Tanzania by Millie

I was last in Tanzania and Zanzibar some fourteen years ago and it is where I first fell under Africa's powerful spell - I simply could not get over the vast open plains of the Serengeti with the odd acacia tree on the landscape and the mountains in the distance, sporadically dotted with the red shukkas of the Masai and their cattle. Literally breathtaking and "classic Africa". I was looking forward to revisiting and seeing what had changed in that time and also to seeing some new areas such as the Selous Game Reserve, Pemba Island off Zanzibar and also Tarangire National Park and Loliondo in north. As I covered a lot of ground in this trip, I will just mention some of the highlights.

The Selous Game Reserve is my new favourite safari destination! It is one of the largest game reserves in Africa with relatively few camps in it so there is that wonderful feeling of remoteness. To arrive and go straight to Kiba Point, was a very spoiling start to the trip. It is part of the Sand Rivers set-up, but it is a private camp that is taken exclusively by groups of up to 8 people - it has four extremely spacious and open-sided thatched rooms (more like houses!) looking down over the Rufiji River, the largest river in East Africa.

Complete luxury and brilliantly run, this camp has a great home away from home feeling and it offers a variety of activities.....my favourite being our boat trip upstream into Stiegler's Gorge where we stopped after an hour of game viewing (we saw buffalo, hippos, elephant, giraffe and plenty of birds from the water) to get out onto a beautiful white sandy beach surrounded by rocks and the steep sides of the gorge bursting with life and trees. Here we tried our hand at fly fishing and between us we caught three catfish! What a stunning spot to just stop and be surrounded by nature. Drives take you through beautiful scenery, lush from some recent and much needed rain, and some of us went for a lovely walk through the bush only to find ourselves at the top of a hill with a fantastic 360 degree view and a full bar set up for our sundowners. Fly camping for a night on the river is a must. Being a huge seafood lover, I was delighted to be served some great calamari and red snapper whilst staying at Kiba Point - they are only a short distance from the coast here, so it was a fantastic novelty to be having seafood in the bush!

On to Pemba Island and Fundu Lagoon - the only lodge on the island so you know you are going somewhere special! A short twenty minute flight from Zanzibar you are then met by the Fundu Lagoon car, driven 30 minutes across the island to catch your boat to Fundu itself. It was built by two twin brothers Alex and Marcus and it really is a great place with a very good feeling of space - you can be as social or private as you want and they seem to combine the two effortlessly. There is so much to do here as well if you are not one for lying around on a beach! You can go snorkelling and diving at Misali Island where the water is the most beautiful I think I have seen, crystal clear and visibility over the coral reef was just perfect. You can also go for a walk into the village where the lodge owners invest in community projects, or you can go fishing for your lunch, take a picnic out....you would certainly not get bored here and the friendly and professional staff always seem to be around for advice on what to do next or help you with deciding which cocktail to try for your sundowner! There are so many different places to eat here whether it's on the beach, at the jetty bar, or the pool bar up the hill - or simply in the cool and breezy thatched dining room.

Zanzibar had definitely changed from 14 years ago and is much busier than I remember it. This does mean that the tiny little airport is struggling under the strain and I did not have a great experience at the airport! However, I was lucky to see the new Matemwe Retreats on Zanzibar which offer just three private suites where you have a huge amount of outdoor living space, your private, private pool and roof terrace above your room with fantastic ocean views.

The Palms is also a quiet haven with just six spacious villas and exceptional food and service - you have your own allocated sala and day bed on the edge of the beach.

On the northern circuit I would say the highlights involved watching an elephant demolishing a tree next to my tent from my morning shower, making me nearly miss my bacon and eggs at Olivers Camp in Tarangire National Park! A great bush camp feel here, and again not many other camps in the southern area where Olivers is.

Onto Ngorongoro Crater, one of the busiest areas in the north. We were lucky to be trying out the recently opened Lemala Luxury Tented Camp. A great new small tented camp in a lovely spot surrounded by acacia trees on the eastern rim of the crater and you can hear the bells of the local Masai cattle in the hills around. The tents are very comfortable as well as being hugely practical in terms of furniture and space and the heaters in the tents kept us all very cosy and warm which is all important at this altitude.

From here it was a long, largely off-road and exhilarating drive up to Suyan Camp in the Loliondo area - our guide Jacob was brilliant and how he found his way there I will never quite know. Jacob was sad to see the area so dry and empty of animals and global warming was a subject that reared its ugly head many times. There should have been wildebeest and zebra heading across these plains to the south for water, but they are still waiting for their rains and the wildebeest were long gone and we later heard that they were to the south west of the Serengeti by this time. It does seem that the wildebeest migration is becoming a little unpredictable these days so you must be prepared to be flexible and open to the idea of taking a picnic out for an all day game drive so you can cover more ground to find the game. Even if we didn't see a huge variety of game it was a stunning drive and when we did see something it was pretty spectacular and in large numbers (a group of 17 hyenas, a group of 70 ostriches, 20 eland) and just for our eyes only! After leaving the main road out of the Crater, we didn't see another car the whole way up to Suyan! And what a lovely camp, surrounded by green rolling hills - great for walking and if you are lucky they do get good wild dog viewing.

Then it was on to southern Serengeti, heading back over the plains of the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area where we saw two male lions lazing in the morning sun, more hyenas and a hyena trying to chase off the vultures from its kill. Ol Donyo Lengai was spewing out volcanic ash from its crater and producing a rather ominous looking cloud over the horizon. And when we got to the southern Serengeti it was like a dust bowl, so much so that we did not really open our roof hatch that day. But it was still quite busy in the Seronera part of the park and it was not until we got to Sayari Camp that I felt we had lost the other tourists. What a delightful camp in a beautiful setting, very comfortable tents with a sofa outside to enjoy the view down onto the plains in the distance. There was a great atmosphere here and the private dining tables in the mess tent made for a very jolly and noisy evening all round. The Serengeti is a huge area and you will no doubt see great game there and this is definitely the nicest of the camps I had time to visit in the park....excellent food too! But it was quite a shock to see so many other tourists in the park after two days of off-roading. Hopefully this is just because we were limited with time and could not cover too much ground here.

So all in all, Tanzania now provides a huge mix of areas and camps to visit and there are still so many relatively untouched parks to explore. The Selous is definitely one of my new favourite places and Pemba is also a winner location for some great beach time. There is something for everyone here and still so much more to see.......you would not be disappointed with safari or beach here, but you need to remember that Tanzania is a huge country to cover and there is much travel involved! Its vastness and raw beauty is what makes it stick out in my mind as so special.