Coming out of the Dream

Giraffe neck with a parasite bird
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Our last day in the jeep was a pretty quiet and slow one.  The day was overcast in Tarangire.  The park is most noted for elephants, birds and baobabs. We saw many of all three.

At this time of year many animals move off to richer eating grounds.  This park has year round water mainly in swamps.  So when it rains and all the land has moisture the animals go to where the nutrients are higher.

Still there were more elephants to see here than at any other park.  There were family groups and we came upon them twice while they were making their way across the roadway.  I got many decent video clips.  We even managed to piss-off a lead female who charged us so that we had to make a quick back-up for a few yards.

A francolin
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We chased up several bird varieties and I spent a lot of time trying to get just the shot of a particularly beautiful songbird called a lavender breasted roller who must be seen on the wing.  Alas I was not fast enough.

As we left the park our last encounter was a big elephant who came quite close to us  batting her big ears.  I interpreted her gesture as a big goodbye to our amazing African adventure.

We were back in Arusha where I bought socks and underwear at a street market.  There is a big used clothing business here.  There are huge bags of clothing shipped from overseas to here and then however they do it divvied up and so you find people selling small lots on the sidewalk and little shops stuffed full.  All the used stuff like tires old cars and buses, electronics etc... comes to the third world/Southern world or lets just say the countries where most of the people cannot afford the new stuff.

My Halloween picture
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From Arusha we flew back to Dar and to the same Econolodge where they greeted us with the same lack of enthusiasm they seem to show for all their customers.  I found another decent restaurant in Dar.  I have actually enjoyed the food here as they do a lot with meats.  I said bye to my safari buddy Glenn as he headed to New York and then Florida.