The fun continues

Tarangire National Park

Now we transition from Arusha National Park to Tarangire National Park, a change from a slightly cold and lightly damp forested region around Mount Meru to an open plains region with dusty roads and intense daytime sunlight. Mornings in the Meru region start with crisp cloudless skies and clear views of the mountain; as the day builds, so too the clouds and the mountain draws in the surrounding clouds. The scattered clouds over the vast open plains of Tarangire leave us with little shade relief.

Having left Arusha National Park in the morning, we arrived at the Tarangire Park by midday and so we had lunch and planned for a 4PM tour of the park. We stayed at the lodge, which sits high on a bluff overlooking the Tarangire River – a spectacular view. 

Roberta and Patrick at poolside Taramgire National Park

This schedule gave us enough time for a wonderful lunch, a swim in the pool at the Lodge, and a chance to relax, bird watch and game view from the veranda. The park tour was great. 


We saw lots of big game and fabulous birds. It was our first sighting of elephants and Grants gazelles, along with more impala, dik-dik warthogs, waterbucks, and baboons, as if these latter ones have become mundane… 

Lillac-breasted Roller bird

The bird sightings included lilac-breasted roller birds, two different types of love birds, tawny eagle, red-headed and white-collared vulture, splendid starlings, van den Ecke hornbill, Spoonbill Stork, fiscal and magpie shrikes, ox-peckers, go-away birds, white-headed buffalo weaver, and many, many others. Both our early evening and next morning tour brought us many first-time sightings and more chances to get even better photos.  


Dinner at the Lodge was a treat, starting with “sundowner” drinks on the veranda where we could watch the plains below as the sun set. We had a 180-degree view of the Tarangire River and surroundings, which were some 100-150 feet below our viewing position. 

Sunset at Tarangire

Dinner in the lodge was relaxing inside a large 120-wide banda with a 30-foot thatch roof. The dinning room was elegant, with lots of great food and plenty of people happy to serve. We started by watching the highly efficient geckos, which hung out by the lamps waiting for fly feasting; they efficiently captured their prey with great approval from all of us. Next on the viewing agenda was Kevin jumping out of his seat to exclaim, “Oh, oh, oh, look at that in the next room running along the ledge, it’s, it’s a dik-dik running along the ledge”. Shouts of where?, where? and what?, were quickly followed by incredulous questions regarding how a dik-dik could be running along this high narrow ledge between the roof and the wall. “It can’t be a dik-dik!” Kevin’s plea, was how do I know, it was some animal about the size of a dik-dik. We found out it was a genet cat, who frequents the Lodge. Heck, an antelope and a cat, with a long, black and white banded tail can be confused by anyone, ;-).

Necking giraffe, a common past time of play

Overnight at Tarangire was absolute fun, with lots of stories from each tent. We stayed in three different “luxury tents”, meaning that the tents had electric lights, separate bedroom, private bathroom suite with separate rooms for the shower, and toilet and a concrete floor covering the entire tented area.  What was there not to like.




During the night there were lots of wonderful animals noises to wake up many, wondering if that “lion” was coming into the their tent. In the morning Charlie ruined our great story by telling us that it was likely the sounds of only hyenas, as if this was any less dangerous. Nonetheless, Kevin is sticking with his lion “sighting” (or sounding). In fact, later on when Charlie impersonated the sounds of various animals, it was agreed by all who heard it, that it was, indeed, a lion. The morning viewing just outside of the tents did give us a chance to spot dik-diks running through camp. It was a great time at Tarangire.

Great baobab tree