Tarangire National Park is approximately 2800 square Kms (~1080 sq. miles) and was named a national park in 1974 after the Tarangire river which runs through it. We had about a 4 hours of game drive in total and I was most surprised by the number of termite hills, some of them very large, in the park. These are the pictures from Tarangire.
This is a Baobab tree and while it looks like it's dead, it's actually very much alive. The trees are 70% water and the elephants not only debark them, they eat into the trunks of the trees and chew them to get the water out of them.
The Baobab trees quite often have twin trunks. Here is a picture of one.
And here is a picture of one of the trees where one of the trunks has split off.
Here is a picture of a Baobab tree where the elephants have eaten right through the trunk of the tree to get the water.
This is a picture of a Von der Deken bird, likely named after the person who discovered it.
The brown and cream drawings on this rock are Masai art from when they used to live in the park.
This is a herd of buffalo migrating towards the Tarangire river for their daily drink. The line of buffalos must have stretched for more than a mile with short gaps in between bunches of them and the ones behind running to catch up. It was amazing to see and hear.
These are MacDonald Impalas, named for the dark stripes in the shape of the MacDonald arches on their butts. Only the males have horns and they also have to fight for the right to be with females. If they lose, they're banned to the 'Loser group'.
These guys with the white fur around their butts are called Common Waterbucks.
Zebras scratching their backs in the earth. This was really funny to see.
More elephants hustling across the road. Bet you're tired of seeing elephants, huh? Well, we never tired of them.
Elephants having a drink at Lake Tarangire.
This is a picture of one of the termite hills on a tree.....mostly on the trunk. These types of termites do not destroy the trees. There are other types which do.
Here's a termite hill on its own.....most of them are on their own.
This is a Sausage Tree, so named for the fruit that looks like sausages which hang from the tree.
This is an ebony tree from which carvings are made. They grow very slowly and take years to get to the point where they can be cut down for use in carvings.
This is what the centre of the ebony tree looks like under the bark.
This is a carving in the process of being made.
We couldn't see Mt. Kilimanjaro when we were in Tanzania because we arrived in the wee hours of the morning and during the daytime, the view was blocked by haze and clouds. As we flew from Tanzania to Hong Kong, this was the view from my seat in the airplane so we at least got to see the top of it.
This is the end of an amazing safari. We have memories of animals in action that we likely would have never seen before and these will last us a lifetime.
As we drove through Tanzania, it was very interesting to see the open air markets, women carrying buckets of water, whole bunches of bananas, big bags of rice, etc. on their heads, the bustle and activity of several of the cities. There are many speed bumps on the highways and streets, even in Tarangire National Park. The Tanzanians call them 'the sleeping police'.
I finally asked our guide if there was any likelihood that the government would pave the roads in the safari areas and his answer was 'No'. He said that if the roads were paved, people would drive fast and kill more animals. We only saw one gazelle which was killed by a bus and we're thankful that we didn't see any more.
For anyone considering a safari trip, I highly recommend it. AWESOME!!!!
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