Tarangire National Park

We wake up to “monkey talk’, a clamorous yet charming African alarm clock.

For the first time we climb into the Land Rovers that will be our method of transport for the rest of the trip. The group splits up into three vehicles; Stanley, nicknamed Zulu, drives ours. He’s an ex kick boxer, once known as the Tyson of Tanzania who aspires to be a farmer. He’s purchased 56 acres and will grow pineapple, cabbage, avocado for a cosmetics company, and timber for electric poles when he retires from guiding. He was born under a shining star, the Angel Gabriel star, and he’s a great representative of the angelic spirit, filled with kindness and good humor.

Our Chariots Await

Stanley

A guard at the gate records our departure from the lodge in a tattered paper notebook. The color of the cardboard cover is rubbed off at the corners.

Today is a public day, a holiday commemorating the death of the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. It is also market day.

The market is a kaleidoscope of colors, people in motion, aromas and creative displays. Fruits and vegetables are carefully arranged in pyramids on colorful cloths spread on the ground. Fresh watermelon is sold from a stand. Lentils in four colors, spices, and tiny salty dried anchovies in mounds await customers. Shelling peas and local spinach alternate with clothing, shoes, trinkets, and chunks of charcoal. Live chickens are caged under woven bamboo baskets and are sold according to weight. A chicken is lifted at arm’s length and its heft determines its price. You can have it killed at point of purchase, or take it home and kill it yourself. A boy pedals by on his bike with a live chicken tucked under his arm, its feet tied together with twine.

Jeans sell for 3 to 5 dollars a pair. Highly inventive “baskets” made from corrugated cardboard pieces stapled around a circular base serve as receptacles for merchandise. Sorghum can be purchased and mixed with fermented bananas to make an alcoholic beverage that remains viable for only one day.

Wooden pushcarts and wooden slatted crates help move inventory into the market.

Men sit at ancient treadle sewing machines, doing on the spot tailoring. Others unload trucks filled with bales of compressed clothing.

Charcoal

Treadle Tailoring

Clever Cardboard Container

Fresh Produce and Salty Anchovies

Lentils

Fresh Watermelon Slices Sold Here

Back in the vehicle we stop at a duka la madawa (pharmacy) for one of our group. And it’s a convenient place to procure a stash of Diet Coke.

We spend more time at the Cultural Heritage Center. The complex includes restaurants, shops, and outdoor displays. It’s easy to get sucked into the gift shop, which is in the first building we encounter, but we skirt it and find the museum. It’s filled with gorgeous artwork, masks, carvings and paintings. One Makonde carving is intricately cut interlocking figures all shaped from a single piece of ebony.

Cultural Heritage Center

Museum Interior

Makonde Sculpture

Outdoor Seating

Whimsical Fountain

We have a long drive to Tarangire National Park.

The road is paved, but under construction, so there are many “diversions” or detours onto bumpy dirt-surfaced side roads.  We experience our first “African massage”, as we bounce, vibrate, jiggle and jerk. The ceilings of the Land Rovers are padded and we are finding out why. We slide the windows open for fresh air, and close them again when passing vehicles raise dust. A road sign declares: “Caution Beware of Bumps” Prophetic!

Mount Meru

Stanley is occupied with commandeering the Land Rover through the ruts and potholes but he adds to our background knowledge with snippets of information when he can.

·      Swanglish is a combination of Swahili and English.

·      25-30% of the land in Tanzania is protected in parks, hunting preserves and conservation areas.

·      47 million people live in Tanzania.

·      The rainy season is in May. There are short rains in November and December.

·      Women and men from different tribes make up a British style parliament. There is no fighting among tribes. They are working towards blending into one Tanzania.

There is nothing much appealing about this landscape. This land is thirsty, dry, dry, dry.  Herds of goats, sheep and long horned cattle and an occasional burro keep us entertained. The animals find scraps of shade under a rare tree and huddle there. Dust devils spin and whirl. A solitary woman walks with a bundle of firewood balanced on her head.

Cattle Crossing

The Wealth of the Masai

The round thatched huts that make up Masai villages appear and disappear as we whiz by. Small boys, as young as seven, tend the cattle, carrying just a stick. Round corrals are constructed with walls of brush and sticks. For the Masai their cows are their wealth. Each animal is worth $400 -$600.

We see short plank boxes hanging from tree limbs and are told they are beehives. Lumpy, bumpy off kilter earthen mounds riddled with holes are often the landscape’s only structure. They are home to termite colonies and they rise to a height of several feet. As we near Tarangire Park bits of green start to appear here and there in the terrain.

Termite Mound 1

Termite Mound 2

Tarangire is the third largest park in Tanzania. The entrance fee is $45 per person, ($12 per guide), for 24 hours. We’re entering at noon, so we’ll have to exit tomorrow at the same time. 

Just before we officially enter the park we stop at a picnic area. We packed box lunches this morning with chicken sandwiches, raw vegetables, cookies and a bar of chocolate. The chocolate has liquefied in the heat.

The monkeys watch us eat.

Lunch in Tarangire

The pervasive presence of the tsetse fly caused the people who once inhabited this area to move out. The government traded for the land they occupied and created this park of 1100 square miles in 1970. This is a rare instance of gratitude that can be directed towards the tsetse fly, (a nasty biting bug that transmits sleeping sickness).

