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 p.59 #19 · African safari talk...recommendations? | |
Cduff406 wrote:
Just back home from my first African safari, and what an experience it was. I had my wife and son (10yr old) with me so it was part vacation and part photography. We stayed in three different camps around Kenya. All amazing. The animals, the scenery, the people, it was all above expectations.
I want to say a big thank you to all the safari veterans here who have graciously shared their experiences in this thread, it helped a first timer like me immensely. This is a great resource!
For anyone who's interested, I took two R5's, one with the 400/2.8 and the other with the 100-300/2.8. I also took a 24-70/2.8 and 15-35/2.8. I rarely used the wide angles (as I figured would be the case) but they were invaluable the times I needed them. I took entirely too many batteries and memory cards, but I figured it was better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not.
I'll second what others have said here, the conservancies are far, far better than the parks. At my camp in one of the Mara conservancies, there were a pair of cheetahs out behind our camp, we could actually see them from the lodge. There was a total of one Landcruiser out with them. There were seven lined up in the park on the border waiting for them to cross. This was at 2pm, my guide said later when the afternoon tours came out there were over 20 vehicles following them when they crossed into the park. I went into Amboseli one day, and we found some lions hunting a wildebeast, but there were about 8 other vehicles jockeying for position during the hunt that messed everything up for the lions. It was easy in Amboseli to park in one spot and see 12-15 vehicles driving around. I lost count of the lions we saw in the conservancies, and never had another car with us.
I purchased the freight seat for our Safarilink flights, they did weigh our bags so that probably saved us some hassle. We flew down to Zanzibar for a few days at the end, they fly a Dash-8 for that and I had to check my roller bag with camera gear, but it made it fine. They hassled me in the Zanzibar airport about the weight of my camera backpack, but when I explained it was all camera gear they let it slide. Apparently the carry on limit is 7KG. My backpack was like 12? It fit in the overhead, though! No worries at all with our international flights, I carried on my big Atlas backpack and a carry on size roller and never got a second look.
Anyway, it was an amazing, amazing experience. Two of our stops were with Great Plains lodges, and though pricey I can't say enough about how amazing they were. I'd have done cheaper if it was just me, but the family spent a lot of time in camp so it was more than worth it.
Thanks again to everyone here who has so graciously shared their experiences, it was a huge help to me. We are already thinking about next time...
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Great post! I'm really happy to hear you had such a great time on your first safari. I'm not surprised given how you went about it. Spending time in the conservancies with Great Plains is a good choice. They're a top notch outfit. You pay for it, but they have a great reputation for a reason.
Time to plan the next one!
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