Tanzania – Tarangire National Park
TRIP OF A LIFETIME! We are all changed for the better because of this trip. Rusty and I now see why Halle loves Africa so much. Any number of words we write will not be sufficient to explain all that we saw and all that we felt.
I was so excited I could hardly sleep last night! We ate another yummy breakfast at the hotel, finished packing and went down to meet our safari guide, Charles. He’s great and i’m excited to spend the next 6 days with him. We saw our safari Land Cruiser for the first time–what a cool vehicle! With our luggage loaded up, we started the 2ish (I’m finding drive times here are very “ish” give or take an hour) drive to our first stop–Tarangurie. Annnnd….we got pulled over by the police, AGAIN! We left the tarmac road for good and it was dirt from here on out. Pretty much every driver we had in Africa made jokes about the “free African Massage.”
We also saw many Masi people herding their cows. What a fascinating people! And their cows are so strange looking.
They call Taranguire the “Elephant Paradise.” We checked in at the front gate, looked at some cool elephant and buffalo bones, and then started our first game drive! Like 3 min in, we came to a group of jeeps. We stopped to see what they were looking at and they said there had been a leopard sighting. It’s super rare to see a Leopard, so we were VERY excited. We scanned and watched for quite a while and couldn’t find anything. All the other jeeps gave up. Finally, we were ready to give up too, and we started driving away. Halle glanced behind us and got the spot of a lifetime–the leopard was crossing the street behind us! We immediately hit reverse and got to watch her bound up into a tree. She perched there for awhile–it looked like she was scanning for prey. She was so beautiful with her fluffy tail and her shiny, spotted coat. After awhile, she jumped down into the grass and we lost her. It’s amazing how camouflaged those spots make her. It was an INCREDIBLE first sighting. Charles said it set our expectations for the trip way too high. ha ha. Funny story–While we were watching the leopard our jeep got bumped by another driver. All was ok. Then, like 10 min later, THE SAME DRIVER bumped into us again! This time a bit harder. Luckily, these Jeeps are made to take a beating, so there was no damage.
We continued on our way and spotted our first elephant herd. AND THERE WERE BABIES. I could pretty much go home right now and the plane ride would have been worth it. So cute.
We stopped at a picnic site for lunch and were greeted by a pack of Verbet Monkeys who really wanted everybody’s food. We saw one jump down and snatch a banana right out of someone’s hand when they turned their head away for like 5 seconds. Lunch was a smorgasbord! We had real dishes, place mats, and hot food. There was yummy pumpkin soup, fresh warm bread, rice, meat skewers, fruit, pasta salad, and veggies. Expectations exceeded again! We thought we’d be eating sandwiches from a box.
After lunch we went down by the river. This was probably my favorite part. We came across a beach with so many baboons. There were little ones running around, and also some tiny, tiny babies hanging on to their mom’s back and stomach. Precious. At the same spot, we saw a huge Eland—The biggest antelope in Africa. And right next to him was a tiny little Duiker. THEN, a herd of zebras came traipsing down the hill! They were pretty skittish. They came into the water, then backed out. They came in again, and something spooked them and the took of running back up the hill. Halle got the best shot. Some of them came back and crossed the river and some decided to stay on the other side. Then the baboons were on the move! We watched the entire troop cross the road before we went in hunt of more elephants. But first we spotted a hyrax perching on a rock. Halle told us that they are closely related to elephants, even though they look like rodents. Charles said, “I was waiting to see if you would bust out that fact! I thought you would!” He’s been so impressed with her animal knowledge. When we got to the elephants, there were more babies and a few juveniles in this herd. These ones were so cute and playful. The juveniles were tussling and teasing each other and the babies wanted in on the action.
We were on our way out of the park and decided to stop again at a spot we had been earlier with sleeping lions. We couldn’t spot them in the grass the first time, but wanted to try our luck one last time. And we’re glad we did! We could see them moving around a bit in the grass, and then the male suddenly bit the female on the neck and pinned her down. Apparently this is part of the mating process. He did his business in about 10 seconds, stretched, got up and walked away. He was a young male with a little mane.
The last thing we saw right before exiting the park was a HUGE bull elephant. Pictures don’t do him justice. He was scratching himself on a tree, and playing with the branches with his giant tusks. It was fun to watch him. He crossed the road a few jeeps ahead of us, and went on his merry way.
We had about another 2 hour drive to our accommodations for the night. Mama ……. This place was soooo cool. It had jungle like vegetation, and an outdoor swimming pool with an infinity edge. We had one of our best meals here. We found throughout our trip that almost all the hotels and camp cook their food fresh in house, and you can tell. The quality was so good—fresh and healthy.
Every day I’m going write down a new form of plural animal that I didn’t know before. Today we learned that a group of warthogs is “A Sound of Warthogs.”
