Camping in the Tanzanian bush: luxury is outside of your tent

After years of dreaming of encountering animals in the wild, here I am flying to Tanzania in the summer 2014.
The ride from Kilimanjaro Airport to Ilburu Karibu Hostel in Arusha looked quite exotic to me.
Crossing a desert area in the first place, I felt surprised as I ended up seeing loads of people waiting outside of iron-roof houses. Sitting on a rock or on an abandoned couch along a dirt track, they all seemed to be closely observing the movement of vehicles, as though they were waiting for time to pass.
Dominated by Mount Meru in the distance (4,565 m), Arusha city was getting closer, as the car disappeared into a cloud of dust.
The hostel was located right next to a sedentary Maasai tribe. As they saw me, kids exclaimed ‘Mzungu’ (white person), excited to see someone from a foreign country.
Dinner took place in a quiet garden that night, over a frugal plate of vegetable soup with coconut and spices.
On the next day we hit the road with a Jeep towards Arusha National Park where we could spot dozens of buffalos, zebras and giraffes. The fun part of that day was when we went canoeing on Momella Lake for a couple of hours, surrounded by growling hippos and the nice view of waterbucks and flamingos.
Now, this is where the fun begins
Tarangire National Park is home to the elephants and spectacular baobab trees. Before we set camp, we decided to go animal spotting in the bush ; we were soon able to sight two female lions trying to drag a dead zebra on top of a tree, until some jackals took it away from them.
Who rules the bush ?

After setting our tents in the middle of the savannah, it got so dark that we had dinner using our headlights. We were not alone though. We could feel that some creature was observing us nearby. Not just any creature since there was a pair of shiny yellow eyes staring at us from 4 meters above.
A leopard.
Having dinner as well. In fact, it had just carried an impala — some kind of antelope — on top of a baobab tree.
‘The dude had dinner already, so don’t worry guys,’ the guide said.
So we believed him right away and stopped worrying. That night under the tent was intense. There were only six of us on the camp, plus a ranger who remained standing across our shelters with his gun, in case of a dangerous attack.

I usually get very grumpy when I don’t have enough sleep. That night was way different though. Jackals kept barking pretty much all night, followed by lions roaring. I was so fascinated about all the mysterious sounds around me that I didn’t even want to get to sleep and recorded the noises instead.
Did you know that a lion’s roar can be heard at least 5kms away?

Waking up at five had never been easier than that morning. The surroundings were so peaceful and quiet. All we could hear was the elegant pace of dozens of giraffes, zebras and gnus all heading towards the Tarangire river.
We drove all the way to the Serengeti that day, passing a lot of pastoral tribes wearing red vibrant robes, the Maasai people.
We quickly fell asleep on the new campsite, probably being watched by the numerous animals of the park. The next morning, my tent-mate explained to me how difficult her night was. She had to get outside of the tent as there are no bathrooms in tents. She ended up being followed by two scary scavengers.
Hyenas.
They were probably looking for food or bones, and since my friend represented both, she ran away from them and was safe eventually.
We kept encountering baby animals that day. While some were taught how to catch a dyk dyk, some others learnt how to make coordinated steps to be able to follow the adults.


We hit the road to Ngonrogonro Crater, a 250 square km large crater that was formed about 2.5 million years ago after a volcanic eruption. I reminisce about the night on the edge of the crater like it was yesterday. 8°C - heavy rain.
It was completely dark and my tent-mate was already asleep, but after drinking a couple of beers, I had to use the bathroom. So I took a blanket as a protection from the rain along with my beloved headlight. It was so foggy outside that I could barely see anything, except for a a bunch of yellow eyes. I freaked out and ran back to the tent, but that didn’t solve my problem, and I went back outside. I could see the glow of flashlights getting closer from the top of the hill, so I waited for the people to come all the way up and asked them the dumbest question ever:
‘Are these buffalos’ eyes’?’
Because buffalos are very dangerous. They can either charge you or step on you.
They told me they weren’t though. I took a deep breath and ran down the muddy hill as fast as I could on a REALLY slippery area. Suddenly, I got surrounded by about 10 pairs of yellow eyes.
Zebras.
They got very scared as they saw me coming out of nowhere, but I kept running and I bumped into a dyk dyk, then locked myself in the dirty bathroom. Getting out and reaching the tent was quite challenging as I couldn’t see anything so I went straight, got lost, met up the zebras again, hid behind trees, and finally found the camp. I still can’t believe that I got so close to these animals and that I overcame my fear to sleep in the wild.
3 sleepless nights, dirty shower or no shower at all
That was the price to see hippos, crocodiles, elephants, cheetahs, lions, buffalos, leopards, ostriches, meerkats, hyenas, vultures, warthogs, jackals, mangoustes, impalas, springboks and be close to zebras, gnus and giraffes.
Please don’t stay in a lodge if you go on a safari! Unless you are really scared. How will you experience adventure and have crazy stories if you only get to see the animals through the window of your comfortable bedroom? :-)

