Serengeti Day 1

Tuesday, 20 September 2016

Serengeti  Day 1

Up bright and early after a good night’s sleep, on a nice bed and with a lovely shower. Breakfast included everything one could want, omelets made to order, meats and fish, cereals  and yogurts, delicious fresh local pineapple, and local coffee.


Then up and out at 7:00am to Arusha airport. We drive through Arusha at morning rush hour, filled with people going to work and school, tiny shops already open, offices and mosques and churches, unpaved side roads off the main drag, Uhuru Road.


Everywhere there are new concrete structures going up alongside metal-roofed wooden houses. One building has six stories of wooden scaffolding that seem a bit shaky to me, “not OSHA approved” as one man said.

We take off on a 12-passenger plane from Arusha airport, bound for the Serengeti. The airport is small and somewhat rustic, a series of small buildings, and we load onto the very low-ceilinged plane. As we ascend we see the city of Arusha and the many small coffee plantations surrounding it. On our plane are two women from South Africa who have lived here 8 years; their husbands are in the safari business and their children go to the local international school which we passed on our way in. They now have a business setting up curio shops in safari areas. We fly over the South Serengeti, where we stop to drop off the two women at an airstrip.

Landing on approach to South Serengeti, we have a nice view as we ascend again.