Results tagged “Tanzania” from Intelligent Travel Blog

World-renowned primatologist and environmentalist Jane Goodall turns 75 today. Dr. Goodall is best known for her long-term observation of the chimps in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She established her first camp there in 1960 under the patronage of prominent paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. As a long-time National Geographic Society grantee and explorer-in-residence, Goodall was awarded the NGS Hubbard Medal for her work studying and defending the natural world.

Her patient observations of Gombe's chimps--David Greybeard and Flo among many others--enabled her to correct a slew of misunderstandings about chimps prevalent at that time. She discovered chimp were omnivores, not vegetarians, as previously thought. She observed them using tools in the form of twigs and blades of grass inserted into termite mounds to fish the bite-sized critters out; prior to this discovery, tool use was considered a trait limited to human beings. She also brought to light chimps' complex and at times violent social relations. Many of her discoveries forced the scientific community as well as general public the world over to rethink humans' relationship, genetically and ethically, with the natural world.

It may not have appeared on many of our calendars, but yesterday was Africa Environment Day. To recognize the event, the South African Embassy hosted representatives from several African nations yesterday afternoon to discuss some of the initiatives their countries are working on to support sustainable environmental and economic development. After attending the session, I was impressed with the range of ideas and projects being put forward.

For example, right now Gabon is still glowing from the international attention it received while it played host to the season of CBS's hugely-popular Survivor: Earth's Last Eden series. Over 18 million people saw that the country was safe and politically stable, said Mireille Obame Nguema Moore, who was speaking on behalf of the ambassador. She said the country is now working on several projects, and aiming to become a "leader and innovator in conservation and sustainable tourism."

One major Gabon initiative was the creation of 13 national parks, achieved with the help of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Michael Fay of the Megatransect project. The Gabon government continues to promote sustainable tourism through programs like Operation Loango, which helps train eco-guides in Loango National Park, who then act as ambassadors to the local community to promote the value of the park. They've also been working with PPG-Congo to establish a gorilla release program in the country, and have released 50 rehabilitated or orphaned gorillas into the wild. Increasingly interested in attracting the adventure tourist, Gabon is creating infrastructure to support travelers, and plans a "rainforest airport" which would be the world's first sustainable airport.

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

Talk to anyone who's been on a safari, and you're sure to get a detailed commentary on their amazing animal sightings and hear vivid stories behind the hundreds of photos and hours of video they shot. If you have followed my recent postings (note: the peregrine falcon is the world fastest animal), I intentionally tried to stay away from too much narrative about the specific animals we've seen on our safaris and avoided drawing comparisons between our experiences in the different countries visited. That might change with this report, however, now that we've successfully completed the two-week camping portion of our two-month circuit around southern and eastern Africa.   

To put this in some context, our first game drives were in South Africa's Sabi Sabi ultra-deluxe private game reserve, where we were spoiled in the lap of luxury. From there, we went to three different 'semi-luxury' Kwando Camps in Botswana, staying in cabins with running water, solar power and plush beds. Although we were well protected, the grunting sounds of resident hippos and nearby roaring lions could be heard throughout the night, reminding us that we were now firmly in the wild. In Tanzania, our accommodations were definitely more in line with what most people envision a camping safari to be, with little protecting us from the wildlife of the African bush at night other than the lining of our tents.

We planned this latter portion of our trip with another family of four from Long Island who we go camping with every summer. When they found out we were breaking this tradition to go on an around-the-world trip, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to take our outdoor adventures to the next level, and booked a mobile safari in Tanzania.  We chose this spot because it was where the massive wildebeest migration would be this time of year and a mobile safari would be our best bet to find it.

We rendezvoused with our friends near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where we met our guides/drivers Raymond and Onesmo from Wild Frontiers. They explained that our itinerary would take us to Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara, Lake Eyasi, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti over the course of the next twelve days, and we were raring to go.