Tanzania owns many great National Parks, and each of them is quite unique. Tarangire, our third Safari day’s destination, is famous for its flora (Baobab Trees) and fauna (LOTS of Elephants) – ready to watch a baby Elephant taking a bath?
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| Destination | Tanzania, Northern National Parks (Arusha, Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Lake Manyara) and Zanzibar |
| How and when I got there | Flights with Turkish Airlines from Cologne via Istanbul and Zanzibar to Kilimanjaro Airport; return flight from Zanzibar via Kilimanjaro and Istanbul to Cologne; January – February 2019 |
| Where I stayed | Lake Duluti Lodge (near Arusha, https://www.lakedulutilodge.com/) Highview Hotel (Karatu, http://www.highviewhotel.com/) Meru View Lodge (close to southern Arusha Nat. Park Gate, http://www.meru-view-lodge.com/meru/en/) Shu’Mata Camp (2 hours north of Moshi/Asursha, http://www.shumatacamp.de/index.php) Hatari Lodge (close to nothern Arusha Nat. Park Gate, http://www.hatarilodge.de/en/contact.php) Le Parlour Apartments (Boma La Ngombe, close to JRO airport, no own website) Melia Zanzibar Hotel (Kiwengwa, Zanzibar, https://www.melia.com/en/hotels/tanzania/zanzibar/melia-zanzibar/index.html) |
| Restaurants | we tried only the Restaurants of the above mentioned hotels / lodges. And we liked best: Hatari Lodge, Shu’Mata Camp and Lake Duluti Lodge: outstanding! Meru View Lodge and Melia Zanzibar: very good |
| Things to do | Game drives in the National Parks – the obvious thing Hiking at Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru: not exactly the relaxing type of vacation Walking Safaris and relaxing (e.g. at the Hatari Lodge or a tented camp like Shu’Mata): more solitude to “feel Africa” |
| Recommendations in a nutshell | see the post regarding “things to consider for travelling in Tanzania”! Use a renowned travel agency for organising the safari trip (like Chamaeleon) get some rest between the bumpy rides Further Reading: Lonely Planet Tanzania Travel Guide |
| Recipe | Avocado and Green Salad |
Driving through Arusha
Our third safari day lead us to Tarangire NP, about 3 hours by car from the Lake Duluti Lodge, our first “base”. We passed Arusha, a city of 400000 inhabitants – a colorful, but partly also sad picture of slum-like areas. Tanzania still belongs to the poorest countries in the world, and it shows. Actually, the pictures do not show the worst areas that we passed.
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Entrance to the Tarangire National Park
Overall, it was quite a long drive, and despite leaving quite early at 8 in the morning there was already a queue at the park entrance.
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| “car park” at the Tarangire NP entrance | old Baobab tree at the Tarangire NP entrance |
Concerning the amounts of visitors, Tarangire is quite different from Arusha National Park. In Arusha, we met the occasional other car, in Tarangire it was quite often driving in a convoy of 4 or 5 cars (or more). The advantage: you cannot miss any game attraction, as there’s usually already a crowd of cars gathered around whatever attraction. However, the day was still great, due to the elephants. As the entrance gate correctly states: “Tarangire – home of the Elephants”. After some scenic views of the (gorgious!)…
landscapes at Tarangire
We met the first (although small) animals: termites
and shortly afterwards two elephants, bathing in a small lake:
Elephants – the main theme of the day
And soon after thatwe entered the “valley of the elephants”:
And met the first huge group really close:
…somehow we were reminded of “The Jungle Book”:
We had been in South Africa before and had seen lots of elephants there. But Tarangire easily topped it: we saw several hundreds of them over the day. In particular, there was a valley which – literally speaking – burst of elephants. Several large groups of more than 20 animals, just walking around everywhere.
Lunch with Elephants
We had lunch at the road (inside the car, of course) and were really surounded by elephants.
Absolutely amazing! Here some really close encounters:
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And some really sweet baby elephants:
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Another attraction of this National Park is the large number of Baobab trees. In no other place (except Madagascar, maybe) you can see them in these quantities. Here is a gallery of some impressive specimen:
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Later we passed a small water hole that was used as bathtub by a small family of elephants. In particular a small guy obviously loved the muddy bath and had a lot of fun, bathing first alone and later with his father (or mother?) – our absolute highlight of the day:
And some animals other than elephants
Of course, there are many more wild animals in Tarangire – the elephants are just so overwhelming that we took almost no picture of the others, like ostrichs:
and groups of Gazelles:
Due to the lack of the characteristic black stripe of the Thomson’s gazelles, we think it was a group of Dorcas Gazelles (no guarantee).
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Finally, we managed to get a glimpse at a group of lions. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the “car park” already 6 other cars were gathered), the lions decided to look for some calmer place. And so we just saw their backs, leaving. Nevertheless, the close encounter with numerous elephants made the day very special and a great day!
We continued the same day to the small town Karatu, on the plateau high above Lake Manyara.The landscape around Tarangire is rather bare, some Massai villages, no irigation and little agriculture:
We passed street markets, where our guide Luis bought us some very delicious red bananas.
Just before sunset, we reached Karatu – cooler temperatures and a great sunset over the mountains:
Our todays base – the “Highview Hotel” in Karatu – welcomed us with cool drings, a very nice swimming-pool and an equally nice terrace where we could have dinner and breakfast with great view. The lodge itself and the rooms are rather basic, but OK for 1-2 nights. If there’s no big group of travellers. As was on our second day there. Then the meals are served in the (rather ugly) dining room inside the hotel. Where I had a “special encounter” with a US toourist who had President Trumps “America First” obviously well internalized. She started scooping the fruit salad on her plate – there were approximately 4 servings left – and continued (with a malicious view to me) until nothing was left. Gladly I remembered, that US tourists have to pay twice the visa fee (100 $ instead of 50) than all the other tourists – well deserved (at least in her case)…
See more of our Tanzania Safari and Zanzibar Beach Trip here:
And find more information about Travelling in Tanzania here: 
And here my favorite “Tarangire” recipe:
Avocado-Mango-Green Salad
For the Vinaigrette: mix 1 tablespoon Aceto balsamico, 1 tablespoon Orange juice, 2 tablespoons Olive oil, 1 teaspoon Honey, Salt and Pepper to taste.
For the salad: skin a ripe avocado and a ripe mango, slice into small cubes and drizzle with some lime juice. Roast pine nuts. Tear green oak lettuce into small pieces. Add small tomatoes and some (few) slices of red onion.
Mix with the dressing and serve!
*According to a German Court decision, all texts containing links to commercial pages (e.g. links to Tripadvisor, Airline, hotel or restaurant websites) have to be identified as “commercial” (in German “Anzeige”). As my texts do contain links like that, I therefore identify each post and page containing a link as “Anzeige”. However (and referring to the “About Me” page) I would like to point out that I do NOT post any sponsored content in my texts; I pay for all my trips myself.
