Tarangire National Park

After sorting our stuff into storage bags vs. safari bag, we got into three Toyota Land Cruisers and headed north on a four-hour drive that took us to Tarangire National Park.

Peter, our driver, passed cars and trucks willy nilly, with tuk tuks and motorbikes coming the other way. But he clearly knows what he's doing and no harm was done. We drove through Arusha, a large city called the Geneva of Africa – I'm assuming b/c of UN offices there?

The park is much smaller than the Serengenti but has a higher concentration of animals. Given this is the dry season, the animals are drawn to remaining water sources. We saw lots of elephants.

They scooped the mud in this hole onto their backs and the young ones struggled to get out of the mud hole. We probably parked for at least a half hour to watch three families of elephants moving around this water source.

We saw lots of Wildebeests.

And zebras.

I'm a big fan of Bilbao trees, which can be 1,000 - 2,000 years old.

Here we have six Land Cruisers arrayed around a bush where a leopard is lounging.

to be continued