Tarangire Park (August 16)

We met our guides at breakfast this morning, and after some introductions and orientation we left the Moivaro Coffee Plantation (the lodge) and drove about an hour before stopping at a roadside trinket shop. The items here cost about twice what we would have expected western prices to be.

After another hour or so of driving, we entered Tarangire National Park and arrived at our home for the next two nights, Tarangire Safari Lodge.

Along the way we saw our first Zebra, Wildebeest, Elephant, Impala, and an Ostrich. We ate lunch and had some time to unpack our bags and get a feel for the place. The lodge sat on the rim of the river canyon, overlooking a small plain and part of the river across which elephants, wildebeest, and troupes of baboons constantly wandered. This was one of our "tent" lodges, and apparently Africa has a different definition of tent than we are used to -- a semi-permanent wood structure with canvas walls, real furniture, and a concrete bathroom enclosure.

Around 4:00 we left for our first game drive. We saw some new animals this afternoon: cheetah, lion, vulture, marabou stork, dik-dik, hyrex, and waterbuck (a type of antelope with a marking on the back that looks like a toilet seat). We also saw our first troupe of baboons, compelte with grooming adults, playful youth, and even some discovery channel, if you know what I mean. We saw a zebra carcass being cleaned by vultures and marabou storks (recently killed by a lioness), and soon found the pride of lions sleeping off their meal. The lion wasn't around, but the lionesses and cubs were fun to watch.

We were so amazed to have seen more animals in the first two hours of game drive than we expected to see during the whole trip. I guess we are accustomed to the sparse populations of deer in Washington, that we didn't understand that all of the parks would be teeming with so much wildlife. We were just blown away that we didn't have to drive hours to find baboons or ostrich or hyenas -- they walked right through the 'camp' at all hours!

We had a nice dinner at the lodge, shared pictures, and got to know our tour-mates a little better. We were with a really great group of people, everyone got along well enough to talk and laugh and tell stories. We finally headed for our tents around 10:30 to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's drives.