So its time to head out to on Safari. I had a pickup time scheduled around 8 AM from Angel’s house. We were up early that day finishing up my packing for the trip, I was leaving my roller bag behind and was bringing only my camera backpack and a duffel bag. Angel was buzzing around the house finalizing their packing as well and prepping breakfast for the crew.
Looking out the window, it appears that we have grown one safari vehicle overnight as my ride had arrived early and quietly. My guide, Eric, was outside chatting with Mona. Greg had a little safari vehicle envy when he spied our vehicle for my trip. Soon enough I had a proper sendoff and a heartfelt good-bye to the bulk of the family. Bill did his best to see us off and used all his might and pushed us back out of the drive. Causing quite a few chuckles from all of us.
Before we left to the parks we stopped by the office to finalize paperwork and I finally met my sales associate, Urio, who had been helping me plan and guide my trip over the past months. Top notch experience the entire way. Urio was so helpful in planning out my trip and quickly responding to any inquiry and providing me all the information I could need to prepare.
I was out for a 7 day safari starting Day 1 in Tarangire (pronounced Taron Gear A), it was about a 2 hour drive out of Arusha. Eric is very engaging and provided me with a lot of information on our drive regarding Arusha and the Masai. We did get in a little bit of discussion on how the political system worked in Tanzania. Interesting they do encourage everyone to vote, and everyone has the right to with the exception of those in the military as that potentially poses a conflict of interest.
Tarangire National Park
Upon entering the park we had to do check in which takes awhile, so Eric passed me off to Steve who is a guide in training at the park so Steve could show me the details around the welcome center. Steve was very engaging but I did have a little problem with his accent at time but overall I could catch all he was saying. They had a nice little showing the differences in the park during the dry vs rainy season. Steve told me that this park hosts all but one of the big 5, unfortunately the Rhino’s are not present due to past poaching. We were having a blast enjoying all of the birds that were flitting about, which Steve’s favorite is the lovebirds. He showed me a few of the skulls they had on display from a few of the animals that had passed. The elephant skull is almost as tall as I am.
Soon enough I was reunited with Eric and we were off to explore the park. This park is a birders dream and Eric was so good at finding them and knowing the names and calls of everyone. We spotted horn bills, bee catchers, magpies, white buffalo birds, lovebirds, ostrich, eagles, cranes, vultures, the list can go on and on.
Beyond that we were immediately greeted by herds of elephants, some bulls enjoying a good scratch, the mothers and the nanny’s caring for the little ones. The warthogs, zebra, impalas, dik diks, wildebeests, monkeys and baboons, lions and a leopard who was napping in a tree. We stopped mid way through the day and had a nice picnic lunch at one of the picnic areas and made some friends with a few of the birds.
The trees here are amazing, we saw the Candelabra tree (which is more like a big cactus), the acacia which quickly became my favorite and the balboa tree (this is the only park that I would be visiting where this tree would be found). The balboa trees are absolutely huge, they grow tall but also very very wide. The elephants at time hollow them out and then the animals find a new home.
As the day started to wane we went off to my lodging for the night at the Tarangire Sopa Lodge located within the park. Eric said this was one of the places that has an amazing sunset. Once we arrive they quickly grabbed my stuff and off we were to my room for the night. They only have hot water available from 5-8 pm and 6-9 am I think. By the time I got set up in my room I grabbed my camera to head out to the main lodge to grab sunset. Eric did not steer me wrong, this was amazing. I found a nice break in the trees and the sun turned a nice dusty read and we had elephants playing in the dirt right in line with the sunset.
Just as the sun was doing its final dip I was called over to the end of the terrace where some other guests were as they wanted to show me some elephants who were enjoying the water hole. While I did miss the final moments of the sunset it was a nice view of the elephants. This couple was from Arizona and on their last day of their safari. They said it was amazing but they were looking forward to getting home. I did not envy them as they had over 4 layovers to get home, no thank you!
When I had finished my chat with them I went in and decided to stop in for dinner. This was set as a buffet and had all the food you could want. While I was about to swing on through Eric joined me for a few moments so we could plan out our next day. We wanted to get a good head start so we settled on a 6 AM start. By the time I went back to my room I had missed the hot water time so I had to skip the shower for the day and with our early morning start I would miss the hot water time in the morning so I would need to do the whore bath kinda thing (you know, clean the important bits). Hahaha!
Saturday morning started early and after a quick breakfast Eric and I set out to start our morning park exploration but turnabout is fair play and a monkey was exploring our vehicle and was about to jump in but decided to jump over to another person’s vehicle to sneak a peak at what they had in there. We had a nice view of the sunrise with the balboa trees and had a quiet moment with a few giraffe who were enjoying their breakfast. While we were driving about we stopped to take some pictures of the water buffalo and a teste fly had found me and gave be a little love bite (this hurts like a banshee and bothered me for the remainder of the day). The song shoo fly don’t bother me kept going on repeat in my head throughout the rest of the trip. Nasty little fellows, they are small and look similar to a housefly but sound lie a wasp flying about.
As we were leaving the park to head along to the next part of our trip, I got a proper good-bye. There was a herd of elephants we were watching and one was interested in us and came up to inspect. He first nudged the vehicle with his tusk, which made Eric nervous as they have been known to pop tires, but he was more interested in saying hello to me and stuck his trunk in and gave me a good sniff before he went about his way.
Did I tell you that I love elephants? I have a short story I wrote when I was about 8 years old about this African elephant, and then I collected elephant knick knacks for my mom growing up, my sister would laugh as I always seemed to give her kids elephant stuffed animals, etc. I didn’t even recognize this until she pointed it out to me. When someone puts a mirror up to your face, it is best to embrace the truth, so I acknowledge and welcomed this connection to elephants. A few years back I was in Thailand and my friend Adam and I volunteered at an Elephant Sanctuary for rescued elephants. So I was in awe when I could interact, if just on a small measure, with the African elephants.
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