Tarangire

The very first stop on our safari is Tarangire National Park – one of Tanzania’s premier parks that often gets overlooked in favor of more glamorous cousins like Ngrongoro and Serengeti. Joshua drove us there in about three hours from Arusha, explaining the lay of the land and its people along the way. We got there at lunchtime, ate our boxed lunches, and drove into the park.

We came up to a watering hole and saw a large number of wildebeest, zebra, and an odd warthog or two. Wildebeests are amazingly unattractive animals and seem to have been badly welded together from discarded portions of cattle, horses, elks, deer, and other animals. Geeks of a certain vintage will recognize them from the cover of the O’Reilly Gnu book (yes, they are indeed gnu). Their other claim to fame is that they are the most popular prey animal on the African savannah.

We saw Baobab trees, lions, elephants, baboons, lilac breasted rollers, secretariat birds, and other amazing wildlife. And spent our first real day of our vacation together without any real disasters. About 360 days to go!