Blogs from Tarangire National Park, North, Tanzania, Africa - page 2

No breakfast details, just into the trucks and away by 0730 planned. We drive for a short time with our driver, Masha checking for tracks as we go. He seems to spot a few cat tracks but can’t be sure how old they are. Next thing, we stop. He points out a dead Impala in a tree. The only animal to do that is a leopard. Excitement builds. As we look around, a jackal comes down the track straight towards us. Pics, then the other car behind us (one of ours) spots the leopard. The jackal has brought her out of the bush. Then we spot a cub in a tree further out. Bingo. Action aplenty and only our 2 trucks to watch proceedings, bugger. Mum comes out and is almost beside the trucks and the ... read more

TARANGIRE NATIONAL PARK Compared to the many days we spent on rough roads in the Serengeti National Park, it was an easy drive from the market town of Mto wa Mbu, on a good ‘surfaced’ road to Tarangire National Park, only the last four miles travelling along rough roads. We went through the usual process at the Entrance Gate having to fill out the necessary forms whilst Sifuni obtained the park and camping passes. Although Tarangire is an easily accessible NP it is often missed out by many tourists who prefer the more well know Central Serengeti area, leaving this park virtually untouched so it was much quieter for us and more like what we had experienced at Lobo Hills in Northern Serengeti. Tarangire National Park is huge and covers an area between the plains of ... read more

Our first safari stop was Tarangire National Park; after meeting our guide, Selemani, in Arusha, we hopped in the truck and made our way to the park arriving in the early afternoon. While Selemani registered our visit we wandered the gate entrance and spotted our first animals; they included mongoose and vervet monkeys who likely would have loved a few treats from us. Jumping back into the truck we experienced our first game drive. Within minutes we saw numerous impala, zebra and ostrich. The animals littered the landscape, a trend that continued in all the parks we visited. Tarangire is a great park to start with as the animals are abundant and the environment and landscape is spectacular. Tarangire provided our first up close experience with a herd of elephants. We found them devouring entire acacia ... read more

I got up early the next morning for a sunrise breakfast on a camp in the middle of Tarangire National Park. Breakfast was on some tables under a sausage tree and there were a few birds including white-backed vultures, bataleurs, tawny eagles and brown snake-eagles. There were also many ashy starlings. Watching the sunrise was amazing and there was a bushbuck (the only one of the trip) near to the camp in some woodlands by a stream that went next to the camp. After breakfast there was more safari. Most people on the group were now bored of animals so would rather just sit down and chat. This, however, was great news for me due to the fact that the driver would stop at any point that I wanted him too and this allowed great opportunities ... read more

We finally have access to a computer that isn't tortuously slow and so can post another blog. Our Kenyan guide escorted us across the border to meet our Tanzanian guide on June 26th. To be honest, I am not sure which lodge we have just arrived at but yesterday we were in Tarangire and tomorrow we move on to Ngorongoro so are somewhere between the two. We have had some neat animal experiences with our guide David. One day we stopped along a dirt road when a line of elephants came marching towards us. We kept still and quiet so as not to alarm them and could have reached out and touched them as they passed. We have now seen elephants sleeping, bathing, feeding, nursing, scratching against trees, mating, taking a dust bath, and even one ... read more