African Safaris
Date: March 16, 2012 6:57:54 AM
To: Kay Trotman
Subject: Brief Trip Report Tanzania 2012
Tanzania Trip Highlights
Sponsored by Ker and Downey, Tanzania, a high end tour company in Tanzania, ten travel agents participated on this adventure. Our mission: to visit and experience properties under the Ker and Downey umbrella. Our stay at Legendary Lodge (formerly Legendary Coffee Lodge) was the start of something wonderful. This large sprawling working coffee farm was home to the group for the first night prior to departing for our next location.
The ten of us piled in to two cars, along with the General Manager and a professional guide. Off we headed to Tandala, about three hours and a little more than an hour from the border of Tanzania and Kenya. Also home to a pack of wild dogs, which we did not know and were not expecting, this was going to be the start of the highlights that we were soon to experience. We watched and tracked those dogs for two days.
Our charter air flight on Northern Air, also a subsidiary of Ker and Downey, flew us over the Empakai and Ngorongoro Craters, and spectacular scenery along our route. We landed and took a short drive to Mwiba, our home for the next three nights. Also unknown to us, was this was the location where the migration was hiding. While everyone else looking for the migration in Ndutu, the southern area of the Serengeti, we found almost all two million of them right here on this property, where we were staying. Babies, Babies and more babies, newborns, a week old, a few days old, all up and running with mom within the first thirty or so minutes of birth. What a surprise and what a sighting this was for those who had not seen it. Yes, I plan to include this on a future safari during this time of the year. No guarantees of course, but hope to be as lucky the next time.
From here, we drove five to six hours, a game drive all the way, and we had some spectacular sightings along the route until we reached a point where it became almost impassible, as the weather got worse. We thought we’d be stuck out in the Serengeti, but as is most often the case, the weather blew over, passed us almost completely, and we were again heading off to our next camp, Serengeti Tented Camp in Kusini. If we didn’t see all of the migration at Mwiba, we surely saw the rest of it in this area, with predators not too far behind to select their meal for the day, week and even longer.
Then it was a short flight back to Legendary for a day room where everyone departed for home that evening with memories of a lifetime. I stayed and headed off with my private driver on a private safari of my own. The remainder of my week’s stay took me to Manyara Ranch Conservancy where for the first time in my eight years on safari, I saw an aardwolf, not one, but THREE. I could not believe that in the light of the early afternoon, not only would I find that yes, they really do exist, because I saw not one, but three. All, however, too far for a good photo, but I was one happy camper, pun intended.
Then we drove to Olivers Camp in Tarangire National Park for the biggest treat of all – HERDS and HERDS of elephant. You’ll almost always see them here, if you haven’t seen them elsewhere. And then it was back to Legendary Lodge. In January of 2012, there was an article published on the web, and in most papers around the nation, which profiled the plight of a former Black Panther. Turns out, this Black Panther was residing in Tanzania and had been for over forty years. I’d heard this before, but could never find out where he was. This time I cut the article out and through someone who knew his wife, was able to find out where he was living in Tanzania.
So, it was not coincidental that I arranged a visit with them before I left the country. So, on my way to the airport, the following day, my driver helped me locate the village in which they resided and I visited with Pete and Charlotte O’Neal. It was a much briefer visit than I’d planned, but as things go in Tanzania, there was a detour which took us much more time than we’d thought, and as luck would have it, no cell phone reception either. However, everyone in the area knew who he was, so we were directed there, albeit with little time to visit and make my flight, too.
Kay and Pete O’Neal: Click image for larger view
Read more about the Black Panther here
Kay L. Trotman
Destined To Travel
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