Day 8: Safari in Tarangire Park

Our first full day in Arusha began at 5 AM, when Tom Peterson (C’15) played his trumpet to wake the Club up. Clubbers groggily filed out of their rooms and into the dining room for breakfast. We then got into buses and headed out to the Tarangire National Park for a safari tour.

A map of the park that greeted us as we entered the Tarangire National Park. 

The Tarangire National Park is the sixth largest national park in Tanzania, with an area of roughly 1800 square miles. It is also home to the most African Elephants per square mile in the entire world.

The baobab tree! 

While in the safari park, we saw a wide variety of plant life, such as baobab trees, which are said to live to be thousands of years old! We also saw an enormous array of wildlife: from African Elephants to lions, from giraffes to impalas, from warthogs to buffalo, and an amazing variety of birds.

A family of warthogs eats.

 A few ostriches notice us as they eat.

A dik-dik. This one is fully grown! 

A monitor lizard relaxing on a rock by the river. 

A family of elephants decides to cross the road in the middle of our safari!

Two lionesses and their cubs relax near the river.

An African Fish Eagle perches in a tree.

A stork takes flight. 

A family of baboons hanging out in a tree.

A herd of impala notice us. Luckily, they stayed still long enough for a stellar photo!

A female water buck.

A family of hyraxes resting on a rock near the river.

We stopped for lunch at one point, and had some unexpected guests crash the party: a group of vervet monkeys ransacked some people’s lunches, stealing some food and causing the Club to fly into a panic.

A vervet monkey. These sneaky devils stole our food!

We spent roughly six hours total driving around the park, taking in the beauty of the region. We then stopped at the gift shop, piled into buses, and headed back to our lodge for dinner.

A few giraffes that we saw at the end of our safari. 

We’ve almost wrapped up this leg of Tour – we’re leaving for the airport at 1 PM today to head to our final destination, Dubai!

Dubai-bai-bai,

The Penn Glee Club