overnight in Pimbi Campsite (a public campsite near Seronera.)
Day 6 – Game drive in Serengeti. Camp same place.
Day 7 – Another game drive in Serengeti. Camp same place.
Day 8 – Sunrise game drive in Serengeti. Depart mid morning for Ngorongoro Conservation Area (3 hours). Hike into the Olmoti crater (90 minute hike round trip). Overnight Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge.
Day 9 – Early game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater. Leave for Arusha around noon and arrive late afternoon. Overnight at same lodge as the first night.
Day 10 – Fly to Zanzibar for 4 nights.

When all was said and done, we were pretty happy with our itinerary. It was great to have some hikes built in to stretch our legs, because basically we were spending at least 8 hours a day in the Land Cruiser. But we agreed that it was one day too long, so we’d recommend cutting one full day out of Serengeti (by then you’ve seen most of the animals many times), moving the Ngorongoro Crater drive before Serengeti, and then flying direct from the airstrip in Seronera (Serengeti) to Zanzibar. The extra cost of flying ($400) is more than made up for through cutting two nights on the road, plus you have to fly from Arusha to Zanzibar anyway.

Mixing camping and lodges worked out really well, too – it was nice to get a proper shower mid-way through the trip. But to my great surprise (shower aside), I preferred camping! We chose to camp a lot of the time for a couple reasons. First, it was cheaper. And second, it seemed like the thing to do as part of a safari filled with adventure! In the end, I think my preference came from getting to sit around with Ray and Willy in the evenings rather than having a formal dinner in a restaurant, as well as having a bit more control over the events of the evening. And the evenings were absolutely beautiful – 70 with a slight breeze – so it was a treat to eat outside and then sit by the campfire when we had one.

This also meant we were packed to the gills:

Truly it was pretty easy camping. The campsite outside of Tarangire was super basic, but it did have flushing toilets (albeit squat ones), a covered circular hut for eating that had a small “bar” (a room off to the side where you could get a beer or coke), and a “kitchen”, which consisted of four stalls side by side under a room that each had a small dilapidated counter and a raised fire pit “stove.” Hardly a glamorous place for Willy to whip up our dinner.

Nevertheless, when we arrived, the few guys that lived at the campsite helped Willy pitch the two tents and haul our bedrolls and luggage inside. They had them up so fast that we didn’t even get a chance to help.

Our bedrolls turned out to be totally adequate. We each had a 2-inch foam mattress, sleeping bag and pillow. If we’d had more luggage, the fit would’ve been pretty darn tight, though.

At our Serengeti campsite, we didn’t have a fence – which meant animals were roaming around us day and night. Most evenings there were giraffes eating by the gravel parking lot. See the baboon? They liked to come at lunch.

Trail to the bathouse (by night we just squatted outside the tent…too dangerous to go further astray):

Once camp was set-up, Willy started cooking. Our vehicle had been loaded to the gills with supplies, and once we sat down to eat, we could see why. Willy cooked over 2 fires – a wood one and a gas one that he’d brought along. It was amazing what he could make with just very basic facilities.

For dinner, our table would be set with a tablecloth, plates, napkins, condiments, and coffee/tea.

Usually he brought out a plate of popcorn for us to snack on while he was cooking. The first course was always a pureed soup – a different flavor each night, including onion, cucumber and cauliflower. This was accompanied by bread, which despite being a Wonderbread equivalent, was incredibly tasty (especially when he figured out that we liked it even more toasted – which he did by hand over the fire).

Then it was on to the main course. The first few nights we had meat, since there was still ice in the cooler to keep it cold. Several times we had a meat and veggie dish with a sauce and rice on the side. Once night spaghetti bolognaise (which I didn’t eat because I was puking – more on that later). Usually there was either a cold veggie salad with a mayo-based dressing or cooked veggies in a sauce on the side. The last night, instead of rice, we had a choice of either macaroni or ugali on the side – ugali being one of the Tanzanian staples, which is basically stiff polenta that is eaten by rolling a piece into a walnut-size ball and then scooping up a veggie and/or meat mixture with it. Dessert was generally a plate of mango and pineapple.

Our first few breakfasts were the same. First course was fresh pineapple and mango, plus toast. The main course was a fried sausage (hot dog), scrambled eggs and a “pancake,” which I would call a crepe. The last morning we had an omelet, and another morning we had another Tanzanian dish, which was basically a fried potato omelet (yum). Anything cooked – no matter what meal – was super heavy on the grease, to the point that our omelets were pretty much deep friend. Great for the waistline. Sigh.

