Day 2 at Tarangire

Today has been an epic, marathon day. We started the day with a wake up coffee and 4.30 heading off on our game drive at 5.00. It’s still dark then of course but it takes an hour to get to the park so it’s almost light by the time we get there.

The animals were all a bit quite this morning and we were all thinking we could have sleep in for another hours but then they started appearing. It’s weird how the bush looks empty and then the animals sort of just appear out of nowhere. First the Elephants and the Giraffes, Zebras, Antelopes then the Jackals and Hyenas. A huge herd of Buffalo, little Monkeys and Mongoose. Still no elusive Leopard but not for the lack of trying on all of our parts especially our guide David.

We were just on our way back out of the park and had stopped to look at yet another herd of elephants, this one playing in the marshes and David says, sit down guys someone has spotted the leopard. One of his guide friends had pulled up beside us and he’d just seen it jumping into one of the trees, so off we went flying down the road, all those trees look the same to me and I still don’t know how he found it from his friends directions but find it he did.

It was a young female and she was just beautiful, sitting there lazing in the tree, just relaxing until she spotted something she though she could hunt then it was full attention. Sadly for us but luckily for the Waterbuck she decided he was too big for her and she settled back down for an afternoon nap.

Five minutes after leaving her we came across a big lioness in almost the exact same position in another tree. I don’t think we would have spotted either one they blend in to the trees so well.

We have Sundowners tonight somewhere and then a night drive. David drove us to where we were watching the sunset and wow what a setup, they had a fire going a table with every drink you could possibly imagine, snacks, tables and chairs all set up in the bush waiting for a glorious sunset.

We may have been a little tipsy on the night game drive but 4 wheel driving quickly sobered us up, a little anyway. I didn’t expect to see much on a night drive but was pleasantly surprised. We saw a Porcupine, Airsprings, African Hare, Dickey Dickey, Elephants, a Giraffe, a Lion, a Hyena. After an eventful night back to the camp for a late dinner.Read more