Day 139: Tarangire National Park
Osur safari adventure started at 8AM when Joseph from Basecamp Tanzania picked us up in his 8-seater Toyota Land Cruiser. We headed out to Tarangire National Park, a decent-sized park (although at barely 3000KM² it doesn’t even break the Tanzania’s Top 5 biggest parks) with *amazing* animal density! We’ve seen pretty much all of these animals before in southern Africa, but in much smaller numbers. In Tanzania, you can barely pick up your camera without an animal in the shot! It was a jam-packed day, as our game drive lasted right up to sunset, during which we spotted everything Tarangire is particularly famous for: baobab trees, birds and elephants (better tempered than their southern African relatives), plus the odd lion pride as a bonus!
Starting our safari adventure in an 8-seater Toyota Land Cruiser – all to ourselves!
Pop-top safari 4×4 – now *this* is how you do Africa!
On the road in Tanzania, heading for our first park
Tarangire National Park! Igor sees the first benefit of having a guide: he doesn’t have to deal with the 30min inefficiency of paying the park entrance fees! We just run off and play around the giant baobab while Joseph takes care of business
Look at all the Land Cruisers! Toyota has got a monopoly on Tanzania! Everyone’s car looks the same…until we spot an Abercrombie & Kent car…they have cell-phone chargers! Fancy.
Wildebeest in Tarangire National Park – following the rains for their Great Migration
Zebra follow close behind the wildebeest in order to find the water
More residents of Tarangire – the Banded Mongoose, a mama Grants Gazelle and baby, and a herd of elephants (plus photo-snapping tourists) in the distance
East African elephants are so much more chill than their Southern African counterparts – no ear-flapping, no mock charges – these guys couldn’t that we are parked nearby taking pics! They just keep on eating, scratching their butt on a tree, and the babies even pull faces for the camera!
Tarangire is another birding hotspot, and our driver Joseph is quite a birder, pointing out many species to us – here we have the Glossy Starling and a White-Headed Buffalo Weaver
More birds! A pair of Red & Yellow Barbets, and a Grey-Headed Kingfisher
Lovebirds! Yellow-collared Lovebirds to be exact.
Our guide is an *excellent* tracker. Just before lunch, he pulls over near the dry riverbed, pulls out his binoculars, then informs us he has spotted a small pride of lions. Boom! – there they are! NEVER would have spotted them on our own!
Lunch break at the Tarangire picnic area, with a HUGE lunchbox packed by our hotel. We hate the idea of wasting food in Africa, so we tried our best to finish everything, but there was just too much! Joseph was kind enough to take our leftovers and gift them to some of the janitorial staff cleaning the bathrooms
View of the river from the picnic area – a herd of elephants in the distance
The picnic area was overrun with Black-Faced Vervet Monkeys, who scavenge for leftovers. There are signs EVERYWHERE telling tourists to be careful with their leftovers and to NOT FEED the monkeys. Our driver, Joseph, takes these rules very seriously, and when a couple of tourists (not sure of the nationality, let’s call them French) left an orange on their table as they walked away, Joseph immediately told them off, as a monkey took the food the moment they walked away! Jerks.
More Black-Faced Vervet Monkeys – a safe distance from the picnic area, so they are behaving like proper wild animals
Another family of ellies! With lots of adorable babies
Elephant bath-time!
These three babies were so cute! When two of the babies started rolling around in the muddy water, the third walked over and *sat on the other baby*! Siblings, am I right?
Antelope in Tarangire – a lone Waterbuck, and Grants Gazelle on the horizon
Olive Baboons. Did you know that a group of baboons is called a congress?…and vice versa? J
Even more birds – but these a birds of prey, so they are more interesting! A snake eagle, a juvenile Martial Eagle, and an owl
Giraffes! I’ll never get tired of giraffes. Just look at that goofy face!
A herd of giraffes chowing down a leafy dinner
Cape Buffalo in the distance
A herd of Cape Buffalo kick up some dust as the sun starts to sink below the horizon
Moonrise / Sunset in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
Our first (of many!) Sopa Lodge! We have a nice view for the last few second of daylight, and a delicious buffet dinner. Have I mentioned how much weight we have gained on this trip?
The pictures are spectacular of all the wildlife so many elephants, lions, zebra, giraffes, birds…and I can’t believe how big that baobab tree was—absolutely amazing photos. Kudos to your guide, you were so lucky to have the Pop-top safari 4×4 to yourselves—yeah that’s the way you do Africa!!!