To Tarangire

 Sunday September 8

After saying farewell to our trip companions, we drove (well our driver/guide Jackson actually drove) from Karatu  to the Tarangire National Park (it was a bit of a slow start because we were spotting birds). Tarangire was established in the 1970’s and contains 2800 square kilometers, with conservation zones around it that enable animal migration from Lake Manyara to Amboseli National Park in Kenya. We entered the park about 11 am and spent the remainder of the day on a game drive, arriving at our new camp around sunset.

We saw many wonderful things today, including a large pride of lions on a very recent kill, a lost lion cub calling to find the rest of his family, a den of hyena puppies, and more elephants than we could count. We also saw some spectacular new birds. As well as, you guessed it, wildebeest. Tarangire is also full of baobab trees (the ones that look upside down). They are beautiful in an alien way at all times, but stunning against the horizon or a sunset. 

Our new camp is even more embedded in the bush than the two Serengeti camps. The tents themselves are lovely, spacious and well appointed. No one is allowed to walk unescorted, even in daylight hours. The odd fringe benefit to this is that no one will walk past your tent in the night, so there are no solid panels on the front of the tents, only mosquito netting. We ate dinner outdoors (by candlelight), and periodically a member of staff would scan the surrounding grassland with a big flashlight to be sure there were no animals encroaching; the grasses started about 10 feet from Kevin’s end of our table. 

Pictured: hyena pups and adults, red-and-yellow barbet, lost lion cub, yellow collared lovebird