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Published: March 4th 2015
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Hippo
Hippos look friendly but are very dangerous. More people are killed by hippos each year than by any other mammal in Africa (not counting humans) We have seen Timon and Pumbaa!
After we left Zanzibar we flew to the town Arusha in northern Tanzania. From Arusha it is a convenient distance to several important national parks which makes the town ideal for safaris.
In the months before we went to Tanzania we tried to book a safari tour on the Internet through various booking sites. But the offers we found there were all really expensive. So we decided go to Arusha and try to make a reservation on location. We knew we had to be careful when booking directly with a company. In Arusha there are hundreds of tour companies arranging safari tours and as always when there is such a fierce competition there are various scams and trickeries going on.
We asked around in two different companies and eventually decided to go for a budget tour where the accommodation was tent lodge. We thought tent lodge meant a tent in a camp site. The tent was much better than we expected. It was big, set up under a roof, had electricity, a double bed and a bathroom. There was even Wi-Fi there, though that actually stopped
Zebra
We have seen zebras before when we were on a safari in Rwanda. Zebras look so funny. We doubt that they even exist. Zebras must be painted horses, right? working the first evening we were there and they didn't manage to fix it before we left. The rest of the tour was just as good. The guide did a good job and it really couldn't have been much better than it was.
We decided to go on a three day safari including the three parks Tarangire NP, Lake Manyara NP and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. All three of these parks are located a convenient distance from Arusha and also close to each other so we didn't loose precious time on transport to and from the national parks.
These national parks differs quite a bit from each other which makes it good choice to visit all three. Had they been more similar it would have felt like we saw exactly the same every day. Now each park was a new experience.
Lake Manyara of course has a lake in it. But that national park also has a large and dense forest and that is actually what we remember most from there. The forest was both an advantage and a disadvantage for us. We saw fewer animals there, because they were hiding in
the forest, but the ones we saw were often very close to the vehicle.
Tarangire National Park is more open than Lake Manyara National Park. Tarangire is famous for having a large number of elephants. At one time we were surrounded by at least 50 elephants. Another feature in that national park is that there are plenty of baobab trees growing there.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area is located in a huge crater. Most of that park is open grassland which makes it the national park where it felt like it was the easiest to find animals. But it might be that we saw more animals in that park simply because the concentration of animals is larger there than in the other two.
In all of the national parks we saw many different kinds of animals and birds.
As we said there were many elephants around, especially in Tarangire National Park. We even saw two dead elephants. They had both died from natural causes so there was no foul play behind their deaths. We now know what an elephant carcass smells like. The stench was quite awful even as far
Antelope
Antelopes are a common sight in the national parks as 200 meters away from it.
With "foul play" we obviously meant "killed by poachers". It is a tragic fact that poachers hunt elephants for their tusks. One animal that is even more fiercely hunted by poachers is the rhino. Rhinos are perhaps only a decade or so away from becoming extinct all over the world unless the illegal trade in rhino horns can be stopped. But there are still rhinos around and we were lucky enough to see three of them in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Since that park is in a crater the park rangers can, thanks to the geography, protect the rhinos quite efficiently. The crater rim provides both excellent viewing points for those who wish to spot any intruder who tries to get into the park and a natural wall not easily scaled for those who wants to go in and out without being noticed.
We are happy to have had the chance to see rhinos in the wild and we are proud to say that we, through the entrance fee to Ngorongoro Conservation Area, also made a financial contribution to the authorities so they can keep up the work with
Baobab
Tarangire National Park is famous for the large baobab trees growing there protecting the few rhinos that are still roaming around free.
We saw two of our favourite animals on the tour: giraffes and zebras. We have seen giraffes and zebras before when we were on a safari in Rwanda. Giraffes and zebras still look funny. So funny that we find it hard to believe they even exist. Zebras must be painted horses, right? Giraffes? A three meter long neck? They can't be real. They must be some kind of joke.
We saw both Pumbaa and Timon, that is we saw warthogs and meerkats. Actually, it might not have been meerkats we saw but some other animal that looked like meerkats.
We saw ostriches. That was a first for us. That is another one we can add to the list "various living creatures we have seen but we still don't believe exist". It is a huge bird that can't fly but can run really fast. They have a long thin neck and really tiny head. They lays eggs larger than two fists put next to each other. It is too much. Ostriches can not exist. They must be the figment of someone's imagination.
Monkey
Oh so cute We saw lions at not less than three different locations. On the first day of the safari tour we saw two lions, a male and a female, far away in the distance. Then the second day we came across three males resting in the grass. Later that day we saw a group of at least 12 lions, we had difficulties counting them because they were so many, hanging around a fallen tree.
We also saw a few different kinds of antelope, several kinds of birds, monkeys, baboons and much more. Scan through the photos to see some of the "much more".
After the safari we left Arusha and started to make our way back to Dar es Salaam. We will write about that in our next blog entry
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
The Lion King and Queen!
How fantastic that you stayed in a luxury tent and got to see so many animals--more lions than you could count--wow! I also love giraffes and zebras and think it is so amazing how their stripes and spots are so perfect. My faves are the meerkats and these monkeys grooming each other. Massive cuteness here!