We left Cross Cultural Solutions and Moshi at 8:00 on Saturday morning. Chilli is the driver of our Landrover jeep, which will be our means of transportation for the next 8 days. He’s delightful and knowledgeable, speaks excellent English, and is in his mid-30’s. Chilli will also be our guide for the entire safari. Chilli, Jean and I traveled to Arusha where we picked up Margie and Hank Clark at a beautiful lake resort where they were staying since their arrival in Tanzania on Thursday night. The Clarks, the Allimans, and Chilli headed for Tarangire, a two hour drive east of Arusha. We arrived around 1:00 on Saturday afternoon. The remainder of Saturday and all day today have been spent in Tarangire. There are two categories of the two days’ experiences that will be described.
The first is the place we are staying. It is the Swala Luxury Tented Camp. Since not taking Jean camping was in our marriage vows, I had to come up with a magnificent tent if I were to break the promise and take her “camping.” This is it!
Swala is rated 5 stars by Conde Nast magazine, which also includes Swala in its list of the “100 Best Places in the World to Stay.” It is truly stunning. The camp is 40 miles from the entrance of the park… over the poorest, one lane, very bumpy, dirt roads we’ve ever been on. The Swala Camp is the ultimate definition of “seclusion” and “isolation.” We are in a tent, but it has the amenities of a modern first class hotel suite: Indoor and outdoor showers with hot water, a beautiful bathroom area, large “windows,” a sitting room with desk (where I am at now), and a huge and comfortable bed under a gorgeous mosquito net. Immediately beside our tent and hovering over the entire setup is the oldest (300 years), largest, and most beautiful Baobab tree we have ever seen. It is huge. We estimate its circumference to be 100 feet! Jean will attach a photo of our living quarters, but there’s no way it will do the place justice. Wish you could come to our open house this evening!
Our tent is one of 12 and is deep into the park. No fences are in place, so impalas, monkeys,and elephants freely roam next to where we sleep, eat, and relax. Our tent is several hundred feet from the dining area, so when we finish eating after dark at night, we are escorted to our tent by a big, burly Maasai tribesman who makes sure that we aren’t eaten alive on our way “home” by any of the wild animals that live in the area.
There is a resident herd of frisky impalas that entertain us with their antics.
They race around our tent, cross the walkways right in front of us, and generally run circles, jump up and down, and dominate the landscape. Except for one individual, the herd is all females who are small and dainty. The exception is a huge male with enormous antlers, who seems to control the group and apparently has his way with any of the females whenever he wishes. Sexism is alive and well at Swala. The presiding male has earned his role and privileges through competitive combat. Residing a short distance beyond Swala is a community of bachelor impalas who would love to be the Dominating Male. The position is earned on a daily basis. The Dominating Male must constantly demonstrate that he deserves the role’s privileges.
The meals are great, Liz (from Ireland) and Garth (from South Africa) manage the place with wonderful humor, a gregarious and welcoming spirit, and professional expertise. They are making a career out of managing these kind of premium safari-based lodging facilities in Africa. Jean has forthrightly declared that this is the best tent she’s ever slept in… and that I am forgiven for breaking my promise of 40 years ago! Following dinner this evening we were presented with a 40th wedding anniversary cake that included the nicest writing on the frosting. Our anniversary isn’t until July, but we are celebrating a little early during this entire week.
The second part of our experience is the animals we’re seeing. I’ll try to keep this brief. It’s an admirable idea, but very hard to implement. The variety of animals living in this park is amazing. We’ve seen so many different animals, including elephants, giraffes, impalas, cape buffalo, warthogs, ostriches, baboons, zebras, gazelles, dik diks, blue monkeys, and on and on. And not just one or two… but scores and even hundreds of each. All in their natural habitat. It’s truly amazing. We’re trying to limit the number of pictures that we take, but each scene is more interesting than the last. On the first day Jean took 204 pictures. Today she took 254. Who knows how many she will take tomorrow as we leave. Needless to say, she will have to be a harsh and very selective editor.
On our first day of traveling through Tarangire National Park, we began at the northern tip where the park’s headquarters is located. Chilli drove our Landrover over very rough roads with many detours around deep waterholes… and we only had one flat tire. We came upon a group of 30 or so baboons that were enjoying the afternoon together. And then we were thrilled to see hundreds of elephants of all sizes moving in family groups.
One mother roared at us and nearly charged us when our vehicle came between her and her son! That was a fairly frightening moment. However, all is well and we’re able to report on our second day of journeys inside Tarangire National Park.
During the second day (Sunday), Chilli drove us through the southern part of the park. For some of the day we were a little disappointed that we weren’t seeing more animals. We decided that they all were in church. However, we enjoyed the huge variety of birds we’ve never seen. Chilli knew so many of them by just their songs. In fact, the chorus of bird sounds was wonderful. Toward mid-afternoon, as we were returning to camp, we saw “journeys” of giraffes and families of elephants which made the entire day worthwhile. We saw several baby elephants and one very small infant elephant who was less than a week old as well as a very dark (black?) giraffe. They were spectacular! We know that we will see other animals in the various parks that we will visit later in the week, but our days here in Tarangire have been awesome!
We’re exhausted, but happy… and look forward to visiting the nearby Manyara National Park tomorrow.
We love you very much…
Babu and Mama Jean
No comments:
Post a Comment