During our trip to Europe for the summer, we decided to do a side trip to Africa to do a safari in Kenya and Tanzania. This was a treat for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We booked the 14 day "Ultimate Great Migration Safari" with Abercrombie & Kent. The trip was amazing with wonderful accommodations, warm and welcoming local people and staff of A&K, stunning scenery, exciting animals and a truly great tour group where we had many laughs and made some friends!
We drove from Kandersteg to Paris where we stayed one night at the Courtyard Marriott CDG Airport and then flew from Paris to Nairobi. On our way to Paris, we stopped in Chamonix to leave our large suitcases as we were limited in baggage weight for the safari.
At the airport, we were first greeted by an airport employee who escorted us through security and to baggage claim and then she handed us off to an A&K representative who took us to our driver. We rode in an A&K jeep to the hotel. We already started off with 5 star service!
Nairobi, Kenya
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Hemingways Hotel - We stayed here for two nights before the safari started. The place is beautiful with large, nicely appointed rooms and lush gardens. Breakfast was included in our rate and consisted of a fantastic buffet. We also had dinner here our second night sharing a chicken curry.
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| Hemingways Hotel |
Activities:
Other than attending the orientation session with A&K, we just relaxed in our room as we needed a break after traveling for three weeks with friends.
Amboseli National Park, Kenya
We drove for five hours to our first safari stop, taking a break mid-way. We each drove in our safari jeeps (which have wifi onboard) with six people in each jeep. We had the same six people in our jeep throughout the journey and we lucked out as the group was fantastic! Shawna named our group the "Sexy Six".
This park is located at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro and was founded in 1974. It is quite arid with not many trees so easy to spot the animals.
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Tawi Lodge - We stayed at this wonderful place for two nights. Each room is a separate building with a large bedroom and bathroom and a deck with chairs overlooking Mt Kilimanjaro. The place has a swimming pool which we did not use and has a watering hole where we say elephants, zebra and giraffes. There were also monkeys on property so we had to make sure our rooms were closed at all times. All of our meals were eaten here. For breakfast, we just did the continental items but we had full lunch and dinner with starters, mains and dessert. Food included lamb, chicken, fish and curry - all very tasty!
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| Tawi Lodge |
Activities:
We went on two game drives - one in the evening and a longer one during the day, leaving early in the morning. On the drives, we say elephants, zebras, gazelles, antelope, giraffes, wildebeest, vultures, hyenas, eagles, maribou stork, lions with cubs, cheetah (in the distance), crested cranes, clown crane, buffalo, hippos, and white pelicans. The only 'action' we saw were warthogs and zebras having sex as well as a hyena feeding on the bare remains of an elephant carcass. We have now seen the "ugly five" which is the hyena, vulture, warthog, wildebeest and maribou stork.
We also did a sundowner walk on property where we learned about some of the plants, animal scat, animal prints and animal behavior. The guide told us that in addition to the 'ugly five' and the 'big five', there were also the 'shy five' and 'small five'. The walk concluded with chairs and a large fire set up to enjoy cocktails while watching the sunset.
Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
It took us a full day of travel to get to this park - driving two hours to the border (which took a while to get through passport control) and two more hours to Arusha where we then boarded two charter planes that each sat 12 passengers and flew about 25 minutes to Kuru. We were picked up at the airstrip and drove another hour to our lodge. The park is much more lush with lots of trees, including baobab trees! We stayed here two nights.
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Arusha Coffee Lodge - We stopped here for lunch in Arusha before boarding our flight. The place is beautiful with tables set in gardens. They had a wonderful buffet - mostly curry dishes.
Swala Camp (an A&K property) - This place is in a beautiful setting with large common areas of a lounge, bar and dining area that overlooks the plains as elephants walk by. There were also impala and monkeys onsite. We each had our own 'tented' room which had a large bedroom, really nice bathroom (with indoor and outdoor showers) and front deck to sit on. We had all of our meals here - breakfast was continental and dinner included pork, beef, fish and lamb.
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| Swala Camp |
Activities:
We did a long game drive leaving in the morning and returning mid-afternoon. We saw lots of elephants, zebras, bastards, termite mounds, impala, vervet monkeys, jackal, zebras, wildebeests, water buck and a cute family of mongoose. The birds we saw included African fish eagle, bee eater, yellow throated spur fowls, kingfisher, hornbill, ostrich, and crested snake eagle. We stopped at a picnic site on a hill overlooking the swamp below - they served us a variety of salads, pasta, rice and chicken skewers.
Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
We drove to this park - first stopping in Mosquito Creek (Mto wa Mbu) to do a tuk tuk drive around the markets, farms and banana plantation. The crater is the world's largest unbroken and unflooded volcanic caldera. It was formed 2 million years ago, has 600 meter high walls and contains roughly 25K animals. We stayed here two nights.
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| Ngorongoro Crater |
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Gibbs Farm - This is a beautiful property set in a lush forested area that looks very tropical. They have their own farm where they grow all of their own coffee, vegetables, fruits and herbs and they have their livestock. We each got our own cottage which had a very large bedroom, nice bathroom and deck overlooking the gardens. We had all our meals here as well - breakfast was continental with option to also order - we just had avocado toast. Lunch was a buffet with salads and warm food and dinner was options of pork, fish, and lamb with yummy soups to start. The food was the best so far on the trip (and it has all been very good). For our anniversary dinner, we sat at our own table in a cute private area with a fireplace!
