Africa Day 10 Tarangire National Park 15th July 2018

Woke around 6.15am, had a good sleep, ? unusual for me I  normally wake a lot during my first night somewhere new.

Met Zoya at 8am, and headed out on our game drive.   The first 11/2 hours were VERY bumpy. Felt like my whole body was doing a work out, just sitting in my seat. We travelled at 20-30km an hour and there were few sightings of animals during this time.

But then we got to the marsh land and everything changed.   We came to Africa to see the animals, but what I hadn’t realised before was that the landscape is beautiful and stands alone in its own right it is an added bonus to see the animals and birds.  I love the sounds of the country to, feels peaceful just soaking it up.  

After a couple of hours we came to a picnic stop.  To my surprise there was a toilet and I thought I would be going behind a bush!   There was a group of Chinese tourists here, they all had big lenses.  I could only imagine how good their photos would be.

After a short stop we were back in the car in search of some more animals.  There were a few hundred elephants and zebras.   We also saw a family of lions, two lioness and some cubs and later in the day we had a great view of the lion returning home.  It was amazing to be amongst so many of these animals.

We returned to the picnic spot for lunch, we had a table overlooking the marshland and the elephants that were grazing.   Zoya had brought a picnic along from our campsite.  It was magical and quite surreal.   At lunch Zoya told us he has 5 daughters the youngest is Deborah 28, the oldest is called Happiness (I love her name) he had her at 18.  All of his daughters are now married, he has 11 grand children and lives in Arusha, near where we are going tomorrow.   He lights up when talking about his family.   Zoya asked what Greg did for a living (patriarchy is alive and well in Africa!), he told him we were retired.  He is about the same age as us and said he would like to retire, but that it wasn’t possible if you worked for a private business as you get no money upon retirement.  Unlike if you work for the government.  So he will eventually become dependent on his family if he does retire.  ?

After lunch we went exploring again, during our travels besides elephants and zebra we saw giraffe, lots of Impala, Ostrich, dikdik, python snake, lots of Cape buffalo, warthog, mongoose and dozens of different birds which are all different sizes, some very big and so many beautiful colours.   I don’t think I have ever been to any country and seen as many different animals and birds as are here.  Africa is abundantly rich in wildlife. I also love the Boab trees, there are so many.  The acacia trees are Greg’s favorite.  They both look so beautiful on the African landscape.

We eventually got back to  camp after 5pm.  We travelled over 200km, 3 hours of that was hard going, at one point I went 6inches in the air off my seat! ? it was worth it for the 6 hours we spent by the marsh.

We had an hour relaxing before heading up for a drink and dinner. Dinner is served outside in the dining area.  After dinner Greg went and got some cheese and a Port, while he was gone there were a few really big roars, after the second one the staff all gathered and the torches were out and there were two lions, a male and female about 20-30 metres away.  I went to get Greg, he was nearby, so he could see the lions.  They stayed around for about 5 minutes and then they were gone.  At camp there are Masai Warriors that guard the camp, when it is dark we are not to walk alone we have to go with a warrior, who has a small spear.  Our campsite is number 11, which is the furthest away, about 800 meters! ?  for the next half hour before we left, I was thinking about the long walk in the dark to our tent ?

Anyhow after the excitement died down we finished our meal.  During the evening we had noticed a reddish light in the sky, it was different to the other stars.  Greg asked our waiter what it was, he replied it is a planet! It made sense then, it was Mars!  The stars are beautiful here, we can see so many.  Thought that was pretty good in one night! Two lions and Mars ?

But we still had to make the long walk to our room! With our warrior we headed out.  It is a bit unnerving when he shines his torch in the overhead trees we are about to walk under, looking for big cats ? I might have cut off the circulation to Greg’s fingers on the walk to our tent, but we made it ? that was a relief.  It was good to experience, we had heard these stories, was good to be apart of it.

When we got back, we packed our bags.  We leave in the morning at 7am for Ngorongoro Crater.   Breakfast is at 6.30am, don’t think it will be light then, will be fun doing the walk back to the dining room!

FYI. 120 tribes in Tanzania all with a different language.  Swahili is the common language