We stand with our toes on the threshold of “animal planet”, ready for our first real game viewing drive. The area we are about to enter is not the accustomed way we have viewed these animals, in enclosures, in zoos, but instead, the authentic home to thousands of creatures living in a complex interdependency. We intrude, but benevolently. Each and every encounter from the tiniest iridescent bird to the enormous elephants is a thrill as we accustom ourselves to the reality of this biosphere.

The biggest rush of the day occurs when an elephant herd surrounds our vehicles, coming so close we could (but don’t) touch them. They treat us like scenery and continue feeding on brushy leaves, scratching themselves on tree trunks and guiding their tiny (by comparison) offspring and keeping them close. The roof of the Land Rover is popped up and we stand on the seats for unobstructed views and photos.

We also gawk at:

·       Impala browsing and grazing. They can spring 10 feet in the air and leap 15 feet.

      Many giraffes, but one particular group of five sitting together all facing outwards, each in a different direction, a defensive tactic we will see other animals use.  The giraffe we’re seeing is the Masai giraffe. Its coloration is a little darker than the Rothschild giraffe that is seen most often in our zoos. Also seen in Africa, are the Reticulated giraffe and the Kapi. By the way, they have the largest heart of any mammal. Think of how hard that heart has to work against gravity to circulate blood all the way to that brain, way way up there.

Defensive Position

Masai Giraffe

Beautiful Peaceful Creature

Keeping an Eye on Things

·      Superb Starling

·      White Headed Buffalo Weaver

·      Lilac Breasted Roller

·      Egyptian Eagle

·      Mongoose. Living in an abandoned termite mound.

·      Wildebeest

·      The first herds of the zillions of Zebra we’ll encounter. Each zebra has its own pattern, just like snowflakes. We’re seeing the common, (or Plains), zebra which has wider stripes than the mountain zebra, (found along the southern tip of the continent). Before zebras fully mature, their stripes are brown.

Always Watching 

·      Warthog

·      Gray Headed Hornbill

·      Yellow Billed Stork

·      Olive Baboon

·      Grant gazelle

·      Dik-Diks

Blacksmith Plover

• Water Buck

• Banded Mongoose

The baobab trees and elephants are the icons of this park. Each represents longevity. 
The elephant can live 65 to 70 years. The baobab, nicknamed “the upside-down tree” looks like it has been planted on its head with gnarly roots sticking up into the air. The tree can live to be 3000 years old. In the dry season, (now), it is leafless, its dark wiry branches stark against the sky. It bears a globe-like fruit that has medicinal qualities.

Baobab

Other iconic trees of Africa are the Acacia, or Thorn Tree, the Sausage Tree, named because of its long tapered fruit, its bark is used against typhoid, and the Candelabra Tree, (Euphorbia) whose limbs spring skyward directly from the middle of the trunk supporting succulent green growth.

Umbrella Acacia Tree

Acacia Tree Up Close

Giraffes Love to Eat These Thorns

Candelabra Tree

Sausage Tree

In the dry season the animals will be found concentrated around the Tarangire River, which wanders through the park eventually emptying into Lake Burungi. In many places the river looks absolutely parched with no visible sign of water; but the elephants use their trunks to dig down below the dusty surface to find and suck up cool water.

Tarangire River in the Dry Season

In the wet season the grass grows as tall as 10 feet high. Making it difficult to see what animals may be around. Animals have 3 concerns: food, water and a safe place to give birth. If one is missing they move. Animals used to migrate from here to the Serengeti, but people, roads and housing intervened so the route has changed.

Poaching is a staggering problem. An elephant is lost every 15 minutes in Africa and the black rhinoceros is endangered. Somali people dress as Masai and arm themselves with AK47s. They have almost wiped out the rhinoceros and cut into the elephant population. Poachers use the cavities and hollows of the huge baobab trees to hide themselves and to store their trophies. They sometimes grind the ivory into powder to get it past customs. Once it’s out of the country they reconstitute it and compress it.

Park rangers live on site with their families and patrol at night. They also carry AK47s. If they catch poachers in the park, they kill them.

Our lodging tonight is the Lake Burungi Tented Camp. This is a permanent camp, with views of the lake in the distance and Tarangire National Park beyond.

Chobani greets us with cold sweet tea in small glasses and a tray of cool, damp, rolled washcloths. He invites us to “drink as much as you can”, (because there is a minimum charge to use a credit card). He reminds us to “remember the combination to your room safe, otherwise I will be lucky.” His humor continues when he tells us he will “give you a whistle with your room key. If you find a lion in your room, blow the whistle as much as you want.”

Lake Burangi

Lake Burangi Lodge

Happy Camper

Outdoor Dining

Our "Tent"

On the Path to the Tents

"Tent" Interior

Bathroom

Solar Panels Provide Hot Water and Lights

Dinner by candlelight on the expansive deck underneath umbrellas. An oversized bottle of Tusker beer washes down the dust. 

Dinner on the Deck

After dark we are escorted in the darkness down a dusty path to our "tents" . A  diminutive dik-dik on the path regards us with curiosity before disappearing into the night. Our bed is turned down, the mosquito netting has been dropped. As Ombeni says “it has been a 32 teeth out kind of a day."