The Ngorongoro Crater is a hugely impressive place. It is the pride of the Ngorongoro Highlands that is home to numerous dormant and extinct craters and also Africa's only live vocano! The Highlands are a place with a rich cultural history as well as a very interesting natural history. It is also a place where the Maasai live, as much as possible, in tune with their local environemnt. On the surface, this seems all very pleasant and "just right". It i...

If you wrack your brains, and go through your memory bank, you know that you have heard this name before. Perhaps you heard it as Olduvai Gorge. Any easier to remember now? What about Laeatoli Gorge? No? How about I mention the names of the Leakeys? Does that ring a bell? Louis or Mary or Richard? Or what about the name of "the Nutcracker man"? Still no recollection of these names? Or their significance? Jeez, where have you been…. Long ago when Germ...

World famous Serengeti National Park. Its name in maasai means "the wide endless plains". Everything about this place is big. The sheer number of animals(2800+ lions, 1.25million wildebeest and zebra to name but a few), the sheer size and area of the Ecosystem (25,000km2), the number of people drawn here every year(100 000+), the amount of money that it generates(hundreds of milliions of US$) and the range of emotions that it evokes (appreciating that t...

After dropping in and seeing some old friends and colleagues, we headed out to the bush and the northern safari circuit. But where others go straight to Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti, we headed to Tarangire NP. It is part of the biggest annual migration of animals outside of the Serengeti Ecosystem and has a dry savannah vegetation unquie to this part of the world. Where the high points like Meru, Kili, the Ngoro Highlands and Great Rift Valley catch all the ...

After the visual feast that is the bus journey from Dar to Arusha, we were very happy to get to our Tanzanian 5 star hotel. On a trip like this, you cannot forget the Pare and Usamburu mountains that parallel the road. They are also known as the Galapagos of Africa because of the number of new species that seem to be found on the high peaks. Their lush green flanks and remote nature seem to beckon with promise for an aspiring adventurer. But it is not the countl...