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| Our cottage and room at Gibson Farms |
Activities:
We did a walk around the farm at our lodge seeing all of the produce. We milked a cow, fed milk to two calves and then fed fennel to the goats. We've never seen such clean animals - even the chickens and pigs were clean!
We did a long game drive into the crater leaving around 7:30 and returning at 4:30. It started out cloudy and misty but then got sunny and warm. In the crater, we saw baboons, zebra, wildebeests, Thompson gazelles, flamingos, hippos, cormorants, male and female lions (they were sleeping so could not get the best photos), buffalo, great crowned cranes, warthogs, Grant gazelles and the crown jewel of this park, the white rhino. We got quite close to the rhino which is rare. It was funny to see the many jeeps line up to see them! We had a picnic lunch in the park overlooking one of the hippo pools.
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
This park is over 15K square kilometers and so many animals. To get here, we drove about an hour to an airfield, took a charter plane that lasted about 30 minutes and then drove another hour to the lodge. We stayed here three nights.
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| Serengeti |
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti - This is the largest lodge we stayed in with three restaurants, an amazing infinity pool overlooking a water hole and over 70 rooms. Our room was nice with a deck overlooking the plains but we thought the rooms in the other places were nicer. When we arrived, they had put a message on our bed using flowers and leaves that wished us a Happy 25th Anniversary. They also had a bottle of champagne and a piece of cake waiting for us! We did enjoy the pool one afternoon and enjoyed watching a large family of elephants drink from the water hole. All of our meals were here - breakfast was an expansive buffet. Lunch included a full menu of options - we mostly stuck to lighter fare like salads. And dinner included a full menu as well - we had grilled meat and lamb. On our last night, we had a buffet.
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| Four Seasons |
Activities:
Each day we did a morning drive that lasted about four hours and a later afternoon drive that lasted about 1.5 hours to 2 hours. Since this park has so many animals, we got to see quite a lot including: elephants, zebras, giraffe, buffalo, hippos, topis (an antelope), crocodiles, impala, eland, spotted hyenas, jackal, dik-dik (small antelope), Marshall eagle, secretary bird, ground hornbill, heron, fish eagle and an Egyptian goose.
The highlights of course were our cat sightings. One evening, we saw a pride feasting on the remnants of a buffalo they had killed the prior night. There was a male and several female all with very full bellies! Keith unfortunately missed this one as he was on a conference call back at the hotel. We also got to see two leopards - a mom and her child, each resting in separate trees. This sighting then ticked off the list of seeing all of the "Big Five". We later saw two males resting in the shade of some bushes. We also saw eleven lions, including a male, lounging quite close to a campsite. And, we saw three males chilling out while the female and cubs were resting and playing in the tall grass. On our last evening game drive, we saw a cheetah in a tree and watched it climb down and then we saw the same pride of three males but this time, we saw a female and some of the cubs more in the open grass.
Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya
The park is 510 square meters and is known for having the big five animals as well as the most lions in Kenya. It is also famous for seeing the great migration of the wildebeests from Tanzania to Kenya, crossing the Mara River. It was our favorite park for scenery as it was green and hilly with beautiful trees. We stayed here three nights.
Accommodation/Restaurant:
Olonana Lodge (an A&K owned property) - This was our favorite room of the trip as it had modern decor. They had a nice lounge and dining areas. They also had a pool which was just OK and we never used it. Our room was spectacular - very large bedroom and bathroom (with open shower that had three shower heads) as well as a nice seating area overlooking the river that had hippos in it. Like the other places, we had all of our meals here. Breakfast was a la carte, lunch was lighter fare like salads and vegetables and dinner included three courses with choice of meat or veggie entrees. Our last night farewell dinner was a buffet with local foods. The food was also very good!
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| Olanana Lodge |
Activities:
We did morning and afternoon drives - seeing all the usual animals, including zebras, giraffes, hippos, elephants, buffalo, wildebeests, impala, topi, water buck, eland, baboons, monkeys, long-crested eagle, mongoose, jackal, warthogs, hyena, marabou stork, vultures, very large crocodiles and lions. We also got to see three black rhino which is quite rare! And to really top it off, we also saw leopard and cheetah! What was different here is that we could see much larger herds of the animals - in particular the wildebeest.
We did the hot air balloon ride which was beautiful - we took off shortly before sunrise and mostly flew at a low level so we could see the wildlife. From the air, we could see hippos, elephants, zebras, giraffe, topi, an eagle, and a crocodile killing a bird. The scenery was stunning, especially with the early morning light. Our touch down in the ballon was interesting - they had us all sit in the basket and buckle in while holding on to loops. Glad they did as we bumped quite hard a few times before we landed on our side and then had to crawl out of the basket! We had a nice champagne breakfast out on the savannah which was a buffet with lots of choices, including an omelet station.
The highlights on the safari included having a female lion walk right by our jeep and then seeing two more female lions feasting on a small kill. We also saw a jackal and vultures feasting on something. And we saw a cub lion walking around looking for its mom and separately a male lion with an injured leg. We had the rare opportunity to see a leopard walking on the side of the road and to see two cheetahs walking around in the grass! On our last game drive, we saw the "Big Five" within an hour and we also saw the "Ugly Five" that day! On two different days, we went to the river where the wildebeest cross to see the 'migration' but sadly they never crossed while we were there. That said, it was truly an amazing safari!
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