{"id":9700,"date":"2025-10-29T10:15:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willingtowander.com\/blog\/?p=9700"},"modified":"2025-10-31T06:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T12:58:07","slug":"witnessing-the-circle-of-life-in-tanzania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willingtowander.com\/blog\/witnessing-the-circle-of-life-in-tanzania\/","title":{"rendered":"Witnessing the Circle of Life in Tanzania"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a long travel day across all forms of transport, we arrived in Amsterdam and after a quick overnight in a nearby hotel we met up with Mr. Wander\u2019s family. They landed that morning from Minnesota and we were to catch our next flight together to Arusha, Tanzania. After a delayed flight we arrived late in the evening and met with our drivers from the safari company. It was a long bumpy ride to our accommodation but they served us dinner despite it being after their normal serving time. We settled in for the evening to get ready for tomorrow\u2019s adventure: a 4 day safari through three different national parks, Tarangire, Ngorongoro, and Serengeti. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Map of Tanzania with our Safari Route over all 4 days<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Day 1: Tarangire National Park<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Map of our first day based on GPS of a few of our pictures. The bottom most points is Tarangire National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next morning we were up and ready to meet our driver, Calvin after a nice breakfast buffet at the hotel. We got acquainted with our new ride for the next several days, a 4×4 Land Rover Safari vehicle with a top that would pop up when we were in the parks and adjacent to wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our Safari Transportation for the week. It had a top that would pop up to give better access to viewing animals while in the parks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the first trees I noticed as we were driving through the town were these gorgeous Jacarana trees with purple leaves or flowers! They were so pretty and vibrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jacarana Tree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a few hours drive to get to Tarangire, including a stop to pick up our lunch for the day. Along the way we saw several herds of donkeys, goats, and sheep being herded to find grass or carrying water for Masaai tribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Donkeys carrying water and other supplies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tarangire means River of Warthogs in Maasai, and covers about 2700km2<\/sup> of land. Just after the gate, we were gifted with a few beautiful Baobab trees, this one is over 300 years old!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Baobab tree about 300 years old!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon we found our a group of Savannah baboons, some sitting up in trees including one of the larger males, and several picking insects off each other on the ground and others, well continuing their species. Not far down the road we saw our first species of Antelope, a herd of male Impalas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few mongoose decided to take the opportunity to cross the road in front of our stopped vehicle and we got a few pictures of them scurrying and watching for predators as they made their way through the bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mongoose keeping an eye out for predators<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were several termite mounds we drove past, this was the most interesting. Termites come out at night, they have both a King and Queen for about 1-2 million in just a smaller mound about half this size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Termite Mound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Calvin introduced the next tree by pointing out the \u201cAfrican Sausage\u201d dangling. The actual name is Kigelia Africana. Baboons are the only animals that take advantage of the tasty sausage shaped fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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African Sausage Fruit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon we caught up to a few other tours who had stopped near a watering hole where a herd of Savannah Elephants were playing in the water. Forest elephants are the other type found in Africa but we never saw them. There were a couple of baby elephants, the youngest about 5 months old! We spent a few minutes watching them before moving around to get a different view. A few wildebeests were hanging out nearby as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eventually a bull elephant came close and actually started harassing one of the young babies, but suddenly we saw all the females herd the young ones together and surrounded them to protect from the bull, and they trumpeted and forced the bull to walk away. Then they crossed the road where we were parked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elephant charging towards our vehicle, but thankfully it stopped 10 feet away and went though the group of vehicles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One thing I didn\u2019t like was that as the elephants were crossing, so many of the other trucks were coming up close to these elephants trying to cross. Some did not seem very respectful to other cars already there, or even worse, to the animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mother with her young trying to make her way through the vehicles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was one of the reasons I really appreciated our driver, he was usually pretty calm, he got us the best view possible, but was considerate for other vehicles and especially gave animals space and let animals come to us if they wanted, rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Eland, the largest species of antelope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As we continued we found a herd of Eland, which is the largest species of antelope. There were a few birds that Mr. Wander snapped pictures of but I did not catch the names of these in my notes. If you know what they are please comment below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before we left Minnesota, a friend tasked us with learning whether zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes. What do you think? Here we found a few zebras with their young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Calvin confirmed that they are actually white with black stripes (or brown for the young)! Furthermore, the stripes are actually like a fingerprint for humans, or a tail print on a whale, they are unique to the individual zebra!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zebra running across the road<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For lunch we had a very delicious rice that was made with cinnamon, cardamom and some carrots, along with both fish and veggie curries with some potatoes. It was a surprise every day what we\u2019d get for lunch as each of our accommodations would clean up the dishes and fill containers with new food for the day. It was a surprise for Calvin too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kilimanjaro beer, for those that don’t climb Kili, they drink it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I tried one of the local beers at lunch, a Kilimanjaro lager. The locals told us that for those that don\u2019t climb Kili, they drink it instead! Since we postponed the Kili climb, we will settle for the lager, for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The lunch spot had a cool overlook of a river where we could see elephants down below, but we also had to make sure to protect our food from little thieves: several very persistent monkeys! A monkey managed to steal a banana right after they opened their lunch box at the table next to us. Their guide said the monkeys can tell the difference between guides and tourists and generally would wait to steal food when the guides were distracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our first wild Giraffe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We headed down the hill and crossed the river to see some of the elephants we had seen from above, as well as getting our first sighting of the animal Mr. Wander\u2019s mom was most hoping to see: a Giraffe! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We found more antelope, baboons, and very far away we caught a glimpse of several cape buffalo but it was too difficult to get a good picture through the trees. The last new animal of the day was a southern ground hornbill pictured by the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An elephant let us get up close and personal as he was eating off a tree right next to the road. Calvin let us know that they have found elephants to be right or left \u201chanded\u201d. You can tell by looking at their tusks, usually whichever side they favor will be shorter from more use in trying to bend over trees to get at succulent leaves that are out of reach. Throughout the park we had seen signs of trees broken over where an elephant had knocked down the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our guide also pointed out that the ears of an elephant it looks a bit familiar: It\u2019s a map of Africa! A male elephant this size can be up 5000 pounds and needs to eat 800 pounds of foliage per day! Males leave the family group when he gets older, and can grow to be about 13,000 pounds – on average<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was finally time to leave the park and headed towards our accommodation. It was more than an hour drive so he did stop at Safariland for a bathroom and an opportunity to learn about Tanzanite mining and Ebony carvings. We all somehow managed to skip the tour but it was mostly a sales pitch anyway and we were all pretty tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That evening we were welcomed by our accommodation with a song and some jumping demonstration by some from a Maasai tribe. The song was mostly in Swahili but I did hear some \u201chakuna matata\u201d which means \u201cno worries\u201d in English. For anyone who didn\u2019t know that you might need to watch The Lion King again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For dinner it was a buffet, and we all enjoyed the soup greatly. This was a staple at each of the locations but for most of us this was the first time trying it. It\u2019s a sweet root soup, made from sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and other vegetables with delicious spices. It became one of my favorite Tanzanian dishes all trip!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Day 2: Serengeti National Park<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Map of our second day, starting by going through the rim of the Ngorongoro caldera, and through the Eastern part of Serengeti National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After a lovely night\u2019s sleep we enjoyed breakfast, packed our bags and were loaded into the vehicle by 8:30am. They sang a goodbye song for us this morning, which I caught a little of on camera as we pulled away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n