Tarangire National Park Day Two

When the “jambo jambo” wake up call comes at 5:30AM, we’re already stirring, perhaps a result of jet lag residue but a lot more the result of wanting to be present to this experience. Breakfast at 6, game drive starts at 6:30. We’re up and out early, because the animals are active early in the day and again near evening.

Sunrise Over Lake Burungi

Lake Burungi Lodge

Breakfast Buffet

Marabou Stork

Ready to Roll

Pop Top

We ride with Ombeni today. He has a degree in wildlife management and an easy manner that combine to make him the perfect guide. He tells us we may see a WALT. Translation: Wild Animal Looking Thing. And we do, from time to time, perhaps a brushy form or a tree limb that could be but isn’t…

Ombeni and Becky

Between the lodge and the park we see fields of sesame seeds and cotton. The ground is often plowed by hand and doesn’t have the even furrows of the machine-tilled ground we’re accustomed to.

Simple homes dot the roadside. A thatched square structure set apart from the house serves as the happy room. People share their water sources with animals. We are reminded to be grateful for that simple thing called a water tap. Some huts have satellite dishes.

Someone's Home

Happy Room

Day Care

Buckets Ready For Water Collection

In this area some of the unpaved roads are being smoothed. Big piles of rocky dirt are dumped at intervals and are being spread by hand.

Flags of blue and black panels hang just outside the park. The blue color attracts the tsetse flies. The black panels kills them.

Tsetse Fly Deterrent 

Tarangire Park with its dry withered grasses, meandering river, acacias and baobabs, provides dry season habitat for its animal residents and opportunity for us to respectfully witness.

Bwana

We are driving and viewing, calmly oohing and aahing over each and every creature, when incredibly, a pair of cheetahs slinks into view. They stroll confidently, heads high, as game moves out of their way like an opposing magnetic field. Their broad chests taper to a slim “waist” just above their hips. They are definitely built for speed. Their black spots extend down their long lissome tails. They are brothers, (female cheetahs are solitary). Smooth as silk they move across the road as if we didn’t exist.  Ombeni follows in the Land Rover, discreetly, and is soon joined by other safari vehicles all tracking this surprising sight. The cheetahs settle into a brushy hillside overlooking a watering hole in the river. A perfect position for selecting a luncheon menu. Meanwhile, a dozen safari vehicles converge, all eyes on cheetahs. Ombeni maneuvers us to the opposite side of the river where we watch the cats come down the hillside towards the water. Suddenly, the trees come alive with monkeys shouting out the news. Hard to get lunch around 

here.

Convergence

Looking for Lunch

Brothers

Cheetahs have fixed claws and cannot climb trees. Black stripes run from the corner of their eyes down towards their mouths keeping sunlight out of their eyes. Nature’s tactic imitated in the smudges football players employ.

Wildebeests and zebras extend in long dark lines stretched across the landscape. Huge herds walk single file in a particular pecking order. The wildebeests follow the leader. They have scent glands under their hooves. One follows another, head down not looking where they’re going, just following the scent of the guy in the lead. If the trailblazer falls in a hole they will all pile in behind.

Single File 

Zebras and wildebeests hang together, zebras remember the migration routes, the wildebeests take on the predators. Wildebeests jump into the rivers one on top of the other, eventually forming a bridge for the zebras to cross while the zebras hang back and wait.

The zebra’s black and white design is dizzying to a lion (lions only see in black and white). Black and white reflects the sun and creates a mirage that confuses the tsetse fly. They have a weak backbone, which keeps them from being domesticated for work or supporting a rider.

Zebras lock their legs so they can sleep standing up. They cross their necks over each other for support.

The female zebra can control her gestation period, making it longer if there’s no food and water available, shorter if conditions are good. The females drop their babies at the same time providing many placentas for predators to eat discouraging them from going after their babies.

We watch an ostrich that walks with such purpose he clearly has somewhere to be. 

The male ostrich is black and white, the female gray. When he’s ready to mate the male’s skin turns bright pink. The male mates several times and all of his mates lay their eggs in the same nest. Both the male and his main female sit on the eggs. The male takes the night shift because his dark feathers are good camouflage. The female blends into the gray daytime grasses. They are the largest bird and lay the largest eggs.

Mongoose and the Egyptian Vulture use tools to crack the ostrich egg. The mongoose hits the egg with a rock. The vulture holds a rock in his beak to break the egg. All other animals are mostly unsuccessful in cracking it.

Ostrich on a Mission

Pink

Pinker

Elephants knock down entire trees to get to the green leaves. They only digest 50% of what they eat. Other animals, (guinea hen, dung beetle) get their food from elephant dung.

Elephant Dung

There is a wet spot on an elephant’s face that’s a scent gland. The secretions communicate certain emotions.

There are no predators for a full grown elephant. The matriarch kicks the maturing bull out of the herd because they harass the little ones.

The African elephant's ear is shaped like the African continent.

If 2 herds cross paths, they communicate but don’t fight. Prides of lions do. 
Ombeni challenges us to determine if an elephant is left handed or right handed. One tusk is usually worn more than the other, and one side of the trunk is smoother than the other indicating a preference for left or right. He tells us 45% of elephants are left handed. 

The impala has three black stripes on its backside. Ticks are attracted to the black color. Impala can scratch them off on a tree. It’s not all about decoration. The dominant male has a harem of several females. Color and speed are their defense. The males without mates Ombeni calls “the bachelor boys” and sometimes “losers”. 

And Harem

The waterbuck can be identified by a white toilet-seat shaped marking around its tail. They can stay in the water a long time. They produce an oil that allows them to stay in very cold water. They also produce an unpleasant odor for protection.

The dik-dik is the smallest antelope in the world. They weigh only about 6 pounds. They mate for life. If one dies they don’t re-mate. If the female dies often the male will kill himself by throwing himself against sharp rocks.

The secretary bird looks like she has pencils stuck in her hair. She uses her front feet to kill food in a typing-like motion.

A Vulture in a Baobab Tree

White Backed Vulture

Eight Vultures in a Pear Tree (Kidding About the Tree)

Weaver birds knit together elaborate nests that decorate the acacia trees.

Weaver Bird's Nests

A ficus tree that is a houseplant for us grows here to the size of a full-sized tree.

Lunch is served family style back at the lodge. Small bowls of meatballs, pasta and vegetables are passed around the long table. Fruit, (today, and every day, it’s pineapple and watermelon), is the traditional Tanzanian dessert.

We have a quiet afternoon. There’s an optional walk offered to the lakeshore, but instead I find the massage room in a small hut along a dusty footpath. Afterwards a long nap banishes the last of the jet lag.

After dinner, we’re walked to our room by lantern light. Guards keep watch all night allowing us peaceful sleep. There’s a breeze off the lake and it makes the tent move and creak in a familiar camping-out comforting way.

Guard House for Night Watchman

Lala Salama, Swahili for sleep well.

Other Creatures We Saw Today:

• Yellow-Necked Spur Fowl

• Cape Buffalo

• Rock Hyrex

• Black Winged Stilt

• Egyptian Goose

• Helmeted Guinea Fowl

• Brown-Headed Parrot

• Red and Yellow Barbet