Tanzania through the eyes of our guides

Our safari guide Max explains wildlife scenarios on safari in Tanzania. He shares insights into how he learned to understand the animals’ behaviour.

Do you want to go camping and spend seven days in Tanzania’s Great Outdoors? Our new colleague and Guest Relations Officer Eugene didn’t have to think twice before answering with a resounding: Yes! And off he went in mid-February to go on our Tanzania – The Wild Side camping safari.

Enock has been part of the Tanzania-Experience team since 2013; his vast knowledge and great humour have made him a favourite with our guests. As safari guide he is at home in the national parks and out and about most of the time – we caught up with him when he popped in at the office to find out what keeps him going.

Michael is one of our most experienced guides. He has been with us since 2009 and knows the company and our guests like no other. He studied at Mweka, the well-known College for African Wildlife Management, and still keeps in touch with his professors to stay up to date with the latest developments in nature conservation – a topic very close to his heart.

Tuma joined our team as safari guide in 2013. Since then he has taken travellers from around the world to the plains of the Serengeti and the baobabs of Tarangire, making their dreams of safari adventures in Tanzania come true.

For most people, snakes are on the list of animals “I don’t want to meet”. Which I understand in some respect. Most visitors going on safari in Tanzania usually spend only a couple of days in the bush. Over the years, I have come to realise that most of them never get to see snakes in the wild.

Lake Natron and its surrounding area is a place rich in cultural and natural diversity. The area is off the beaten track and only a handful of people go there. The climate can at times be unbearable as the African sun blazes down upon the land. Temperatures can soar up to 50 degrees Celsius in the summer months from January to March. This should not keep you from visiting though, as it is totally worth it.

I recently went out on a camping safari with a group of guests and our journey took us to the dry and extremely hot Lake Natron area. Lake Natron sits below the Gregory Rift which is a branch of the East African Rift Valley. The lake itself is massive, stretching some 57 km long and 22 km wide.

One of my favourite cats to see in the bush is the cheetah. The best place to see them is probably the Serengeti National Park. Over a thousand cheetahs reside here, if not more. This being said, it is still not always easy to spot these athletic cats. Competition in the bush is tough and cheetahs try to stay away from potential danger. Which in turn means that they prefer to stay undercover.

If you are on safari in Tanzania, you may have a check list to tick off the animals you’ve seen on game drives. One of those checklists is usually the Big Five checklist. The Big Five are five of the deadliest animals to hunt in Africa. This dates back many years ago, when hunting – sadly – started to pick up here on the continent.