Tanzania
Tanzania draws visitors from around the world to scale the world’s highest free-standing mountain - Kilimanjaro at 5 895 metres - but there is plenty more to see.
The parks and game reserves are unrivalled anywhere since Tanzania set aside more land for conservation than any other country in the world.
The remarkable sunken landscape of the Ngorongoro Crater is a spectacular haven for flamingo flocks, towering forests of strangler figs and deep valleys.
It’s Jungle Africa at its finest and a world heritage site. About two million years ago this giant volcano literally blew its top and its peak sank slowly like a soufflé, creating a 16 by 19 km-wide bowl of grasslands.
The vast interior of this concave Eden is home to around 30 000 animals whose migration options are limited by the 600 metre high walls, making it one of the best places in the world to view a lion or hyena hunt. Down on the crater floor, the walls seem to support the endless blue east African sky. Sightings are terrific. Expect to see lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, elephant, ostrich, buffalo, baboon, zebra, wildebeest and much more.
Thousands of flamingos resemble a pink heat haze on Lake Magadi where hippos lie half-submerged, occasionally rolling over in the mud, which acts as their sunblock.
Masai herdsmen in red robes, armed with only a spear or stick, graze their cattle and goats down in the crater. Apparently, the lions wouldn’t dare attack them. Time has taught both sides who the master is here.
The “Cradle of Mankind” in Olduvai Gorge, within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area on the road to Serengeti, is famous for being the site of archeological finds, including the remains of a woman dating back 1,8 million years.
A hot-air balloon ride over Tanzania’s second-largest park, Serengeti, is an unforgettable experience, particularly if you can time it to coincide with the spectacular annual migration when tens of thousands of wildebeest, and other species embark on their pilgrimage across the vast savannah plains.
A visit to the coast is incomplete without a moonlight voyage on a dhow. If a sea voyage is not for you, then enjoy a cold Tusker beer, fresh fruit juice or coconut milk while enjoying tribal singing and dancing. You’ll find a colourful array of inexpensive crafts at the markets as well as interesting food. Locusts, grasshoppers and flying ants are considered delicacies in East Africa.