Pre-Safari Safari? Yes please! So Angel and Gregory thought it would be a good day to show us the wonders of their new hometown and thought we should go explore the nearest safari park, the Arusha National Park.
Want to be a baller?
We decided we would start a little later in the day so Gregory and I ran off to hammer out a few errands before we departed. As we would be heading off to Zanzibar the following day, Gregory wanted to make some arrangements with the local car garage for some maintenance with their vehicle while we were away. It was a safari vehicle playground in there and the guys who work there seem like magicians. We have become ourselves a society of disposal, no longer are the days where we tinker away at vehicles and find a way to make them work. This is not the case here. The mechanics there were rewiring, soldering, basically taking vehicles down to the frames and rebuilding them again.
From the garage we stopped by local airport where we would be flying out the next day to talk to security. Aidan, their oldest child, is waiting on his renewed passport which had somehow been lost in processing and therefore doesn’t have any details beyond copies of his old passport. There was concern that the copies would not be sufficient and Gregory and Aidan may need to stay behind and not join us in Zanzibar. So needless to say there was stress surrounding this situation. With a quick chat with one of the security personnel we were relieved to hear we wouldn’t have a problem.
I did get a chance to find an ATM to get some cash out but it looks like they were only dolling out 5,000 shillings per bill vs the 10,000 shillings so by the time I pulled out the money I needed I felt a little suspicious with the large wad of cash I had. Oh well, if you want to be baller status, you have to put up with it (don’t worry this really isn’t that much money).
Now it was time to head off to safari. So Aidan had decided the day before that having a playdate with friends seemed far more appealing than going on safari with us (hahaha, playing with friends or sitting in a vehicle most of the day, why would he think that). Angel had also elected to stay back with Leila so it was an excursion for Gregory, Bill, Paula, myself and Pepe, the little mule (the safari family vehicle).
The park was about 30-45 minutes away from their place. It is so green! Arusha National Park is small park and due to elevation and vicinity to Mount Meru it has more of a rainforest vibe. It doesn’t really have much for predators within the park so it was safe to get out for walks from time to time.
Why did I do that?
This park is a hidden gem, well not so hidden, but no one really talks about it and they should! It’s a beautiful little park and I underestimated it from the get go. So I packed all this wonderful camera equipment. I do not know what I was thinking but I decided I don’t need all of that gear for this park and only brought my backup camera body and my standard travel lens. WRONG!!! Almost instantly I was kicking myself and was wanting to have my main camera and the big lens. Did I mention that this lens, I have always wondered on its sharpness? I did calibrate my gear before I left and found that the lens needed major tuning (not the fine tuning the camera gives you). I had set the fine tune to the details but didn’t know if I trusted the results so I had backed off a few levels from the recommendation.
Taking pictures with it I still feel like something is off but you can only do so much when you are now out in the field. Oh well, they say the best camera to have is the one you have on you. So I made due, but it did help me think through how I wanted myself setup when I left on the big safari. Later I mentioned this to Gregory, how I was irked with myself that I didn’t bring the different setup, for not wanting to take a lot for the local park. His comment, yeah I was wondering why you didn’t. Hmm…if only you said something before we left. Ha!
Safari!
We started off driving through the higher elevation part of the park and quickly were greeted by colobus monkeys hanging out in the trees and then it was all about the baboons as they took over the roads. We hit a bit of safari traffic at this time and had to wait out the game of chicken between the baboons and the oncoming vehicle. We ran into a park ranger who recommended we take this overpass drive to get a good view of the vista. Her recommendation did not disappoint wonderful 360 views of the mountain and the nearby lakes. You could see specks of pinks of the flocks of flamingos who had taken over the lakes.
We stumbled upon a herd of giraffe soon enough and there were 3 (apparent teenagers) who were positioning for power. Very Nat Geo moments as they were appearing to play bash each other with their heads, not sure if there was a female in the mix or not but there was a few questionable voyeuristic moments as they asserted whatever dominance they could.
We continued on, opting to head over to the lakes. Bill was on a mission to see some hippos and had pointed out some “moving rocks” they must be hippos off in the distance. A quick view through my lens (aka my version of binoculars) provided he was right. Well sort of, they were rocks for certain but not moving rocks, ha. Alas no hippos.
Now Paula and Bill had lived in Kenya for maybe 10ish years maybe 20/30 some years ago and it was such a fun experience to get to enjoy the park with them. I can’t speak for how exactly they felt but it seemed heartwarming for them to see as far as the eye could see and to be amongst the animals of Africa again.
So as we continued through the park we saw the flamingos, the African hoopoes, the crested cranes, waterbucks, dik-diks, giraffe, zebras, warthogs, and baboons. We had an extra special moment when we came across the park’s notable but rarely seen albino baboon. Unfortunately by this point in time my camera batteries had started dying so I wasn’t able to get a real good shot of him. We also had a moment near one of the lakes were we saw some of the Masai herding their cows in the hills.
It was time to leave and as we were started to depart the park a giraffe had decided to block the road and just stare us down. Not sure if we were having a part of Lord of the Rings in the “you shall not pass” moment or if we had become friend vs foe and he wanted us to hang out for a little bit longer. Eventually he sauntered of the road and crossed in front of Mount Meru just as the sun had just started fall behind the hills. It was such a fun day, we even had a little Toto – Africa playing on the radio as we drove off to dinner. This just amped up my excitement for the safari in a week.
We had dinner plans at the RiverTrees Inn and had met up with Angel, Greg’s Mother, Maria and the kids. The lodge was so relaxing, you could hear monkeys in the background and we sat outside with all of the twinkle lights and enjoyed a nice meal with the family. Even though I don’t know why my chicken tasted like fish, Angel tried it and agreed. We chuckled and she swapped my fishy chicken with her burger and all was right in the world.
It was an amazing day topped off with one of my favorite activities when I travel to see my lady. Angel and I ended up staying up way, way too late as usual and chatted the night away. We don’t get to see each other very often but we always pick up right where we left off as if no time has passed. Unfortunately due to our late night chats I didn’t end up spraying down the room to take care of mosquitos and finally when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep due to the siren call of the mosquito buzzing about the room wanting to welcome me himself to Africa.
This isn’t nearly all of the photos, I have more posted on Instagram and may create a gallery of the different parks in the future so you can explore more.
Stay tuned for a little video of the day so hopefully you can enjoy the day we had as well!
Links:
Arusha National Park: Tanzania National Park Site