Hippos, in the Ngoro Ngoro crater

Having successfully (though rather confusingly) navigated our way to an alternative hotel and dealt with at least two pairs of persistent Safari touts even before 8.30am, we feel ready to face making the difficult decision about which Safari to actually take. We’re almost professionals at dodging the touts now and although I consider most of our time out of the privacy of the hotel to be out-and-out battles for survival against them, we do actually have to do business with touts at some point.
We head for the bank and a tourist office which provides a rather tired list of “black-listed” Safari companies. The clerk there is disinterested and obviously participates in this battle every day. Safaris are big business in Arusha and who can blame some tour agencies from becoming more concerned with profits than good tours? Our job is to find a good one despite this.
In the end we settle for the two guys we met earlier who have actually been following us across town in their jeep and offer to take us to “Victoria Expeditions” to talk through the options. Feeling like game which has been caught and taken back to base, we talk to “Richard” there who gives us the spiel. We can do a four day (three night) tent safari for $85 per person per day. It looks really great – taking in Tarangire, Ngoro-Ngoro crater and the Serengeti in a jeep and small group.
We take breakfast to decide that since it meets our criteria on cost and content and seems like a reputable company we won’t pain ourselves with any shopping around. So we agree and then have to arrange to pay for it all up front: $280 in travellers cheques on the spot and the rest in cash after a mad dash to the VISA cashpoint to pull out 320,000 Tshillings. Handing the greasy notes over in the back of their jeep feels like doing some dirty drug deal.
Let’s hope we get a good trip…

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