January 1st: Tarangire Park

We're home in one week! I can't believe 3 weeks have gone by... I also found out that 130 people died in Nairobi yesterday due to rioting related to the presidential elections. I don't think we are too worried, even though Tammy and the girls fly to Nairobi tomorrow and Dave, Tyler, Tom and I will take a bus there on Jan. 5th in order to fly home.

We left at 8:00 a.m. for Tarangire Park. There was a nice Pavilion at the entrance paid for by the U.S. There weren't a ton of animals to see in the park as they had migrated outside the park. But that's OK because the terrain was beautiful and different than the Serengeti. It was a little hillier and had higher grass (hard to see the cats) and more bushes and trees. Perhaps it was hillier because we mostly stayed by the Tarangire River. We did see quite a few small dik-diks, some elephants, giraffes, and birds.

We returned to relax a the tent camp. Our decks off the tent bandas looked out over Lake Manyara, which was about 1 kilometer away. In between the tents and the lake was grass, which brought around zebras and wildebeest. It was lovely listening to the palm trees in the wind. They made a sound sort of like rain hitting a roof.

That afternoon we went on a nature walk to the lake. It was lovely. The grass was about 8 inches high and grew sparser as we got closer to the lake. About 50 yards from the shore the grass disappeared completely. The water rises regularly so the "shore" consisted of crumbly, dried mud of sorts. It smelled fishy and salty. The lake is about 3-4 meters deep. We saw plovers, pelicans, and flamingos. There were hoards of birds. I could have stayed at the tent camp for another week. Very relaxing.