2011 Tanzania Safari

There are places that, once experienced, remain in your memory forever. Africa is one of them.

In January 2011, after twenty-eight years in the IT world, I retired at age sixty. As a gift to ourselves, Lisa and I finally said yes to a long-held dream: an African safari.

What followed exceeded every expectation. With the help of Africa Dream Safaris, we designed a private safari through Tanzania that remains one of the most powerful experiences of our lives.

On September 18, 2011, during the Serengeti dry season, our journey began at the Mara River in the Northern Serengeti, where the landscape felt primeval and pensive, always on alert. There we witnessed not one, but two wildebeest river crossings.

We then moved south through the vast open plains of the Central Serengeti, staying in a blend of tented camps and luxury lodges, punctuated by one game drive after another. This leg of the trip ended with an unforgettable dawn balloon flight over the Serengeti.

Continuing south, we descended into Ngorongoro Crater, an ancient volcanic caldera filled with extraordinary animal life. The final leg of our journey brought us into the heat and dust of Tarangire National Park, a sanctuary of baobabs, elephants, and golden light.

Each day brought encounters we will never forget. Not just the wildlife, though there was plenty of that, but the amazing sunlight, the immense scale, and the quiet intensity of being in a place where humans are merely visitors rather than the main story.

I’ve compiled a number of photo galleries below from our safari so you’re not forced to see every image, but can instead choose which slice of the experience you’d like to explore. They offer glimpses of the animals we saw, the landscapes that carried us, and the sense of awe that followed us from morning to night. I invite you to wander through them at your own pace.

Also included are a few photos from a short post-safari visit to the island of Zanzibar, where we spent several restorative days letting the rhythm slow and the experience settle in.

This truly was the trip of a lifetime.

Thank you for sharing it with us.