Elephants, Elephants, and More Elephants!!

Sunday morning, we left Moshi for a short safari to Tarangire National Park.  It is on the same road out of town as Ngorongoro Crater National Park and Olduvai Gorge; the road to the Crater and Gorge turns off after several miles of road construction.  We reached the turnoff for Tarangire late morning.  Sometimes I think the entrances to National parks are the same the world over--lots of tacky little shops selling all kinds of curios which may or may not relate to the park itself.

Anyway, the park is incredible,  When the kids and I visited in July 2000, we were surrounded by zebras and gazelles almost immediately.  Then came the elephants.  But we didn't really see many of the predators.  In this season, the beginning of the rains, we saw more elephants than I could have imagined.  Everywhere we looked there were elephants.  Not just one or two, here or there, but big groups of elephants, as in 50 or 60 per group.  But no zebras or gazelles in the park at all.  Seems that when the rains start,  the grass grows quite high, and some of the smaller grazers leave the park for the surrounding areas, where the grasses are shorter.  After all, if you aren't taller than the grass, you can't see a lion or leopard hiding in that same grass!  We were very fortunate to see a couple of small prides of lions.

We drove a couple of the loops within the park, and everywhere we turned there were elephants.  I know that I am being repetitive, but we kept exclaiming to each other "Look, there are some more elephants!"  There were all ages of elephants in each group, and they were in the road, in front of the car, next to the car and behind the car!  Seemed as if they were almost close enough to touch.

Had a lovely picnic lunch at a spot overlooking the Tarangire River Valley.  The geography and geology of the area is amazing--makes me wish I had taken a class in geography of east Africa.  Just as we were finishing up our lunch, a cappuccin monkey, fast as lightening, jumped out of the tree behind our table, snatched my dessert and disappeared back into the tree.  I didn't even see it but it scared the heck out of me, especially since my dessert was still in my lunch box!

After a last loop through another section of the park, we left and drove up to Karatu, towards Ngorongoro Park, to reach our hostel.  And just outside Tarangire, we saw a herd of zebra, and then several giraffes!  The hostel we stayed in was fabulous.  Lovely rooms, delicious food, a big clean swimming pool, beautiful landscaping; we were wishing we could just spend a week there.  On the way back to Moshi the next day, we stopped at the Snake and Reptile Farm which was, surprisingly enough, very interesting.  All the snakes and reptiles in it are local and the guide/naturalist was quite informative.  Attached to it is a small Maasai museum which also ws very good.

One more day in Moshi and we will be off to Uganda.