It only took about an hour and a half to get to the park. I kind of wish it was a longer drive cuz it's so nice driving around here. There are always happy people waving at us and such beautiful landscapes of fields and rolling hills.
When we got to the park we were re-briefed on the exercise we were going to conduct while in the park. We were doing an animal counting exercise; drive for 2 km and record the species of animal we see, the population, the distance they are from the road, and the distance from the starting point. After 2 km we reset the count, drove 500 m and started the 2 km again.
We saw mostly the same animals and a few new ones.
The new animals we saw: water buck, banded mongoose, lesser kudu, ostrich, hartebeest, a bunch of vultures, and a dead genet. Sadly no lions, cheetahs, or leopards.
Even though we saw the same animals, this park was a lot more interesting than Lake Manyara. Firstly, it was much bigger than Manyara. There were many more roads to go down and larger roaming space for the animals. I think I heard someone say it has the largest elephant population out of all the national parks (something like an elephant for every 1km²), which was obvious because we saw elephants EVERYWHERE.
There was also a big river that ran through the park. We got to get pretty close and saw a heard of elephants playing in the water. At one point we had to stop because there was a baby elephant playing in a puddle of water in the middle of the road.
ahhh didn't think that picture would load! I'll try to do a few more.
There were a bunch of frickin little titsi flies. They're like regular flies but bigger and bite. They're disgusting, annoying, and hurt. They seem to just bite for no reason too, I really don't get it.
After our safari we went to the Tourist Lodge in the middle of the park. We got to go swimming and ate at the buffet. It was delicious and fun. The pool was greaattt. It was a pretty hot day so it was nice to cool down in a cold pool. It had a little water slide too! The lodge itself was gorgeous. It stood on top of a hill and overlooked the park. You could see the river from this giant overlook- and a few animals roaming around.
After lunch and swimming we went to Dr. Kissui's (our wildlife management teacher) research lab. We didn't get to see lions or anything, but we did see a bunch of animal skulls that they found around the park. They had an elephant skull that was gigaaantic.
That was pretty much our trip to Tarangire.. I'll upload a few pictures from earlier in the trip!
dumb giraffe in Lake Manyara National Park.
gray crested cranes in Manyara
warthog, wildebeest, and zebra
Esther and me at the Maasai Manyatta
Primary school kids we visited
Most of the group at the Iraqw village
Crazy market in Karatu
Elephants in Tarangire
These are beautiful, Cary!
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