Blogs from Tarangire National Park, North, Tanzania, Africa

Good breakfast again here at Tarangire. Driving to Ngorongoro Crater this morning.... read more

Still here at Tarangire Safari lodge! Heard the lions way off in the distance this morning at 0500. Nice breakfast. Elephants behind the tents this morning. Went out on game drive. Saw the lions! Lots of elephants, giraffes, zebras, baboons,etc.... read more

Vi er idag så utroligt privilegerede at besøge Tarangiri National Park. Vi ankom ca. kl. 12.00 og havde inden de første timer var omme set mpala, elefanter, zebraer, giraf, gnuer, waterbuck, gribbe, vortesvin, hyæne, løver, dik-dik, bavianer, blue velvet monkeys, jordegern, desmondyr, strudser og alverdens fugle. Et sand paradis for dyre og naturelskere:) Nu mangler vi bare bøfler, flodheste, leoparder, geparder - så vi står op til solopgang og kører en tur, hvorefter vi spiser morgenmad. Vi bor på Tarangire Safari Lodge = vildt luksus midt mellem dyrene. Vi bor i telte og der er både elefanter, løver og mange andre dyr lige uden for teltene (bogstaveligt talt!!!) Vi skal spise lækker aftensmad mens vi kigger ud over de afrikanske sletter. Lidt senere skal vi sove til lyden af hyæner, sikader, elefanter og løvebrøl. ... read more

The lodge I stayed at last night was on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater at 7,400 feet. The Crater floor is at 5,400 feet. I believe on the drive down it only takes about 6,000 feet of road to drop the 2,000 feet. I don't believe the road would meet U.S. safety standards. When I got to the room the heat was on and the bed had two heavy blanks. I have determined that when it gets below 65 it is considered winter. Then they came and put in a hot water bottle while you were at dinner. I had to remove both blanks and the hot water bottle in order to sleep. This morning I would say it was somewhere in that 45 to 50 range at 5:45 a.m. when I got up. Not bad ... read more

We decided to organize our safari in Arusha and not pre-book from abroad for various reasons. Usually, foreign bookings end up costing a premium price because the safari operators know they have the "knowledge advantage" when dealing at a distance. They also know your time is limited in trying to research everything online. Furthermore, we were still in a world wide recession, and wanted to guage for ourselves how busy and how flexible the safari companies were based on how many other tourists were around Arusha. We don't know how much we saved by just showing up in Arusha and booking locally, vs. if we'd prearranged everything on the Internet. In the end, we ended up going with our original choice of safari company, as the competition didn't seem too eager to meet our requirements. Also, ... read more

Wednesday & Thursday, July 14 & 15, 2010: We went on a two day safari. It was phenomenal. Like, there are not even words to describe how amazing God's creation is!! We were not even on the safari yet, we were just driving to the safari, when out roaming loose were camels! Seriously! There were so many of us we had to take 3 safari vehicles. Everybody except Grant and Rod went. We did have an extra, though--Ozi Whittaker, from Nigeria. His Dad is a surgeon there---the one who was kidnapped, held hostage, and shot in the arm. Anyway, Ozi came with us. In our vehicle was Mom, Cody, Katherine, Lexi, Stephani, and I. The first day, we went to Tarangire National Park. It. Was. So. Hot. And windy. BUT I did not get sunburned!!! We ... read more

GOODBYE GIRAFFES We’re woken up at 6:30am with juice, hot chocolate, fruit and toast brought to our room, it took a lot of insisting that this would be enough, they wanted to give us a full cooked breakfast. The other Australian couple left today as well as 4:30am and they were also offered a cooked breakfast! So we are now all ready for our driver to collect us at 7am, all that’s left is to see our giraffes. We see them walk out of the bush and one heads our way, we are madly shaking the food tin, it looks our way, so we shake some more, it starts walking over, we get all excited and then it just walks right by us! Damn giraffe! We go downstairs and say our farewells, Jess has come to ... read more