The Animal Sightings Begin

Our second morning we were excited to get going to see our first of the wild animals. Tarangire National Park is pretty large, and it’s known for its large population of elephants. Click HERE for a detailed description.

We first stopped at the entry gate. I’m not exactly sure what the entry fee was, but generally speaking entry fees are about $50/person per day for foreigners at the big national parks. Add to that vehicle entry fees (over $100 for a half day in the Ngorongoro Crater), and it adds up to a boatload. The cheapest of lodges are $180/person/night for full board. Yes, a safari is not a cheap proposition.

But from the moment we drove in the Tarangire gate, we weren’t disappointed. We spied giraffe, a zebra, water buck, impala and dikdik within the first five minutes. Dikdik are the smallest antelope, and this is one of my favorite photos from the whole trip:

Since it was a whole new world of exotic animals, we were taking pictures like crazy. And Ray seemed to be enjoying sharing his VAST knowledge (especially for someone who’s 27) of the behaviors of every animal and bird we saw. Click here for a directory of East African Mammals.

Tarangire has several different kinds of terrain, mainly large areas of grass dotted with Acacia trees, then areas that have thicker bushes and trees, and finally a wide plain of just tall grass (basically a swamp). As we approached the tree areas we started to see elephants in the distance. Then we came upon a ridge that overlooked the Tarangire River – stunning and green for as far as we could see.

One super bizarre thing we saw (in every park) was termite mounds – huge sculpted red dirt piles, inhabited by mongoose. Here you’re seeing the striped variety.

Then Ray turned down a less-driven road. And as we curved around, the left side of the car fell into a huge , wet, washed-out crack in the road. I saw this crack as we were approaching, thinking that it could swallow the car, but surely Ray would miss it? Nope. He went straight into it. And we were stuck.

Ray got out to survey the situation. Here we were, few other cars in the park, stuck in a big rut, with elephants not far away. Terrific.

The problem was that we were high-centered, but nothing was broken. By that time Mr. Farmer and I were also out of the car to search for a solution. Ray was on his stomach between the driver side wheels (right side of car, not like U.S.), and Mr. Farmer started rocking the car from the back passenger corner.

It started to come loose. “Let me help you!” said Ray, and he jumped in the driver’s seat and started the car. I jumped into help Mr. Farmer rock, and pretty soon the wheels were splattering red mud on my lovely safari pants. But we were back in business – the car was free.

Shortly after that incident we came up close to a small herd of elephants. This was a group of moms and calves of various ages (herds are generally either the females/calves, bachelors or lone males), and we spent a good 10 minutes taking pictures. Little did we know that Ray was nervous about the proximity – he just said, “I’m going to turn the car around so we have our back to them,” as we snapped away.

Our drive continued, and Ray pointed out Cape Buffalo, more giraffe and more elephants.

Finally we reached the huge grassy swampy plain, and we drove to the overlook picnic spot for lunch.

Ray made the mistake of throwing a piece of chicken to the Starlings that were on the table, and later realized one of them was overhead when it pooped on his back.

As we looked across the plain, the grey clouds were building in the hills and looked to be headed our direction. (This vervet monkey was watching for it, too.)

Within 15 minutes it was lightly raining. Then it started to pour. But we kept driving.

After about 30 minutes the rain started to let up, and we came upon an elephant in the road.

“He’s not happy,” Ray said. He stopped the car. Then he backed up.

We watched him for a couple minutes while he watched us, touching his trunk to his tusk and pawing the ground. About that time a vehicle came from the other direction and boldly passed the elephant.

The driver stopped to chat for a second with Ray, saying that he decided to go on by because the elephant’s back was to him. More likely it was because he couldn’t see what was really up.

Then three smaller white cars whizzed up behind us and passed, stopping just in front of the elephant. Compared to our Land Cruiser, these were like CR-V’s, containing national park administrators and rangers who were out to survey the park. Realizing what they had just come upon, they stopped and waited.

The elephant took a few steps forward. They backed up a little. This went on for a few minutes, and then the officials got impatient, backed up a bit more, and drove out on the grass the other direction around him.

So we did the same.

Ray explained that our vehicle, with such a large noisy engine, would’ve scared the elephant away. But he initially stopped out or respect for the animal, since it is the animal’s home and not ours. The rangers, on the other hand, were in cars that might or might not have scared the elephant. And in that case it’s entirely possible for the elephant to charge and stick a tusk in the vehicle.

Our final stop was Poacher’s Hideout, a hollow Baobab tree that poachers used to hide by climbing up high inside.

Another couple hours of driving around and seeing a few new things and our day was complete. Since it was our first day and every animal was new, it was pretty filled with stops and commentary. Later in the trip it might have been considered a lot of driving in search of the rare cat sighting.

Mr. Farmer kept a list of the things we saw that day (the spelling is probably suspect):
Grey heron
White egret
White stork
Marabou stork
Impala
Waterbuck
Warthog
Giraffe
Zebra
Dikdik
Elephant
Bandaged mongoose
Franklin
Cape buffalo
Hornbill
Guinea fowl
Ostrich
Bat-eared fox
Eland
Vervet monkey
Egyptian goose
Vultures
Grant’s gazelle
Town eagle
Hartebeast
Kori bustard
Reedbuck
Marshall Eagle
Falcon
Black kite
Rock hyrax
Dwarf mongoose
Senegalese cuckoo

…and many more that we forgot to write down.

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