Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Tarangire National Park and the end of our time in Africa


In the morning the Oleson's and Zooks had to catch an early flight to Zanzibar. We wanted to go with them but our flights home didn't work well and we would have had to pay an extra 2,000 to spend 24 hours with them so we opted not to go. 

We had a couple of days left in Africa and we decided to hire our drive to go to one more national park on our way back to Arusha. 




We went to Tarangire which is a place known for it's elephants. It did not disappoint and we saw lots of elephants while we were there. 



At the entrance of the park there was a deck that oversaw everything that we explored. It was covered in monkeys and we had just as much fun watching them. 












We saw large termite mounts as well.




















We saw a lot of elephant families, elephants eating, drinking and got a pretty graphic video of an attempt of elephant sex as a bull chased a juvenile female who wasn't having it. It was something you don't see on the national geographic TV shows...ha ha. 








The trees in the park were unlike anything we had seen so far. They were memorable. 











We didn't expect to get some great views of Cheetahs but we were able to see them as well and spend time watching one without all the people around us. 







We got to see a lot of other animals besides elephants as well.













Standing near elephant bones. They were so big!





We debated what we were going to do on our last day. Most of the family wanted to drive to lake that was 3 hours away to swim. Once I read reviews about the condition of the road, the brain eating amoebas in the lake and the deep swimming hole that was not very accessible I wasn't excited about going. I opted for the snake park even though the rest of the family wasn't excited about it. 



Ashley and I got to go on a camel ride for cheap. 








We saw a lot of snakes and even got to hold some. 
















Learning about how deadly the Black Mamba is and how people are bit in the bush and in the Maasai are bit in their homes made me shutter because we were hanging out in both and I'm glad we didn't encounter any. 







Making more friends with the turtles. 




We saw a lot of other animals besides snakes as well







The hotel we stayed at for the last two nights in Africa was nicer that most of the ones that we had stayed in but again it was in a compound that we couldn't leave without a guide or a driver. 

We were on the second floor and had the family room which was large and the bathroom had an actual door. 











The hotel had a pool as advertised...the only problem is it was only 1/2 full and under repair. I don't think we would have swam anyways, it wasn't very warm outside. 



While we were here we were able to get some local tips from people who had been in the area longer. We used the hotel van to be taken two a couple of really good restaurants the last couple of nights we were in the area. We ended our time here with some great food in outdoor dining rooms that had great ambience and were glad for the tip. 






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