Elephants.

After leaving Rwanda we headed to Tanzania. We arrived late on Christmas eve to our hotel and didn’t do much besides sleep. We woke Christmas morning to our gift of Safari. We met our guide Prosper at the hotel and discovered that we would be the only ones in the jeep the whole trip. When booking I knew that we wouldn’t have more than 4 people in a jeep but to discover that we had our own private tour was better than I had anticipated. We would soon find out that our guide Prosper was the even better surprise as he is absolutely amazing, he definitely made the trip that much more memorable, more on him as we progress through the posts of the Tanzania Safari. Prosper took us to the first park we headed to was Tarangire National Park. He informed us that we would get a free Tanzania Massage (aka bumpy roads).

As soon as we entered the park we started seeing wildlife and taking pictures of the animals. I’ve deleted a large number of shots, as I was trying to take pictures of wildlife far off in the distance. I would soon learn that we would get much closer to the wildlife than I could hope for. The drive through the park was amazing, we would slowly cruise around stopping whenever we came across an animal that was interesting.

After driving around the park for the afternoon we got to our hotel a little early to enjoy the view. Prosper had mentioned the amazing view and we were thoroughly impressed with the patio. We overlooked the park and could see animals coming and going to the river to get water. It was like the safari kept going. The hotel is a permanent tent hotel, which meant that our room was a tent, with plumbing. It felt nothing like camping, there was electricity, beds, it felt super luxurious. The only part that was a little freaky was that we had to be walked to the tent and were not supposed to come out at night as animals could walk the grounds if they chose, since we were in the middle of the park.

Saw this guy in the parking lot, as we were registering our park permit.

Warthog with one of her babies.

The warthogs were our favorite on the first day as the little ones seemed to be constantly running and never in a straight line. The proved to be quite comical.

A Dik Dik, the are tiny, they looked almost like the were a purse version of an antelope. You can see it’s mate in the background, they mate for life and are usually in pairs.

Bachelor’s club. A bunch of male impalas. Prosper referred to them as bachelor clubs, you would either find a bunch of males together or a bunch of females with one male.

Warthogs hanging in the shade.

A bunch of female impalas, male not pictured.

We saw a bunch of elephants in the park, more on the second day. But this guy was chasing the ladies, they didn’t want any and kept moving from tree to tree. Its not easy to keep up with 5 legs.

Shaking the dirt off.

An elephant sharpening his tusks.

Red Billed Hornbill eating a grub.

A couple more  African elephants.

A solo elephant in front of a Baobab tree. The elephant will scrape the bark off these trees and chew on it during the dry season to get water. We saw one tree that had a hole through the trunk from the elephants.

Baboon with a baby.

Mom walking and the little guy holding on.

More elephants.

An elephant in a mud bath.

Cool cactus looking tree. Reminded me of Galapagos.

Giraffes.

Spotted Guinea foul. Their heads looked like something out of prehistoric times.

We sat and watched this dung beetle (Not pictured) go to town.

More elephants.

Elephants with an Acacia tree.

Ostriches.

Came across some Jackals in the middle of the road.

They were watching mom or dad scare off another animal.

An impala. They are impressively beautiful when you get close.

The view from the hotel. We sat and looked out at the amazing view.