Last and final Safari destination - Serengeti

Serengeti, a set on Flickr.

Hello there! Today I'm sharing the last segment of our safari trip to Tanzania, Africa. We went to the Serengeti and stayed at the beautiful Serengeti Migration Camp. The area is sooo vast with the terrain varying from a wooded region to an expanse of grassy plains as far as the eye can see. In addition to all the animals we had seen in the previous 3 locations, we were still introduced to a bunch more! And, we even got to witness the incredible wildabeest migration! It's nothing I've ever seen before....a sea of animals all heading North as part of their annual migration. You'll see these pics in the series. There's a picture that shows they fill the plains and extend to the horizon. It was incredible.

At the camp, we encountered an adorable animal called the Hyrax and I totally wanted to take one home with me. See if you can spot them in the series - it looks like a cross of a cat and squirrel with no tail and just the cutest round body.

Well, I hope you enjoy this last set! I can't say enough how much we enjoyed this trip and would highly recommend going on safari at some point in your life - truly amazing and inspiring to get a glimpse of nature's playground. I would also highly recommend our tour operator - Elewana Skysafari. Everyone and everything we encountered, from the staff and activities to all the properties we stayed at were amazing and absolutely fabulous! I really can't say enough.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Oh - one last thing on a completely different note - today is the last day to play in my May giveaway, so if you'd like to take a stab at winning the free stamp set, please go and leave a comment on the May Final Friday Giveaway post!

3rd Safari Stop - Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater, a set on Flickr.

Hi bloggie friends! How are you guys? Hope you're enjoying the pictures so far. This set is from our third destination at the Ngorongoro Crater. We stayed at the lovely Manor at Ngorongoro which was just so beautiful and unexpectedly decadent while on safari. We even had a little downtime to get massages in between our game drives. The Ngorongoro crater is actually a caldera, which is roughly 18 km in diameter. It's amazing that such a broad spectrum of animals found a way of life there in the bottom of the crater. We saw lions, buffalo, and rhinos here to round out our Big 5 sightings! I will have to caution you that viewer discretion is advised when viewing this set - there's a series of pictures of lions mating, and a few snaps of lionnesses guarding their kill. But, this is nature, so it was awesome to see live! The weather here was actually a little like home - overcast and misty in the morning and then it cleared up and warmed to mid to upper 70s. It even rained here during both nights we were there. The terrain actually reminded me a lot of Hawaii {probably because of its volcanic influences!}. Anyway, enjoy this set! Oh, and feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions about any pictures, places or animals!! I'll be happy to comment in the string for everyone's benefit :)

One last thing - the first few photos of the pink dots and pink masses...can you guess what those are? I know it kinda looks like a petri dish of growth {at least, to me!} but they are actually masses of flamingos in Lake Manyara!! It was an incredible view from the plane.

I'll be posting our last and final stop tomorrow...the grand finale of our trip, the Serengeti.

2nd Stop on our Safari - Tarangire National Park!

Tarangire, a set on Flickr.

Hi all! The second stop on our safari was Tarangire National Park and it was absolutely amazing! After we landed, we were greeted by our guide, Alex, who took us on our first game drive on the way to our 2nd lodge - the Tarangire Treetops. Not only were the accomodations to die for, but as soon as we left the airstrip, we saw lots of amazing animals, too! I was so fascinated by the beautiful birds from the start, then we saw a parade of elephants and a leapard in a tree! It was truly incredible. I learned that when you go on safari, you want to keep an eye out for the Big 5 - Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, Lion, and Rhino. I'm so happy to report that we saw ALL of them on our trip! In Tarangire, we saw two of the Big 5 - we saw tons of elephants and lucked out by seeing a leopard in a tree during the first half hr of our game drive! {We were told later that leopards are typically hard to spot, since they are usually alone, unless they're mating or have cubs}. Overall, we were delighted to see so many animals - it was always a treat to learn about new ones, too! My animal repertoire has definitely increased since this trip. Hope you enjoy these pictures. In the next week or so, I'll try and recap a few of our favorite new animals that we discovered on the trip!

Good night for now! The last two destinations to come soon....