So all in all, breakfast and dinner were treats. And it was fun to sit around the campsite chatting with Ray and Willy, occasionally talking to some of the other campers (though on two nights we were the only ones staying at the site).

Lunch, on the other hand, was a little questionable. On two days we were actually at the campsite to eat, and those meals were similar to breakfast and dinner in that Willy cooked us something hot. One day was a Spanish tortilla, and another was quiche. Both were excellent. (Amazing that we could actually make a delicious pastry crust given the restrictive kitchen situation. I guess that’s why he went to tourism/cooking school for three years!) Most days, however we had a picnic lunch – sometimes made by Willy, and a couple of the days supplied by the lodge we’d just stayed at. In the end they were all similar. A butter and carrot sandwich, a piece of fried chicken (how long it had been out was questionable), a brown banana (I eat them almost green usually), a pack of shortbread cookies (my favorite part), a hardboiled egg, and a fried meat or veggie “pie”. Mango juice to drink. The one exception to my general dislike of lunch was the day Willy made veggie pies – they hit the spot (though totally deep fried and greasy).

[Aside: Everywhere we’ve been, eggs are not refrigerated, even in the grocery stores. Dog food, however, can be found next to the breakfast sausage in the refrigerator section in Australia and New Zealand.]

Mr. Farmer and Ray had to stop to get firewood one day on the side of the road. I think Farmer was a little freaked when Ray said, “Look first, then pick it up.” (Scorpions and snakes.)

As for the lodges, the place we stayed in Arusha at the start and end of the trip was super homey, as I explained in my prior post. We enjoyed staying there, with the only glitch being that there wasn’t always water, and the city power was always going on and off (which meant that the generator was going on and off, too). These obviously weren’t the lodge’s fault – just a reality of a third world country.

The Ngorongoro Farmhouse wasn’t a farmhouse at all, but a central lodge house and then probably 25 smaller rectangular buildings around the grounds with two guest rooms each. It was set in the middle of a lush coffee plantation, with flowers everywhere and a beautiful pool. Our room was really nice (albeit loud because of the French couple next door), and it had a fireplace, indoor sitting area, and sitting area on the patio. The buildings were quite far from the main house, though – which creeped me out a little since I kept thinking that a snake was going to come up and bite me. This fear was not alleviated when we learned that a security person would escort us back to our room after dinner because there were hyenas and buffalo in the area. Great. It was like a 3-5 minute walk with only the light of a flashlight.

We went for dinner at 7:30, and we were led to the back deck of the main house first for nibbles plus entertainment by a local family from the Iraqw tribe (thoroughly modern), who explained their ethnic group a bit and then sang with the dad accompanying the three kids on an instrument that looked like a 2-stringed gourd guitar. There were only like 10 people staying at the lodge that night, and somehow, during the different ditties, Mr. Farmer and I each ended up as part of the entertainment rather than part of the audience. (Ray agreed that Mr. Farmer needs dancing lessons.)

Ray and Willy ate dinner with us – pretty fancy. We started with soup, then a salad, then I had beef kebabs with fruit for dessert. Mr. Farmer had the fish.

I’m not exactly sure which part of the meal caused the issue, but by 4:00 a.m. I wasn’t feeling well. By sunrise my dinner was making an exit in both directions, and fortunately it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t travel in reasonable comfort. When we got to the Serengeti campsite I took a nap, then made the mistake of getting up for dinner – a piece of toast and a few bites of plain pasta – which came wooshing out in waves through my nose an hour later. I think a buffalo ate it in the night.

So that was the start with a 6-day battle with travelers’ diarrhea, finally alleviated when I broke down and took the antibiotics we’d brought along (we were told not to jump to them too quickly). But rest assured, it could’ve been much worse. Ray thinks it was the soup. But I’m not sure – at least one other person at the table ate each of the things I ate that night and didn’t really have an issue.

Our other lodge was on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater – the Sopa Lodge. This one was more hotel-style than the Farmhouse, and though people tend to poo-poo the Sopa chain a little for being huge and impersonal, I was ready for exactly that. Yes, it was a little out of 1970. But the view was phenomenal, and the food was quite good. Especially since we got to have ice cream for dessert at dinner. And the breakfast spread was fantastic. Most amusing, though, was that we returned to our room after dinner to find hot water bottles in our bed – and it was still 70 degrees out.