Departure Base

Once your safari tour is booked, simply head down to the Kilimanjaro Safaris Departure Base to board one of their Tembo Trucks for a day trip through the Harambe Wildlife Reserve. The Departure Base is a busy place, with trucks constantly coming and going. It's no surprise Kilimanjaro Safaris is the biggest tour operator in Harambe.

Many of the guides working for Kilimanjaro Safaris are locals who know the reserve and its animal population well. Some of the guides they hire, however, are students or foreign nationals living in Harambe, but with the proper training they too are perfectly capable of conducting the tours.

The Departure Base includes an office for the coordination of activities. Atop that office sits a small break space, where the guides might refresh themselves before heading out into the bush with another group:

For the safari guests waiting to board, there are several informative signs. The language on the signs is somewhat formal in nature and would seem to indicate a British connection, perhaps in the ownership of the company.

A Tembo Truck pulls in to the base and it's all aboard for the photo safari tour. The Tembo Trucks are actually modified GMC trucks, custom built to carry nine rows of passengers and to run on natural gas (far better for the animals and environment).

The trucks are loaded down with supplies, just in case anything should happen out there, and come with game spotting guides to help visitors identify the native wildlife they might see.

Everyone set? Then as they say in Harambe, "Twende! Let's go!"