Last morning of safari before flying to Amman

Last day of Safari.

On the way to breakfast a dik dik was in front of our room's door.

Donald wants to maximize the last hours on our permit. We have to be out of the park by 9:30 am. It's an early start again and we make the road back to the main gate a game drive.

We see quite a lot in this 2h drive this morning ! More variety than yesterday.

First a lonely elephant and some hartebeests.

A few jackals run on the road in front and we catch up with them in the grass.

Then a full pride of lions laying by the road side. About 13 of them ! It's very nice for our last day .

We got to see a tree hyrax, they are apparently larger and more a shade of brown vs their rock cousins, which are grey.

But the best is for last, we finally got to see a leopard. Albeit very briefly, we saw it jumping off the tree to the ground and then lost sighting in the grass. But now I can say that we have seen the big 5!

And for the one who were wondering, because I did, the big 5 means: the hardest animals to hunt on foot. The most dangerous 5 ones basically: lions, leopard, elephants, buffalo and rhino.

We exit the park and I had asked Donald to stop at a shop for souvenirs on our way to Arusha. Even after negotiations, the prices were too high for us. A mask started at 70 usd, he was only willing to go down to USD 50 and when we left, in the parking lot he offered 70,000 shillings.

Alexis was aggravated at that point so we didn't buy anything. Let this be some guidance for anyone wanting to buy, you can bargain  a lot for your purchase.

I must say, safari in Tanzania was better than I expected. I thought that it would be too many jeeps on one animal like I read online, but not in low season. I think, it's the best thing to do. In low season the maximum amount of jeeps in a spot happened twice and we were 15 jeeps around a big group of lions. I counted 60 jeeps in Ngorongoro picnic place, which was the worst density, since it's a one way game drive with one single spot for lunch.

Donald says in high season it's close to 200 jeeps, and I overheard another driver talking to his group mentioning the most in Ngorongoro crater was 350 at the same time.

We had entire half days game driving alone in the Serengeti. We would cross sometimes other jeeps but everyone could have privacy. And people watch then go, ensuring that we were, in most cases, 4 cars in the busiest spot at once observing the same animal. In Ngorongoro, we had a lot of space between cars, which is great for game viewing but also so that you don't eat dust all the time from the car in front.

Tanzania, yes absolutely, beautiful safari destination but in low season only.

On the not too good side, any souvenir and touristic services, on top of your already expensive safari, is unreasonably priced.  Drinks at lodges were also on the higher side but not so much that you would reconsider drinking. One of our camp had free flow non-alcoholic drinks.

Zanzibar was the biggest disappointment, and the way they milk tourists is just so blatant that I would not set a foot there again. The mainland was "gentler" on the wallet and provided better level of service.

After a nice Italian lunch in Arusha, Donald drives us to Kilimanjaro airport and we bid him goodbye.

This airport is supposed to welcome a lot of tourists but is too small and weirdly organized, we had to go through 2 security checkups, which was annoying. 

There were no money changer anywhere in the terminal (public side and air side ), which is annoying because we still had shillings to get rid of and I didn’t fancy buying anything there. We have a feeling, they will be difficult to exchange elsewhere.

Our flight to Addis Ababa is short, the transit through all the processes extremely fast. We have plenty of time to find a good place for diner.

And probably the best deal is at Entoto restaurant. There is only ONE local Ethiopian dish on the menu called Habesha Combo ( for about 18 USD + 15% VAT ), but it’s so huge that it feeds two easily. And it was delicious.

As we approach our boarding gate to Amman, we see a huge crowd. The plane is going to be full and by the look of it, by maids going to work there. There are only women waiting in line. As we get to the boarding counter, the agent upgrades us to business. I feel like the only passengers that were not foreign workers, were all upgraded. 

It’s nice to have a wider and more comfortable seat to rest from 22pm until 2am. It means that we are not totally exhausted when we arrived in Jordan.

In Amman, everything is smooth. We get through the visa on arrival, immigration and get our luggage in less than 30min. Our driver is there, and we arrive at our hotel in no time.

It’s a nice room and we go to bed tired, but in a fairly good shape all things considered.