Well, we made it back from Africa, safe and sound. We had a great trip, and aside from a few bumps along the way, I think we’d all be eager to go again.

The trip was 11 days, but with travel we really had 9 days in Tanzania. Most of that time was spent on what’s called a safari drive (driving through Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater areas), with a couple of days for seeing some of the towns and local culture.

Here’s what we learned:

• The Serengeti looks a lot like Arizona. Honestly. I had imagined wide expanses of flat grasslands. While there was some of that, most of it was rolling hills of arid land with grass and small brush, and acacia trees instead of cactus (though we saw some of them as well).
• When they say you’ll see a lot of animals, they mean a LOT of animals. It felt like we were in a game park, but a really, really big one, and the game eats each other. Lots of skeletons lying around.
• You could self-guide on a trip like this, but having a good local guide means there’s someone in the group who speaks Swahili fluently and knows how to get things done.
• Everyone we met spoke at least some English, but learning common polite phrases like jambo (hello), assante (thank you) and karibu (like “you’re welcome,” but more like “my pleasure”) shows an interest in the local language, and is fun too. While there was some of the begging that’s common in poor countries with tourism, we found the people to be enjoyable and friendly.
• Long lenses are good. Very good. People will tell you that you’ll drive right up to the animals, but most people aren’t photographers. Half of our group brought 80-400mm zooms, and those lenses got a lot of use. It’s true that there are literally tens of thousands of animals around you, but finding them close to the road is a bit tougher. To get those up-close-and-personal pictures, a long telephoto is a must. Those without 80-400 lenses either had 2X converters to use with their 70-200 lenses or separate long lenses, so everyone came away with nice shots.
• Many of the roads are dirt tracks, and “bumpy” would be a charitable way to describe them. The dust was everywhere, so cameras and lenses needed to be cleaned nightly. A hand blower along with lens tissue and lens cleaning fluid were all that was needed. In addition, I cleaned my camera’s sensors every night by giving them a good puffing with the hand blower, and that kept dust specks out of my photos.
• On the first day out we bought some bags of rice to use as beanbags, which worked out great. You stand up in the trucks, shooting from the open roof. Putting a bag of rice on the rail running around the edge made for a nice soft spot to rest and steady the lens. We also used a pair of padded tripod bags to do the same thing.
• Most of the group was shooting digitally, and we were able to download every night. In addition to being able to see what we’d just shot, it allowed us to caption the photos as we went, while details were fresh in our minds.
• In the future I’ll triple-check weight limits on international flights. I say triple-check, because I double-checked and still had problems on one leg. This was a trip with Northwest/KLM, so I made two separate phone calls to confirm what we were allowed as carry-on for our flights. According to both Northwest reps I spoke with, and confirmed on their web page, we were allowed one carry-on weighing up to 40 lbs, plus a personal item (purse, briefcase, computer bag, etc). We had no problems until trying to leave Africa, out of Kilimanjaro airport. At that point, the local KLM agents told us that the carry-on limit was 10 kilograms (22 lbs), and that we’d have to check our camera gear! I had the printed information from the Northwest web site, and after going through three levels of administration, was able to get them to allow us to re-distribute the weight among different bags. Of course, once we stepped on the plane (same model we’d flown down on from Amsterdam with no troubles), we were able to re-pack the bags as before and stow them in the overheads. What I’d do differently next time is to check not just with Northwest and trust them to get it right, but to also talk to KLM. I’ve heard enough horror stories about carry-on problems when leaving Africa that I’d also pack a bit differently. Next time I’d take a smaller, very light (un-padded) backpack full of my camera lenses in pouches and wraps, and then a larger shoulder computer bag that would hold my laptop and two camera bodies without lenses. They pulled us aside in the Kilimanjaro airport due to the size of the backpacks we were planning to carry on the plane. People with smaller - yet often as heavy bags – were left alone.
• We only had one bad thing happen, and that was the theft of one couple’s passports and money. It occurred near the end of the trip when they were staying on the ground floor of a hotel in Arusha. They had the windows open at night for the breeze, and although there was security patrolling the grounds of the hotel, someone reached in their window (no screens) while they were asleep and grabbed their passports off the desk and his pants off the chair, which had his wallet in them. Luckily we all knew to carry a copy of our passports separate from the passports, which greatly simplifies the replacement process. It was still a pain. They needed to get a police report, then get to Dar Es Salaam, which is the capitol and the location of the US Embassy. That was an 8-hr drive or a one-hour plane flight away. Once there they’d need to get passport photos done, take those with the police report and copies of their passports to the embassy, pay $97 each and swear that they were themselves. Everything worked out, and it certainly could have been worse. They missed one day of the trip, but it was at the end so they didn’t lose out on any of the safari. And we were all in the habit of putting our passports on the room’s desk at night. Lesson learned? Be sure and have a copy of your passport with you, and hide your passport, even when in your room.
• Despite warnings about intermittent power, we had electricity everywhere we stayed, whenever we needed it (at one lodge it was off from midnight to 5:30AM). That meant that there were no problems keeping batteries and laptops charged, and everyone had the proper electrical connectors.
• Visiting a Maasai boma (like a small village) is a must-do on a safari trip, and a great experience. You see the Maasai herding their livestock all over the country, and for a fee of $10-15 you can spend some time with them and learn a bit about their way of life. If you’re lucky, you’ll also get a chance to join them in a dance!

All in all we had a great time. Check out some photos from the trip on the “Inspiration” page of the Blue Pixel website.