Photo shows Mount Kilimanjaro, which was clearly visible as we flew into the international airport of the same name in Northern Tanzania.

Tanzania is the third East African country that Alison has now visited, after Uganda and Kenya (in 1980). Tanzania has remained relatively stable and peaceful over the period since Independence, although it remains statistically one of the world's poorest countries. It's another country that Geoff lived in when he was a teenager, when his family was stationed in Dar es Salaam, on the Tanzanian coast, nearly opposite the island of Zanzibar.

We had a fantastic Air Tanzania flight between Entebbe and Kilimanjaro International Airport, located half way between the northern cities of Arusha and Moshi. There was an unusually clear sky and we were treated to a good view of Lake Victoria and its islands as well as the volcanic landmarks of Oldonyo Lengai and Ngorongoro Crater as well as Lakes Natron , Manyara and Eyasi. As we neared the end of the flight, huge Mount Meru on the doorsteps of Arusha reared up and behind that, further in the distance, was Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest. Maybe because the recently ended wet season had been particularly wet, Kilimanjaro seemed to have more snow on top than was expected.

Like Kampala, Arusha, our base city in Tanzania, had grown enormously since Geoff was last here in early 1971. We had hired a Toyota Landcruiser, a tougher 4 x 4 to tackle the notoriously atrocious roads in Tanzania's northern parks. This area has a lot of wildlife reserves and attracts more overseas visitors than just about anywhere else in Africa, so our Landcruiser was just one of many trundling along the highway south west of Arusha and into the national parks not so far away.

Our target areas were Tarangire NP, the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, Serengeti NP and Lake Manyara NP. In the end, we substituted Arusha NP, only 25 km from Arusha instead of Lake Manyara. All the parks we visited were superb wildlife areas and we were lucky to be in the middle part of Serengeti close to the park's HQ of Seronera just as the main bulk of the wildebeest/ zebra migration was passing through. (Apparently, a previously underestimated migration of antelope in war torn South Sudan has now been recognised as even greater than that of the greater Serengeti ecosystem, with up to 6 million hoofed animals making a 2,000 km round journey in the region of the Upper White Nile - great news!)

Tarangire NP was only opened up after Geoff lived in Tanzania and is best known for its elephant herds which congregate near to the Tarangire River in the dry season, but the first animals we saw in the park were 4 lionesses, sleeping peacefully in a tree close to the entrance gate!

Ngorongoro has a descent road and a separate ascent road into the crater, 600 m below the crater rim. Thankfully, they have both been paved, as the roads leading to and from the crater rim, as well as the roads on the floor of the crater, are not in good condition. Just as Geoff remembered, Ngorongoro seemed to be like a Garden of Eden, with animals of all descriptions everywhere. One feels that the zebras and gnus that live on the crater floor as well as the many gazelles, buffalo, hippos and elephants are lucky compared to their relatives in the Serengeti who have to be constantly on the move looking for food. We were lucky to see a black rhino in Ngorongoro. Rhinos have been slaughtered mercilessly over the last two or three decades and nowhere in Africa has been spared. The fight against corrupt government officials, well organised wildlife smuggling syndicates, poachers and markets in Yemen, Vietnam and China seems to have paid off somewhat more recently as the numbers of black rhinos seem to be now increasing. White rhino populations, for decades much more numerous than their browsing black rhino cousins, have not done so well and South Africa, in particular, is having a hard time trying to staunch the loss, even though many of their rhinos have had their horns cut off to dissuade poaching.

Driving around the Serengeti was hard work, because of the bone numbing roads and dust, but we were rewarded by the numbers and diversity of wildlife we saw. We camped in unfenced public campgrounds in both the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater rim and were kept awake at night by a cacophony of sounds coming from hyenas, lions, baboons, frogs and the constant grunting of migrating wildebeest, who seemed to have picked our Seronera campsite as a through route!

Our last stop in our too brief trip in Tanzania was little Arusha National Park, wedged between Mount Meru and the banana and coffee plantations all around. This park was surprisingly good value with plenty of megafauna, including large number of giraffes, zebras, waterbucks and other antelopes, herds of elephants and three species of monkeys on the slopes of Ngurdoto Crater, a smaller version of Ngorongoro, accessed by a horrendously narrow and dangerously slippery road!

Thanks to all the friendly and interesting people we met in the three countries we visited. You tend to miss some of the potentially good contact with locals you can get when you go on an organised tour or with a driver/guide combination, but we still managed to talk to a lot of South Africans, Ugandans and Tanzanians on our self drives. Thanks go to our rafiki, John, for example, in Arusha, who took us on an impromptu tour of Arusha's sprawling and fascinating central market where we saw all sorts of vegetables and fruit we had never seen before and in such large anounts as well as a lot of colourful market characters. Geoff once was able to get along happily in Kiswahili, Tanzania's official language and a lingua franca across East Africa, but what little he could remember (Jambo, Mama!) endeared him, or at least caused amusement, to locals everywhere!

We now have a couple of months cruising in Sundari before we fly off again to Europe to catch up with family and friends we haven't seen for years. Flying has become a bore and a drag, but we haven't done much of it for years until this year, so endure it we must.



Predators in Serengeti and Ngorongoro.
Top row: lionesses of the Seronera pride
Middle row: Male lion of the Seronera pride, cheetah seen on the plains on the way to Ngorongoro
Bottom row: Serengeti spotted hyena, young croc in the Seronera River.



Other megafauna in Tanzania
Top row: Serengeti wildebeest migratiom, Ngorongoro zebra, Serengeti dik dik
Middle row: Ngorongoro plains wildlife, Ngorongoro elephant, Ngorongoro hippo
Bottom row: Grants gazelle on the Serengeti Plains, Ostrich, Crowned crane in Ngorongoro.



Snapshot of Northern Tanzania
Top row: Olduvai Gorge entrance, Maasai village on the way out of Ngorongoro
Middle row: Views into Ngorongoro Crater
Bottom row: Seronera campsite at dawn.