Tarangire National Park

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The first national park on our safari with Joash Africa Wilderness Insight was Tarangire, chosen as it was closest to Arusha and had the largest concentration of elephants in the world. After an early start, Josh picked us up at our hotel in Arusha and drove a couple of hours to the visitor centre at the entrance to the park. There we were able to use the facilities and wander around some of their informative displays whilst our guide sorted everything out regarding park fees. There were also some excellent stained glass windows showing the park in both wet and dry season.

Soon enough we were on our way along bumpy park tracks around the baobab trees and acacias, looking for animals and birds. They were not hard to find! It was very soon into the trip that we realised how lucky we were to have come across Josh as our guide. Not only is he knowledgeable about animals, their habitat and the environment, he’s also like a walking encyclopaedia of birdlife.

He was able to spot the tiniest beautiful bird hiding in the bush and direct Trish’s binoculars or my 40omm lens in the right direction. Without him we would have seen almost nothing! Trish kept a list (exhausting but probably not exhaustive) of what we saw so that nothing was forgotten!!

Animals:
Dik dik antelopes, warthogs, impala, black faced vervet monkeys, hundreds of zebras, water bucks, wildebeest, mongoose, oryx (quite rare apparenty), tortoises, lots of elephants, two lions lazing under a tree and, at the very end of the day, giraffes.

Birds:
Red-billed hornbill, southern ground hornbill, buffalo weaver, superb starlings, mudpie shrike, ostrich (including a crèche of about 16 chicks supervised by two couples), northern white crowned shrike, maribu stork, blacksmith lapwing, ruppell’s griffon vulture, Egyptian geese, swallows, Eurasian bee eater, white backed vulture, guinea fowl, fancolin, saddle billed stork, mouse birds, red and yellow barbet, van der decken hornbill, crested fancolin, bateleur eagle, rollers, hammer headed bird, secretary bird, brown snake eagle, grey crowned cranes, grey hornbill, steppe eagle, hadada ibis, knob billed duck, martial eagle, and helmet shrike.

That night we stayed in a safari “tent” at the Sangaiwe Tented Lodge. It was hardly camping though. The tents are more like cabins with a canopy inside. The swimming pool was very refreshing after a long, hot, dusty day. The meal was wonderful and sleep came so easily despite the sounds of nature all around us.

Here is a selection of photos from the day but you can see more on Facebook. You don’t need an account to view the photo album.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Love the giraffe
One of my favorite animals.MJ

[D MJ Binkley]

Life among the animals
Looks like you pick a nice park for viewing all the African animals. I love those tent camps and no they are not roughing it. Life is too short ( and speaking for us we are aging) the luxury is well appreciated these days. Great shots of the animals.