10-7 Slo-mo Cosmos

Had another somewhat strange breakfast, loaded the van and drove to Tarangire national park. The drive lasted about 4 hours. I’m confident we could have made it in two but, once again, Cosmos barely broke 20 KPH. At long last we arrived at the gate to Tarangire Park where I got my first view of a baobab tree..

Cosmos spent 20 minutes checking in, then we started our all-day game drive. This park is laid out similarly to Serengeti park in that there are main roads, but few side roads to get across the park. If one goes at a brisk pace, though, one can cover a lot of the 2600 sq. kilometers that make up the park, If, however, you average 15 kpm, there is very little one can see. We’re still dealing with the broken rotor on Cosmos’ car, so the car can never be turned off. Try communing with nature when you’ve got a land cruiser idling in the back along with the squawking of the CB radio. We did manage to see a number of elephants, which was wonderful,

but when we found them, usually at the back of a long queue of other cruisers, the vantage point was less than ideal and quite often Bruce and I would be standing up aiming a shot and Cosmos would suddenly just start to drive. On one occasion I landed on the arm of one of the seats. All I can say is thank god I’m not a virgin.

To quote their website, Tarangire “is home to one of the largeset elephant populations in Africa with several herds of up to 300 members per herd. In addition, there are large numbers of impalas, elands, buffaloes, giraffes, Bohor reedbuck, Coke’s hartebeest, Thompson’s gazelle, the greater and lesser kudu and on rare occasions, the unusual gerenuk and fringe –eared Oryx are also seen. A few black rhinos are also thought to be still present in this park. You will obviously see big numbers of elephants gather here as well as the wildebeests and zebras. Among the other common animals in the Tarangire are the leopards, lions, hyenas, and cheetah that seem to be popular within the southern open areas. The wild dogs are only seen once in a while.”

The largest herd we saw was about 20 individuals – mind you, I’m not complaining because you can show me one elephant and I’ll be in heaven. It just bespeaks the hyperbole. So yes, elephants, zebras, impalas, wildebeests & giraffes. Oh, and a ground hornbill with extraordinary red eye patches.

Quite possibly there was a bigger diversity in the park, but we covered so little of the park that the chances of seeing much diversity was greatly diminished. We did, of courses, find the picnic area in time for lunch. Cosmos had ordered a hot lunch from the hotel, which I found mildly horrifying as the food was so bad. It turned out to be the previous night’s stew along with rice and fried potatoes with an apple for dessert. This picnic area was filled with vervet monkeys – cheeky monkeys indeed who, at the drop of a hat, would spring onto a table and steal whatever they could get their hands on. There were lots of adults along with a number of juveniles and one brand new mama vervet. The baby was still wet and her hindquarters showed evidence of a recent birth, but there she was out there with the best of them, begging and stealing. Hey, a girl’s got to make a living.

After lunch, we were meant to be continuing our all-day game drive when, in reality, we were slowly (10 KPM) making our way to the exit, then even more slowly driving to the lodge. We arrived at around 2:15. In addition to his “worst guide ever” title, I now confer upon Cosmos the title of “laziest guide who does as little as he can get away with.” We got to the lodge, where we were greeted by a group of young women singing – they were wonderful! Once in the lodge we were given the usual hot towel and fresh juice – what a great tradition! Henry, the very charming manager, greeted us and gave us the orientation. We were told not to go out after 7:30 pm, because there were lots of animals around. We were apprised of the dining hours, the locations of the bar and restaurant, the fact that there was only sifi in the reception area, then handed over to a room attendant who carried the suitcase on his shoulder.

The room turned out to be an elevated tent.

It was pretty basic, and the shower was just a trickle of water, but it overlooked the watering hole. We asked our room attendant to raise the flaps so that we could get a nice breeze, since the temperature was hovering somewhere around 85 degrees. I changed out of my dusty clothes, Bruce donned his bathing suit, and we headed to the main lodge area. Bruce had a swim, I wrote a little then joined him at the pool where I met his new friends from Germany, Charlie and a couple who remain nameless. Charlie couldn’t master “Bethany” so I became “Steffy.” Suits me. Back to the room so Bruce could change for dinner. We were told that dinner started at 7:00pm, a nice change, since at the other lodges dinner starts at 7:30, and I feel particularly uncomfortable sleeping on a full stomach when I have to be up by 5:30 or 6:00. So at 7:00 we made our way to the dining room for tonight’s buffet. Not a sign of life there. Around 7:30 dishes started to appear. Another pretty odd assortment of dishes, some edible, but the most gorgeous tomatoes! I skipped dessert. Bruce ended up wishing that he had.

We were escorted back to the tent by a Masai warrior carrying the traditional stick and knife. We unlocked the door only to find that they had dropped all the tent flaps. There was no one around, no phone in the room and we had been warned not to leave the room after 7:30, so I climbed out on the 18” ledge and put up two of the flaps on one side of the tent. The zipper on the third flap wouldn’t budge. Bruce managed to put up the two of the flaps on his side, and eventually we flagged down a staff member walking by and she worked her magic with the other tent flaps. We sat on the porch hoping to see some wildlife, but finally decided to turn in. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, remembering Henry’s words, “No use tap water. Brush teeth with bottle.” As I was brushing a large group of something – baboons maybe? – ran across the roof overhead. Cool! As I lay in bed, the sounds of the wild filled the air. We promised each other that if we heard any cool noises each would alert the other. I kept my phone set of audio recording, stacked my pillows in anti-bronchitis position and dropped off. I kept waking up during the night, mostly to cough, but was rewarded with all kinds of sounds. Hyenas howling, a lion roaring, bugs – it was heaven! I slept through it, but Bruce heard a large animal running by the tent. What a perfect safari night!

Termite mound in Tarangire giving us the termite finger: