Back in the day, when I was a young boy, a very popular TV show was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. The show would showcase wealthy white big-game hunters from the United States and England traveling to Africa, shooting elephants, lions, rhinos, giraffes, and any other animals they could get in their rifles’ crosshairs. We would turn on our black-and-white TV, twisting the rabbit ears, until we could watch closely as these brave men blasted away and stood proudly next to their daily kill. Fun TV. Fun times. I guess wokeness killed this bougie elite activity, so now wildlife shows are limited to taking pictures instead of massacring families of elephants and lions.
We went on this African safari to Tanzania in December 2010, not to shoot anything but pictures. I had over 1,500 pictures from this trip and had to pare them down to a manageable number for this website. I still have too many, but it is much better than what we had.
Tanzania is about twice the size of California. Its population is about 70 million, and its capital is Dodoma, and its largest city is Dar es Salaam. Swahili and English are widely spoken, and the country has over 120 different ethnic groups. It gained its independence in 1961 under the name Tanganyika. It joined with Zanzibar in 1964 and changed its name to Tanzania.
We landed in Dar es Salaam and were quicky taken to our hotel in the Serengeti
The surrounding area
Our first night in Tanzania before we began our safari.
The view from our room
We were off
Our new room to start our safari
Entering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Looking down into the Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro is a massive volcanic caldera, formed when a volcano collapsed about 2–3 million years ago. Today it acts like a natural enclosure, supporting one of the densest concentrations of wildlife in Africa—including lions, elephants, buffalo, and even black rhinos.
Not fancy, but everything was clean and nice
The hotel dining area
We had breakfast in the garden with our driver. Monkeys were a threat to steal our food
It felt like we were in a park
