Your Very Own Serengeti

Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is one of Africa’s biggest, most expensive wildlife destinations. Is it still worth visiting? You bet! Especially if you follow the smaller tracks away from the lion crowds…

- Toast Coetzer

The wildebeest aren’t here yet. It’s October and dry – the endless herds of wildebeest are still up north, slowly crossing the border into Tanzania from Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.

But the plains of the Serengeti are far from empty. We see Thomson’s gazelle, soaring vultures and a kori bustard striding along. Most importantly, however, we are here. We’ve driven all the way from South Africa in just over five weeks, with stopovers in Zambia and other iconic places in Tanzania like Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro.

The thing about a trip like this is that you’re not always aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it. You forget you’re busy with something truly epic. When my girlfriend Alice Inggs and I packed the Toyota Fortuner back in Cape Town, we had a rough route plan in mind. Right in the middle of that plan sat the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. (Read about the Ngorongoro part of the trip in last month’s issue.)

We packed the bare necessities: camping gear, emergency equipment, biltong (long gone), nuts (we can’t seem to finish them) and a sack full of Nik Naks from Makro. We had to save space in the vehicle for our friends Patrick and Grace Cairns who flew to Zanzibar and joined us for this part of the trip. The four of us are exploring the parks in northern Tanzania, then we’ll all drive to Rwanda and Patrick and Grace will fly home.

With the Cairns couple in the back, the Fortuner is full. When I brake a little too sharply for a “very important bird” (we’re all birders) a Tupperware container of nuts slides onto my lap. Too many nuts!

But we’re here. Here in the Serengeti. Can you believe it?

The road to Seronera