Dust rises behind the safari vehicle as it cuts away from Arusha’s dusty outskirts and into the wide light of northern Tanzania. On day one the landscape opens to Tarangire’s baobab-dotted savanna, where herds of elephants move like slow weather and termite mounds punctuate the horizon. By the second morning the plains of the Serengeti spread flat and hungry — grasses push the eye toward distant heat mirages and prides of lions patrol the long grass. The itinerary finishes in the Ngorongoro highlands, where a massive caldera holds a compressed ecosystem that forces predators and prey into close quarters.