As soon as we arrived in the Serengeti National Park via the most interesting plane ride of all time we were whisked off in the jeep with our guide Emanuel and parked smack dab in the middle of the great migration. Within minutes, we saw thousands of zebras and wildebeests. The first day may have been my favorite (I’m one of a group of four) as the sheer number of animals was more than I thought I’d see on the entire trip! I didn’t exactly know what to expect, but the first day was already beyond my greatest expectations!

During lunch, it felt like we had been transplanted to the set of the Lion King. We ate our food while zebras and wildebeests surrounded the jeep. Just a short distance from us, a small pride of lions slept under the tree and just beyond that, hippos lounged in a pond.

As we continued on, we saw hundreds of gazelles and impalas grazing in the plains on either side of us. We got a good laugh when a mama warthog and her four babies trotted down the road with their tails pointed straight up! Just after leaving that spot, we found another pride of lions napping under a bush!

Each day, for the next six days, we saw exotic animals and learned facts from Emanuel about the East African flora, fauna, and native peoples. We came to see the animals, but left having experienced a real cultural immersion! Passing through the Arusha market on business day was an experience that rivaled Black Friday shopping back home!

Visiting the Maasai village towards the end of the trip was a real educational experience on a lifestyle that we had only read about in textbooks, and provided some of the most beautiful and colorful photos of the trip! The Ngorongoro Crater was awe-inspiring and its beauty cannot even be captured in the hundreds of photos we took that day.

This was indeed the trip of a lifetime.

Jackie L.
Baltimore, Maryland
Trip Dates: April 5 2019 to April 12, 2019