Saying that Serengeti is huge will be a big understatement. This land was used by the Masai people to graze their livestock. In local language of Masai the word Serengeti roughly translates to “the place where the land runs forever”. People also refer to it as the endless plains of Serengeti. The size of this national park is around 15,000 sq kms. This is also a part of the Great Rift Valley which extends 6000 Kms from Lebanon to Mozambique. The national park continues from Masai Mara and is known as Serengeti in the Tanzania part of it. The best time to visit is during the summers when the great migration happens. Also more animals are seen outside to drink water and rest in shades so it becomes easier to spot them. There are also several other places which are usually clubbed with a trip to this national park. We covered Ngorongoro and Tarangire National park.

Reaching there: The closest town for Serengeti is Arusha. There are domestic flights connecting Arusha to other major airports like Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We were coming from Kenya so the most convenient mode for us was a 7 hours bus ride from Nairobi to Arusha. The journey was very comfortable. This was the first time we were crossing an international border on land. The customs and immigration process was very smooth. The officials were very friendly to the Indians. A lot of people from the western state of Gujarat, India have settled in Kenya and Tanzania with big business to manage. Arusha is small town with nothing much to offer. This can just act as a pivot point to explore the national parks and Kilimanjaro.

For the national park trip, we booked through a local agency which conducts 3-4 days game drive from Arusha. Our package included Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire. The trip here was much more expensive compared to the one we did in Masai Mara. Because we will be far away from any town and going to be in very remote areas, our vehicle was also carrying a cook and all kind of cooking equipments and food along with dining table/chairs. This increased the overall trip cost.

Visa: For Tanzania visa we had to go to the Embassy in New Delhi. The documents were straight forward and we got the visa in the same week.

Things to do:
– Kilimanjaro Trip: We asked our Serengeti tour guy to arrange a car for a day to take us to Kilimanjaro. This was pretty cheap and it took us around 1 hour to reach there. This is the tallest mountain in Africa and you should definitely visit it if you are in Arusha. Some people also do few days of trek on Kilimanjaro but we were short on time so we just did a day trip.

–Tarangire National Park: The one thing that I distinctly remember about Tarangire is the birds. We saw a whole lot of birds and some were new compared to the ones we saw in Masai Mara. This national park was the first on our list after we started from Arusha. We also closed many groups of elephants during the drive.

–Ngorongoro: This is a world heritage site and is named after a crater present inside. It is a circular area with densely packed wild life. We saw a group of lion cubs as well in this place. Another group spotted white rhinos but even after spending an hour around that place we couldn’t find them.

–Camping: This was our first experience of camping. Initially we were a bit scared as the tent was tiny and there were wild animals roaming around. But we saw few dozen people campaign in that same area and felt a bit more secure. Overall it was a good experience. Inside the Serengeti park there are also some luxury tent accommodations. We also spent one night camping at the edge of Ngorongoro. This one was slightly bigger and we had to pitch our own tents with the help of the driver. It got extremely windy at night. The camping area was also swamped with a lot of Zebras at night. I almost stepped on a sleeping Zebra while going to the bathroom.

–Serengeti Game drive: This will be highlight of your trip. The entrance to the national park had a long dusty road which seemed endless after some time. This felt like a scene from Mad Max: Fury Road. Right when we entered the national park we saw 5-6 lions lying next to the path. Leopard is also something that we couldn’t spot in Masai Mara and we got to see it here in Serengeti.

For pictures on the wildlife, visit our other blog on the Africa page.