We can’t say enough wonderful things about our recent Africa Dream Safari, from the pre-travel planning to help negotiating the airports and COVID testing in the middle of the Serengeti. But mostly for our amazing, eagle-eyed, super knowledgeable guide Russell. He was with us all day, every day for our entire trip, which made it so personalized as he knew that we were interested in birds as well as the obvious animals, and that Ray was an elephant geek.

Needless to say, the Tanzania that we saw (Serengeti and Tarangire) is filled with critters, lots and lots of critters. I kept a running list of things we saw: 48 different 4-legged creatures including 13 different antelope, and 162 birds!

Having to pick a few highlights was hard, but here are some of them:

Even before arriving at our first camp we witnessed part of the Great Migration, an hour long stampede of thousands of Wildebeest and zebras crossing the Mara River. Once they started crossing, they swarmed around our vehicle on the far side before calmly grazing and heading off to greener pastures.

Sunrise over the Ngorongoro Crater was spectacular, especially as Russell spotted a tiny moving dot way down there. With our binoculars it was easy to identify the rare Black Rhinoceros.

A baby zebra decided to check out our vehicle for about 10 minutes while Mama waited patiently nearby. He/she then left us to nurse.

Lion prides heading back to rest after a night of hunting.

Huge herds of elephants totally oblivious of us as they ate, swam, pulled down acacia trees and even chased off a resting lioness. Actually, all of the animals were oblivious of us, except for some of the monkeys.

Two very large Hippo pools. Not sure how they could have gotten many more hippos in them.

Animal visitors to our tents including zebras grazing next to our deck the first evening and two large elephants having a lengthy late afternoon meal just yards from our deck on the final evening.

But by far the most thrilling event was having a beautiful Cheetah jump onto the top of our vehicle and contentedly look around for as long as we decided to stay there.

Then there were the camps themselves. Each of the five camps we stayed in were elegant. Three had outdoor showers, two had plunge pools on the deck, one had a warm bubble bath waiting for me when we returned for the day, several had dining in the bush with linen table clothes and all had excellent meals.

Even the boxed breakfasts and lunches were fantastic. And the staff at all of them were super in every way.

Thank you ADS for a wonderful experience.

Suzi and Ray C.
Appleton, Wisconsin
Safari Dates: October 01, 2021 to October 11, 2021