Tarangire National Park
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
We entered Tarangire National Park and came across some lions fairly soon thereafter. The animals seem to understand we are just watching and not a threat.
Tarangire’s landscape is different from the Serengeti, but both parks have lions.
Elephants are everywhere here. Our guide is patient and waits for this one to move out of the road before proceeding.
We have seen elephants (in a herd) move through areas like this and break trees up as they eat branches. Broken trees and branches were a sure sign elephants had been in the area eating. This one is eating grass, though.
Tarangire also has a lot of giraffes. This is an attractive one.
We arrived late in the afternoon at our Swala Lodge, a tent camp, located quite a distance inside the park. These are two photograph of the dining tent area, located near a watering hole. At the hole were a half dozen elephants, lots of impalas and waterbucks, a parade of small monkeys and the odd zebra.
The local monkeys are smart enough to know how to open the zipper doors of the tents, so when we are away from ours, management has instructed us to padlock the door.
We spent the morning and afternoon touring in Tarangire National Park, which has far fewer tourists than Ngorongoro Crater. Lions, giraffes and different sorts of antelope were out in great numbers. Our tent hotel has a watering hole for animals very close to the dining area. We spent a few hours this afternoon just watching the watering hole from a comfortable chair.
Next—a morning of touring in the park, and then off to Arusha and the international airport.
