Quest for Beer - Africa (Tanzania)

Ok, I better continue writing before I forget what happened. Anyone who is reading this that was on the trip, feel free to correct me or add to any of these posts.

Day 1 continued with a drive from Moshi to Arusha (where we stopped at a ShopRite and bought lunch from the deli and stocked up on wine). It was kind of weird shopping at a supermarket in Africa - this was a fairly new addition to Arusha and I guess even the locals are still amazed by it (wait till Walmart comes to town). After Arusha there were a few more small villages and then we made a left and another left and ended up in Tarangire National Park. A quick stop at the fenced in campground to drop off the cooks, porters, and bags and we were off on safari! In true safari style, the tops pop open on the landrovers and you can stand up, sit on top, or whatever, just hold on tight and watch out for the various acacia trees - some have 4″ long thorns! I did get a kick out of the different sausage trees.

It didn’t take long and we were seeing more animals than I could have imagined. Zebras everywhere.

All the animals were taking it easy and finding whatever shade they could. It was really hot and dusty. Here are some thompsons gazelles.

The elephants were amazingly close and they ate those thorny trees.

The giraffes were my favorite animal. I never got tired of seeing them - the way they walked was just facinating.

And they were always so inquisitive.

This one was huge!

Here was a family of elephants protecting their young. Apparently they didn’t like the landrover being that close. They flared there ears at us a little and then walked on.

Some of the animals don’t have it so lucky.

After more and more animals (we saw a lionesse, lots of wildebeest, hartebeest, gazelles, etc…), we headed back to camp for dinner. To our surprise, there was fresh bbq roasted goat on the menu for dinner, mmmmm.

The goat was actually very tasty (a little bit chewy, but seasoned nicely). There isn’t much meat on one of these things either. I thought the furry hoves were a nice touch. Donovan especially liked the goat.

We were then entertained by these guys.

They were great! The did some pretty amazing acrobatic moves thru hoops and stuff, juggled hats, put fire down their pants, and played some mean drums. They were very entertaining, and I even bought a music cd from them (they asked $20, but I got it for $8 - bargaining is great). They were also kind enough to let Mary and I jam on the drums for a few minutes. Thus, the evening ended. What a difference from the mountain camping. I think we are going to enjoy safari.

Tags: elephant, Tarangire, The Safari, Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at 5:58 pm and is filed under The Safari, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.