Tarangire and Ruaha Tanzania

Tarangire National Park is located south of Arusha and southeast of Lake Manyara. It is a tented lodge and campsites set among baobab trees and large acacia's.

We saw what was now the usual suspects: elephants, lions, antelope, giraffes etc. While we had seen these animals many times already when you are watching them in their natural environment it is so much more interesting and you never know what you will find.

For instance on one game drive we came upon this mother lioness walking along with her cubs. The park had roads that we had to stay on but, you the visitor, must still yield to all wildlife, including this.

Why walk in the brush when you can walk on the road.

We followed from a distance to see where they were headed.

We stayed in tented camps that were located across the top of a bluff. There was a path in front of the tents leading to the main lodge with a large patio and a swimming pool. At night you could hear the lions right below the bluffs roaring. A friend of mine decided to go swimming one afternoon inbetween game drives. It was a bit crowded but not too bad. Many people in the pool and an equal number sunning in the lounge chairs reading of talking with friends. We swam a little layed in the sun for a bit and then went back to our tent and got ready for the afternoon game drive.

We all met up in the lobby of the lodge with all our camera gear. As we were sitting there one of our drivers came in and asked, "Do you want to see a snake?" We all jumped up and said yes of course, and we followed him out. We got outside and everyone was running out of the pool area and people were yelling, " nyoka, nyoka, very bad" while we all ran into the pool area with our cameras ready to shoot. This is what we saw.

A baby cobra had come down from one of the trees IN the pool area where my friend and I had been just an hour ago. Which meant it was up there while we were laying there....the cobra hooded a bit and then went up and over the ledge you see on the right of the picture and it was gone.

It was then that I realized that some of the people in the pool area were not in fact tourists but park workers who blended in like tourists not to alarm anyone. But they were there to look out for nyoka's and other dangers that are where they don't belong and protect the visitors of the park.

We saw two other snakes on our trip. One was a baby python that was swooped up by a verreaux's eagle owl. The owl took it up to a tree, but the head off and sucked it up like a spaghetti noodle. The other was a very large cobra most likely a black necked spitting cobra that was crossing the road we were on. It made it across right in front of the vehicle, but its length stretched all the way across the road.

Tarangire features over 300 variety of birds. So if you are a birder this is a great park to visit.

Lilac breasted roller

Saddle-billed stork

Ruaha

It took a good couple of days to travel down to Ruaha National Park which is part of the southern circuit of Tanzania. We spent the night in Dodoma. The terrain of Ruaha is much different than that of other parts of Tanzania we visited. The park was wonderful, we stayed in tented camps along the Ruaha river. When we arrived at the park the river was dry.

This was our view from our tent when we arrived. It rained a few nights and that put some water in the river. We could then sit out on our veranda area and watch the animals come down to drink.

As you can see the scenery is quite different than other places we had been.

Oryx

and I leave you with a Greater Kudu.

Serengeti con't.

The Serengeti offered so many things and places to see. When we were there the short rains that had finished prior to us arriving lasted longer than usual which made for a nice green lush Serengeti. A great thing happened while we were in the Serengeti. My luggage finally arrived that was a happy day. Yes, if you recall from an earlier post my luggage missed the connecting flight from London to Nairobi.

One of our first drives in the Serengeti brought us to this.

This leopard was hunting in this thick brush. Soon after we stopped our vehicle I looked around and counted 18 vehicles. Some of these vehicles were little mini buses that hold about 10-12 people. After about 5-10 minutes the other vehicles started to leave. People were talking in them and disturbing the leopard so it was a good thing that they left. As a safari participant you have to be quiet in the vehicle or you will disturb the animal(s) you are trying to watch. While driving around go ahead and jabber all you want but when you are watching something as magnificent as a leopard hunting which is so rare, shut up!. Most of the other people in the vehicles were saying things like they had "seen enough", "lets go", or "its not doing anything this is boring". Well, no its not going to try to hunt while you are being Ms. Gabby pants! This isn't the zoo people, if you wanted to be able to walk up stand there for 10 seconds and then move on to the next animal why did you come to Africa.

We stayed there for well over and hour and half. During that time all the other vehicles except maybe one left. At that point we were able to see the leopard jump for the impala. Unfortunately for the leopard the impala got away.

This one didn't get away from whatever was hunting it though...

Notice the Maribou stork. They love to hang out with the vultures.
We saw this hyena scavenging this wildebeast. For some reason whenever we came upon a kill it was right before lunch, it was odd, but it certainly kept the appetite in check!

The size of the herds in the Serengeti was amazing. You hear the numbers and you watch it on television but to really see it is something else.

This was one of rivers we had to drive across. The rains had raised its level over the road.

During one of our afternoon game drives we came across two mother lions with 3 cubs. One mother had one cub and the other mother had two cubs who were 2-3 weeks younger. The one mother was cub sitting...

This cub is lying in the shade of the vehicle. It is unusual for a lion to have only one cub. We noticed a little blood on this guy. And the first mother had both sets of cubs while the other mother was busy with this guy.

Yes - we nicknamed him Scar (from the movie Lion King) males will kill cubs to get the female to go into estrus again. We relized that was what had happened to the other cubs of the mother that was currently mating with the male (Scar). We went back to the same place early the next morning to find them again. But we only found the two mothers. One mating with Scar and the other walking around calling for her cubs that were obviously gone. It was very sad but a very real and normal part of life in the wild.

When I went to Tanzania I wanted to get a picture of a giraffe's eye lashes. They are so beautiful. Well I got plenty. Giraffe's were plentiful and I was overjoyed every time we saw a Twiga.

Push-Me/Pull-Me anyone?

We were lucky and saw lots of cheetahs too.

We came upon these two young cheetahs who had killed a baby wildebeast.

They took turns watching for scavengers. First the left one would sit up while the other ate, and then the right one sat up while the other one ate. It was great team work down to the last morsel.

We also saw this mother with her three babies. They were watching wildebeasts off in the distance.

The Serengeti has various types of vegetation in it. It is not all scrub brush. We found these elephants in a

marsh.

This mother and baby were not far away.

These two juvenile male lions were just hanging out together on a overcast drizzly day. They were very photogenic and looked like they had just come out of a beauty parlor.

This Caracal Cat was very hard to see. It was excellent at camouflaging itself.

Radio collared lions from Craig Parker's Serengeti Lion Project sunning themselves on the kopi's.

One night in the Serengeti I awoke to what I thought was the sound of rain. But then....I sat up and listened more closely and thought to myself - that isn't rain, those are hooves. And the sound was getting louder and louder. Right through camp came a herd of wildebeast and zebra. What are you going to do. All you could do was lay there and think, well, I hope they see the tents and go around us. The tent next to mine had a baby wildebeast rub up next to it. It made for great breakfast conversation.

We saw so much during our stay in the Serengeti. The full week there really made a difference in what we could see. This is just a taste of what we saw and did.

Our next stop after leaving the Serengeti was Karatu Lodge. It is a flower and coffee plantation. Luxury accomodations after 7 days camping with beautiful rooms, hot showers, grounds for leisure walks and a fancy dinner. A great way to end this half of the trip. Next stop will be Tarangire and Ruaha National Parks.