Land of the Elephant

We woke up early and left the hostel in the taxi that was arranged for us.  The owner of the Florida Guesthouse asked multiple times if we were sure we wanted to leave this early, " because the airport is very small."  But after we insisted, we had to go through the whole thing again with the taxi driver.  Apparently somewhere in the conversation where he was telling us we left too early he thought we were in a big hurry.  So he drove like his house was on fire, as he weaved in and out of the pedestrians and cars that were on the road.  At one point he nearly swerved around a "slow" moving car to take out a scooter.  Fortunately he had good brakes as he narrowly avoided the collision, but not by much.

We thought the fun was over when we arrived at the airport, but they were not kidding there is not much there.  Our plane was little bigger than a crop duster.  We had a view of the pilots in front, and the luggage in back from our seats.  The flight took us past Mt Kilimanjaro, but due to the thick cloud cover and low altitude we did not see anything.  As we neared Arusha, we were informed that there may be a little turbulence.  The plane bounced and bucked like a rodeo bull.  By the time we got to the ground Michelle was not the only one looking a little green.  She needed some fresh air so she got off the plane while I rounded up our bags.  While she stood out there catching her breath and enjoying the fresh air one of the pilots walked over and apologized to her for the rough ride.

As we walked out of the airport we were meet by people holding our names on a sign.  However, they were not the people we were told to meet by our travel agent.  However, they were going all of the places we wanted and had our names so we went along.  Peter was our driver/guide for the trip and Moses was the cook/assistant.  We also meet the owner of the company Benjamin.  We got loaded up and told that we had paid for an extra day, so we would be meeting the rest of our group the next day after we had visited Tarangire National Park.

The drive was more of what I was expecting Africa to look like.  It was a massive plain similar to the Kalahari Desert with mostly sand/dirt with little vegetation cover.  The vegetation was all scrub bushes and small trees.  However the big difference was the precense of a number of small villages with traditional houses built from sticks with mud in the gaps.  There were also a large number of young boys herding their families cows and goats through these plains.  Also there was very little green as nearly everything was some shade of brown.

When we arrived at our campsite we were both a little concerned as there was not much here and not any other people or tents.  For the most popular tourist attraction in the area with hoards of people trying to sell tours.  It was a little surprising.  But the camp sight was quickly forgotten as we headed out on our game drive through the Tarangire National Park.  A short ways into the park we were greeted by a number of Zebras and Giraffes all grazing along the edge of the road.  The big change in this area was the fact that everything was becoming more green than during our two hour drive here.

We drove along the edge of a ridge that overlooked the Tarangire river, which had been swallowed by the sand.  Apparently it runs on the surface during the rainy season, and sometimes during the "short" rain season that we visited.  The "short" rain season means that it rains a little just about every night, but then is hot and dry all day.  As we drove along the ridge looking for the elusive leopard we drove into Elephant country.  All of a sudden you could hardly turn your head without seeing another group of five to ten elephants.  It was great because from or view point along the ridge we could see down in the valley and see all the animals.   Then as we drove further we started to get up close with a number of the Elephants.  After how hard it was to find game in the parks in southern Africa, I was amazed because every direction you turned there seemed to be animals.  We saw a massive herd of Buffalo, numerous different Antelopes including the tiny Dikdik and the Hautebeast.

That night during our dinner we tried to strike up a conversation with the only other couple in our campsite.  They were two Canadians, and I would tell you more about them, but they did not share much.  But we would run into them a number of times over the next few days.  Shortly after dinner it started raining, but that did little to lessen the obsessive heat in the tent as it almost immediately killed the breeze and everything got still.

Game drive in the rain the next moring was a little dissapointing as there was not much new.  Infact most of the animals seemed to still be hiding where ever they had been the night before.  So we saw a few Zebras, Giraffes, Warthogs, and a variety of Antelope.  But no cats or elephants.  What made it interesting is our driver had to hot wire the car because he broke the key in the ignition.

After we got back from the game drive we were told we had some time, as a new car would be drving out to pick us up.  We had breakfast and planned on a shower when a Land Rover pulls up with 3 people inside.  All of a sudden it was we need to pack up and leave now.  So with a little bit of rushing we packed our bags and left them in the tent, as Moses said he would bring them to our next campsite as we now had more people than could fit into one car.  So with our new full group we headed off to Lake Manyara.

Bill