My wife and I always like to see animals be it the Grizzly bears catching Salmon in Alaska, the Polar bears of Churchill or the local animals of Minnesota. So going to see the animals of Africa was an adventure I wanted to do. It was great to do it with my wife Pam, my cousin Bruce and his wife Lori!

The big question is when to go? We picked the middle of January through the end of January, to break up our Minnesota winter! We couldn’t be happier with our choice of when to go. There are many Safari companies to choose from in Tanzania and as we found out you cannot possibly see lots of animals. But for us after choosing Africa Dreams Safari for our adventure we couldn’t be happier with our choice. ADS you are the best!

From the start we booked our Safari with Sharon. She answered all our questions and gave us important recommendations to ease the stress of this adventure; recommending the extra day layover in Arusha to get the well-deserved rest from our flight; answering all of our questions no matter how big or small they were; giving us valuable tips from firsthand experience; putting us in touch with their photography expert Jeff to answer any photography questions we had.

Once we got to Tanzania, going through Customs was a breeze because we were greeted right away after getting off the plane by 2 employees who took our luggage and brought us to a private lounge where they took care of the paperwork (Passports, Visas, other documents). Then we met our personal host while we spent time in Arusha. Esther was our host and was waiting for us with a warm friendly smile to escort us to our lodging. On our extra layover day before we actually started our Safari, Esther showed us the sites of Arusha and shopping for souvenirs, my wife Pam and cousin Lori love to quilt were hoping to find fabric for quilting. Esther knew where to take them to look for African design fabric! Who does this? The Esther from ADS, that’s who!

Everyone who uses ADS will get remarkable photos. And these Blogs are testimony of that. It just depends on if you are at the right place at the right time. Our guide Emmanuel is top notch he even considered the lighting when positioning the vehicle for the best pictures! We went over what we wanted to see with Esther and she relayed that information to Emmanuel. Every day Emmanuel went over our options for the next day then we told him what we wanted to do and every day he exceeded our expectations. He is just amazing, not only as a guide but as a person.

The staff from ADS are detail oriented, not only for our accommodations but our adventure was about what we wanted to see and do. We decided how much time we wanted to watch specific animals; we weren’t on a schedule.

We saw thousands of animals, including the Big 5 and on the first actual day of our Safari we saw 4 of the Big 5! We had to wait until we got to the Ngorongoro Crater before were saw the Black Rhino. The weather was actually comfortable for a person who doesn’t like the heat! The daytime temps were around 80 for the most part and cooled off at night to the 50’s and 60’s. Here are some of our highlights of our Safari:

4 of the Big 5 on Day 1

Watching a Cheetah with 2 grown cubs for over 30 minutes and then when we decide to leave a baby gazelle that was bedded down within feet of our vehicle gets up and the hunting training session begins, unfortunately it doesn’t end well for the gazelle! And we were surprised at the outcome as well as you will see in our pictures.

Seeing the last animal of the Big 5 – the Black Rhino!

Bush Breakfast – One morning Emmanuel said he had a surprise for us and it was going to be a Bush Breakfast. My initial thought was some type of box breakfast, wrong! What a pleasant surprise, at first I thought someone else took his picnic site but then as we got closer I realized it was the staff from Lion’s Paw Lodge. What a treat, they brought everything with them to make us a full breakfast in the bush.

The migration, Wildebeest and zebra as far as the eye can see.

A few other pictures:

Lastly pictures with the ADS staff that made our adventure the best it could be! Our host Esther with her driver Sumbe, our unbelievable guide Emmanuel!

Robert and Pamela G.
Menahga, Minnesota
Safari Dates January 18, 2023 to January 31, 2023