Ngorongoro Crater Tanzania
Safari Location: |
Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater Tanzania. |
Duration: |
Five nights,
February 2005. |
Traveller Details: |
Nick Rienstra,
Australia. Five people in the group. |
Safari
Interview Questions
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Where did you stay and how
was the organization of the trip by the operator? |
We camped for four nights
and stayed in a resort just outside Arusha
I cant remember a lake near
Arusha.
What were the Ngorongoro Crater camping facilities like?
It was
good. It was very dry, there wasnt much water but that wasnt their problem.
The campsites have no fences around them so there were some nocturnal visitors.
We saw
footprints of a big cat, probably lion. We saw footprints a couple of times.
Once it was lion and another time we werent sure what it was
it could have
been a cat.
What did a typical breakfast and dinner consist of?
Breakfast
was continental. Dinner was like spaghetti or a curry or something like that.
The food was quite good.
Did
your safari company perform well, or was there any problems with their
service? |
Back to
the Questions |
It wasnt
all that good. The animals were good but the service and whatever wasnt all
that good
too many people in the vehicle.
There was
5 in a Toyota twin carrier, but there was the cook and the driver as well so it
was 7. It was pretty cramped and we were all big people.
They
werent terribly easy to negotiate with, in the beginning, when we were still
trying to get our point across that there were five big people which was too
many for the vehicle that they didnt really care. That was while we were still
in the town near Arusha, I cant remember the name of the town. Anyway we were
still there. They still had the opportunity to change the vehicle but didnt
bother.
Did you book this Ngorongoro Crater trip before you went?
No, in
Dar es Salaam.
Four of
the big 5
didnt see leopard, but saw lion yes, 4 of the big 5. In the
Ngorongoro crater we saw plenty of wildlife. It was a particularly good morning that we
had there. In total we saw about 80 or 90 birds and about 28 or 30 mammals.
What would you say your wildlife spotting highlight was?
Probably
some lions in the Ngorongoro crater. Oh and just after a kill in the Serengeti. Well,
immediately after the kill, the lions had a zebra. I didnt see the kill but saw
it, like maybe five minutes later.
What would you say the most useful item in your luggage was?
Digital
camera, and bird book.
We were
ushered to breakfast, or a cup of tea or coffee first, then breakfast and then
usually a game drive straight after and then we were on the road a fair bit.
After the
game drive it was usually driving to somewhere else. Had lunch on the way
somewhere, stop about 2 or 3 oclock, set up camp.
Theyd do
a late afternoon game drive and then have a late dinner, we had dinner at about
8 oclock, usually in the darkness, and then go to bed. They werent a terribly
sociable lot, so it was to bed fairly early, and we got up early.
Ask questions about who youre going with and how many
people, whats the vehicle size and that sort of thing.
And see if you can ascertain how much the other people are
paying because we found discrepancies in our group I paid the cheapest, but
some of the people in our group paid like 60-70% more than I have. There were
two Irish people that had bought in Ireland, the other three of us bought in Dar
es Salaam. We all paid different prices.
On a
scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your Ngorongoro Crater safari overall?
Ive done a few trips, probably about 10 trips to Africa
this one, out of ten, Id say about 6.
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