Tanzania Big Game Safari Trip Report August 2023

4 minute reading time

24 September 2023

by Jacqui

In August 2023, Craig Dietrich led a thrilling Bluewater Photo Group safari in Tanzania. Starting from Arusha, they explored Tarangire National Park with its baobab trees and wildlife, encountered a black rhino in Ngorongoro Crater, and witnessed the majestic wildebeest migration in Serengeti, ending with a memorable leopard sighting.

A herd of elephants stand in a body of water.

Tanzania Big Game Safari Trip Report August 2023

Words and pictures by Craig Dietrich

After long plane rides and a good nights sleep at a hotel, our group left Arusha (the safari capital of Tanzania) and made our way to our first destination: Tarangire National Park. Covering 2,850 square kilometers (1,100 miles), the park is the home of the Tarangire River, which is the main source of water for the parks residents during the dry season. Tarangires landscape is dotted with majestic baobab trees, also known as the upside-down tree, which can grow as tall as 100 feet and have trunks up to 33 feet in diameter. We were lucky to see a tree-climbing python in the open! We also saw families of elephants, zebras, African cape buffalo, giraffes, and even a leopard basking in the golden afternoon sun.

After two days in Tarangire, we visited the famous Ngorongoro Crater, the largest inactive volcanic caldera in the world. The highlight was spotting a black rhinocritically endangered, with only about 6,200 left in the wild.

From Ngorongoro, we journeyed to Serengeti National Park, where we saw a pride of lions, giraffes, zebras, warthogs, and cheetahs. We also witnessed the great wildebeest migrationa breathtaking stampede across the Mara River, with the animals bravely navigating crocodile-infested waters.