House under contract - Off to Tanzania!
 

It has been a wild 2 weeks but our house is under contract and to keep a promise to a friend I immediately went to NWA and bought a return ticket to JRO for $1430!

I will meet up with a long-time friend of mine who recently started his own guiding business and he will show me some of his favorite spots while I shoot more footage for my Google Earth site go-safari.com.

It's just 2 guys in a Landcruiser with 2 tents, lots of wine and all my GPS toys and my brand-new Sony High-Definition camcorder. We will eat at the lodges or buy boxed meals. Cooking is way too much trouble!

Here is the very rough itinerary which shows our wide sweep of the Northern Circuit! Yeah, it covers a lot of ground but we will share the driving and we have a lot to see/visit/film in 9 days!

November 10 – Arrive & overnight at Kia Lodge

November 11 – buy supplies and visit friends

November 12 - drive to Ndutu/Masek area via Kimba, Endulen and Naibartat Hills. Visit seasonal camps such as EMC, Explorer and others. Camp near Ndutu.

November 13 - drive to Kusini, then Moru Kopjes then Seronera. Camp near Seronera

November 14 - drive to Kogatende at the Mara River to trace wildebeest migration. After lunch, drive through Loliondo to the seasonal camps area near Lobo. Camp.

November 15 - drive to Piaya to visit various seasonal camps including Sayari and Nomad. Camp near Olkarien Gorge or Nasera Rock.

November 16 - drive to Lake Eyasi. Overnight at Kisima Ngada Tented Camp.

November 17 – drive to Mto wa Mbu, and then drive to Tree Lodge in Manyara and back to Mto wa Mbu. Camp.

November 18 – drive to Tarangire. Visit some new tented camps and camp at a special camp site.

November 19 - visit Boundary Hill and other camps then back to Arusha. Overnight somewhere in Arusha.

November 20 - visit Arusha National Park, do canoe trip, and visit some Maasai areas to the north. Overnight at Hatari Lodge.

November 21 - visit friends and fly home in the evening

Eben

I'm *almost* too envious to wish you a happy, safe journey. Almost.

Congrats on the house!!!

And $1430 to JRO?!?! Oh, wait, I'm getting really envious again.

Eben,

Have a wonderful trip. I look forward to your trip report. Please take as many photos as possible! :)

I am just 3.5 months behind you and then I will trace many of your same footsteps but I can assure you I will not be eating boxed meals! ;)

Take lots of photos and have a great trip! :)

Wow, have a great trip. I will arrive at JRO just as you are leaving. What do you hear about where the migration herds are at the moment?

I bought the ticket online at NWA on Sunday night during the football game! Since it is off-season, it probably would've been even cheaper using a bucket shop in NY, but I wanted to choose my own seats and NWA Online allowed be to!

Rocco, I've been keeping an eye on your itinerary and will certainly take wide-area shots of Loliondo and Ndutu. I have plenty of footage already but only on film. I will shoot pics with my Nikon Coolpix 8700.

There has been a huge fire outside Tarangire park (at least one fatality) and the Boundary Hill area was impacted I hear. So I am looking forward to see what happened.

Recently a leopard killed a 7-year old French boy walking to his tent while his family was having dinner at Tarangire Safari Lodge. I want to see what changes they made to increase security.

There are relatively unknown camps in the Grumeti area that are super luxurious so I am visiting there as well.

Wildlife Explorer camps are said to be super and I also want to learn more about the new Sokwe setup. Hopefully I will also run into some other private camps.

Private or seasonal shared camps are certainly the wave of the future in Tanzania. I will die if I ever end up in a lodge or permanent tented camp where a huge budget tour group sings folk songs until the wee hours of the morning.

Sounds great. I'm jealous.

Here you are heading out in a few weeks and I'm just starting to work on a Kenya trip for next October.

Oh, well, we've gotta get them in when we can, and you seem to "can" sooner than me.

So sad about a child being killed while walking in camp where he was staying with his family. Terrible! Terrible!

Terrible news about the child and the fire at Tarangire. I'm very sorry to hear about this.

Just saw this. How exciting. Have a great trip and thanks in advance for reporting back to us. Looking forward to what you have to say about the Nomad camps.

I had not heard about the child's death. As Sandi said it is terrible for the family. I must admit that it makes me a bit nervous--for some reason I did not think of this trip as being dangerous.
Do you have more details re whether it was a lapse of security on the part of the camp? The family did not follow precautions? A combination of both?

Terrible news about the child indeed! I too would like to know more if anyone has any further information. I tried searching for news articles but didn't come up with anything.

Very tragic news. Here’s the information I found:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200510170924.html

Safari njema, Eben.