Tanzania

© Photos courtesy of Linda Furman and Ann Jennings

Only time to go to one country in Africa on safari? Tanzania is the place to see the most animals in the least time! If you travel there during their migration on the Serengeti plains, you will see their legendary zebra and wildebeest by the thousands and see the newborn calves too. The Ngorogoro Crater is like a big bowl full of animals.

Here we spotted the multitudes of zebra and wildebeest, but we also saw giraffe and their babies happily munching juicy leaves from the top of the trees; hippopotamus slowly making their morning walk to the local pond; a million flamingoes floating on the lake, then startled by a loud noise, and they simultaneously rose from the water like a pink cloud; a couple of white rhinos grazing and just minding their own business; a solitary leopard sleeping in a tree, her spots making her almost totally camouflaged (the one who spots the leopard gets the most points); the elephants casually strolling through the underbrush, tearing down whatever trees are in their pathway, and making a meal of the greenery and the bark; a pride of lions finishing their antelope dinner and finally allowing the baby cubs to have a nibble; the vultures waiting in nearby trees to have their turn at the carcass; the hyenas who gathered at a distance ready to pounce on the remaining tidbits; and you are always trying to remember which antelope is it that is standing before you, knowing that you have already encountered eighteen different ones. And that does not count the endless species of birds!!

You have never been so attune to nature and its creatures, nor known so many things about their lives. And your cell phone and computer do not even work out here in this world. It is just you and them, and you will temporarily leave your world of schedules and deadlines and plug into the world of nature. And for a short time, your life will be stress-free, and much richer.