If asked by someone which country in Africa would I recomend I am quick to say, "Several"; but if you think you are only going once and you want to see wildlife, then I have to say Tanzania. In my experience it has the greatest number of the greatest variety anywhere I've traveled. We made our first family trip with our four children to the Serengeti in 1993. It was exhilirating to be able to follow the animals off road if that's where they led. Today, there are restrictions and off roading isn't permitted, however, the animals are still plentiful. Early this year I made my eighth and probably best ever trip to Tanzania with 20 of the 22 in our immediate family, including 10 of our grandchildren. They were very excited to see this majestic male lion at the end of one of the early days of our trip.
A few days later we watched a male leopard jump a stream and make his way to this tree where he leaped up to rest on the big limb, much to everyone's delight.
It's a bit unusual to see a lioness in a tree. Lions are heavier than leopards and aren't as likely to risk trying to climb. This was a great sighting.
We were very fortunate to see a number of cheetahs in the course of our safari. That, too, can be problematic. Watching this mother with her two cubs on two different days was a real highlight.
We specifically chose January for our trip because of the Great Migration of wildebeest and zebras, and the predators that follow them. There are approximately two million wildebeest that travel from the south end of the Serengeti to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. They birth half a million calves between January and March. Almost everywhere you looked, from your immediate view to the far horizon, the plains were thick with these comical looking creatures. As huge as these numbers are, they pale in comparison to the over 30 million bison that roamed the North American great plains up until 1830 when the mass destruction of them began.
