Abba's Africa

Tarangire National Park

Sept 12 and 13

Thursday was a big travel day. We flew from the Naboisho airstrip to the Kilimanjaro international airport in Tanzania (passport control) to the airstrip in Manyara where our new guide Victor picked us up for the drive to Little Olivers Camp in Tarangire. The drive should take 3 hours (2 hours being through the park) but it took us 3+ hours to get through the park - there was so much to see. We ended up getting to camp late - they held dinner for us which was very nice.

The highlights in Tarangire are the elephants, the birds and the Baobab trees. There are big herds of elephants who gather at the swamp to cool off, get a drink, play in the water, throw mud at each other - they are so relaxed and they seem to be having so much fun. Victor was amazing at spotting and identifying the birds. The Boabab tree is also known as ab 'upside down tree'. For most of the year, the tree is leafless and looks very as an 'upside-down tree'. For most of the year, the tree is leafless, and looks very much like it has its roots sticking up in the air.

Little Olivers Camp was beautiful. It only has 5 tents. There is hot and cold running water so although there are indoor and outdoor showers, they are not bucket showers. As the name implies, this is the second addition of Olivers Camps. The main camp is down the road but little Olivers is totally self sufficient and we didn't even see the 'big' camp. The staff and guides were from a variety of African tribes so the common language was Swahili. Victor taught us some Swahili words that served us well throughout Tanzania.

Rather that being based at the camp, Victor is based out of Arusha and was our guide not only for Tarangire but also for Lake Manyara and the crater. Victor has a wife and two children, a boy 5 and a girl 1 1/2. Their dream is to buy a plot of land on the outskirts of the city and build their own home (3 bedroom with a sitting room, dining room and porch).He said the land will cost approx $10,000 (US) and the house $20,000. Having no collateral (they rent, don't own a vehicle etc) they can't get a mortgage so the plan is to save up the money and buy the land and then start saving for the house and they hope once they have enough for half the house they may be able to get a mortgage for the difference. Saving $10,000 for the land is a huge undertaking for them. Victor's son goes to school (a definitive advantage of living in the city is that there are schools relatively nearby) and his daughter will go as well when she is old enough.

About 15 minutes before we were supposed to head to the main tent for breakfast, a member of the staff came to warn us there had been buffalo sightings and to be extra vigilant and to call for a guide if there was any sign of them. Happily we didn't see them in camp.

We did another game drive on Friday morning. We spent a lot of time watching the elephants again - just loved them! We also saw a huge python in a tree (I took one quick look and that was enough for me but Steve and Victor were interested. Victor had to take the picture cause I wasn't looking at it again - Yikes.

In the afternoon we did another game walk. Because Tarangire is a National Park you must be accompanied by a ranger for safety reasons. Our guide was called 'Blessed'. Both he and the ranger had high powered rifles for protection. We were out approx 2.5 hours. It was another great walking safari experience. We were joined on the walk by 4 'owners/investors' (dutch and scandanavian) of Little Olivers who wanted to understand the guest experience. They also joined us for dinner and they turned out to be great guys and a lot of fun. It made for some very interesting dinner conversation.

Saturday morning, when we were getting ready for breakfast, we saw elephants walking very close to the tent, first at the back and later at the front. We thought about calling for a guide but correctly judged that they had moved on so didn't bother. However, when we got to the main tent, the staff were telling us that the elephants had been right at the steps of the tent - maybe they were looking for some breakfast?

Next up is Lake Manyara.

Here are some pictures from Tarangire. There are a lot of pictures I'd like to share of Tarangire. I will likely do a 2nd post just with pictures.