Tarangire National Park

 26 June, Arusha to Tarangire National Park.

Today, we began our Safari.  Let's start with this - I was a skeptic.  I have been to plenty of reserves, every National Park in the USA, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.  I felt like I have seen every animal I really ever need to see, and probably up close (albeit, fast when you're on Disney's Safari ride).  I have even been on Safari in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.  All that to say, I wasn't originally planning to do a safari, but because JT had never done one, I thought we should tack a quick one on.  Little did I know how much more plentiful the wildlife would be in these parks!

Our day began with checking out of our nice hotel and jumping into our Toyota LandCruiser for the next few days.  Here's a few images of our drive from Arusha to Tarangire.  Sorry if the images don't display well or in order - the editing tools on blogger are pretty primitive.

When we arrived at Tarangire, there were some termite mounds and elephant bones in the check-in area...  Here's JT for scale.

Tarangire National Park.

Tarangire is an interesting park.  When you buy a day or two day Safari from Arusha, this is the place you go.  It isn't famous like Ngorongoro or Serengeti, but it does have its own charms.  One of those being, you do see the famous Baobab Trees (the Africans call it the Tree of Life).  They look upside down in dry season, when they don't have any leaves up top.  On the way in, our guide, Samuel, asked what animal we most wanted to see.  After a week of Safari in South Africa and Botswana, hoping to see everything, the Leopard was one of the Big 5 that I had not seen.  (Sidenote - Big 5 are the ones that were considered the hardest to hunt back in those days, but even moreso these days as many are much more rare due to hunting and poaching - Elephant, Rhino, Leopard, Lion, Cape Buffalo)  Within a few minutes, we had already checked Leopard off of our list!  

One of our favorite moments of the trip was learning who the real king of the jungle is... NOT the lion.  We got to watch an elephant chase away a lion (from a distance).  So, definitely that elephant was our favorite animal in Tarangire.  Afterwards, we continued on to our lodge, which had an infinity pool (freezing cold) overlooking Lake Manyara.  As part of the experience, they had a few Maasai chant and jump with us over some popcorn before dinner.  All in all, a great introduction to Africa!  Lots of photos below!

This lion started out in the tree, then jumped down, crossed the road right in front of our "Jeep"... I didn't get any good road crossing photos because I didn't want to scare her, but, this was our first really close animal encounter.  

Here is the real king of the jungle, chasing away the lion.

Below is a hollow Baobab tree - this one is called the Poacher's Hide - where they could climb up inside the tree to hide from the rangers.

This is another of our favorite finds - the dik-dik, or the miniature antelope.  This was the last one we saw... alive.

Positive and negative about the Safari in Tanzania... we were barely ever allowed outside the Land Cruiser except for bathroom and lunch.  However, the top popped open, so, it was a great open air view of the wildlife.  At least for me, but probably both of us, one of my favorite things was riding standing up through the savannah!