Safari week on Vacation in Tanzania - Day 1

We started in Arusha which is a town about an hour from the Kilimanjaro airport.  Kilimanjaro is I believe the worlds tallest mountain when measured from the actual base to the top.   So Saturday night we stayed here.  Mount Meru hotel - really nice hotel 5 star quality.

 With a cool Infinity pool and outdoor restaurant.

 With a fantastic breakfast buffet with my friends Francis Jonathan, Petra, Thomas, Pearl, and Christie

And I want to mention that the bananas here in Tanzania can be truly fantastic.  They have tons of varieties, but the little ones look like this and they are really sweet.  Look at the color.

Our Safari sales guy met us and covered what was going to happen.  We had 15 people on the Safari plus our three drivers.

Starting on lower left going around the back first.  Francis, Christie, Petra, Shaun,  Joshua (driver), Xiao, Jonathan, Grace Sawe.  Now Grace has arm on her daughter Evelyne, next to dad David Sawe (IBM Country Manager for Tanzania) . Then continuing in that direction Pearl, and her husband Thomas.  Behind those two is Nicholas (driver) Ian, and down to Nyiti (Driver), then Ross in green shorts, Maria and in front of her is her husband Claudio.

So we are off. This is our vehicle and looking ahead you can see the next one.

Now a Safari can be a dangerous thing, with all those wild animals,so on our way this guy offered up some wares to help out.  You never know when a machete could come in handy.  

Our first stop was not for wild animals, but rather to look at Coffee plants.   Hum.

Our first siting

       uh, well ok, those are cows.   lol       Not much to eat out here.  Nice ribs

And next we spotted our first Maasai.  These people are native Tanzanians and truly are a cool group of
nomadic farmers.  They wear very bright clothing and you can see them a long ways away.  They often tend to herds of cows out in unfenced lands. 

And a typical home for a Maasai

Now we enter our first national park  - Tarangire National Park

Where there are some trees that you don't want to brush up against

Or have fall on you.   Thomas looks very small in comparison.

 The birds are very colorful.

Finally, what we came for ...

 

up close and personal     ...  Notice the number of legs on the elephant on the road

And sometimes not so close, and lots in hiding

A common siting

One of thousands of termite mounds that can be seen.  Usually 3 to 5 feet tall.

And a nice treat  - picking some food.

Ostriches

The trees themselves are oftentimes very cool looking like this huge tree that looks like a Bonsai.

Since there were three Safari vehicles, we occasionally took pictures of our fellow animals.  Xiao, Thomas, Maria, Shaun

a cool looking view of what we see

 

Mom and baby

We spotted a Leopard in a tree at quite a distance - several hundred yards.

 You see he has spots

 And an Antelope I think .  From this side I can't tell the difference between Gazelle and Antelopes.

Another Mom and baby with a bird flying by...

Black faced Monkey

Even the dead trees are impressive,  and don't miss the Giraffe

A baboon interested in us

and where there is one, there are lots more.

 uh  Pumba?

In a hurry to get out of the rain

Also in the rain, a herd of Thompson Gazelles - All females.  You will usually find a large number of females with only one male.  Sounds good to me.

And the rain yielded a nice rainbow.

And then they took us to a Tented Camp - lodging for the night. Maramboi Tented Camp.  This is in the middle of nowhere.  The sign says 4 kilometers and you see nothing except grass fields, trees, and animals on the way. 

The camp is a set of permanent Tent structures with wood flooring.
A view from the inside of my tent, looking out.   The walls are canvas. 

 with the obligatory mosquito netting around the beds. 

An exterior view

 And that was the end of the first day on Safari.