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We were staying in the permanent tented camp section of the lodge.  These are tents that are pitched atop a concrete platform, assured to be dry.

And here is our very own Home Sweet Home in Tarangire.  Our tent neighbors noted a civet trying to get into our tent one late afternoon, but we were really good (read: obsessive) about keeping it zipped tightly shut!

We had this wonderful view of the Tarangire river from our tent:

We could sit there all day and watch the wildlife running through those fields!  Although it was quite green, the grasses hadn't grown so high as to obscure the wildlife.  Herds of impala played right on our "front lawn"!

Now, we had received an orientation lecture, during which Robert told us that if we spotted an animal, we were not to yell or cry out, for fear of disturbing it.  Our first afternoon at the Tarangire Lodge, Bill was surprised by a baboon that ambled into camp.  He immediately yelled for me to come over and see.  Several more baboons ambled into camp. Here is Bill looking at one fella (difficult to discern, but he is on the porch of the tent in front of Bill, enjoying the shade.)



We were off for a swim, but I stopped to watch this fellow in our camp for a while. He seemed utterly oblivious to me:



Later that evening, we walked back to our tent, to discover a group of 6 dikdiks. What are dikdiks? Imagine the smallest, most adorable Bambi-like rendition of a deer, and you will get an image of this tiny antelope. They are only about the size of a large dog. They nibbled on the grass in front of our tent for a while, completely ignoring us.  These creatures weigh only about 11 pounds and are exclusively monogamous.  They tiptoed delicately in front of our tent, seeming to be nervous, when finally one small female scampered out from behind our tent.  They had been waiting for her, and once she arrived, they wandered off.  The next morning, dikdik footprints were all over the sand in front of our tent. 



Here’s a small sampling of the hundreds of pictures we took during the next few shutter-happy days!

Robert and Ojukwu, 2 of our fantastic guides!



Our first lion spotting!  Well, sort of...



We saw tons of impala. Here is a young bachelor:

The bachelors are typically on their own, without females, but for some reason, this bachelor herd of impala had one female that ran with them.  We called her the slutty female impala (she is on the right)

More impala--these ones are female, without the horns.

The Tarangire River:

As we drove across the river bed at one site, we spotted elephant tracks:

Vervet monkeys…the males had spectacularly blue scrotum!

The vervets loved to be in this particular type of acacia tree, where you could look up and see 20 or 30 of them munching on the flowers. 

We never tired of seeing the hundreds of giraffes!

That day we saw giraffes, ostrich, zebras, impala, baboons (all too numerous to count!), vervet monkeys, along with fantastic birds such as red and yellow barbet, red-billed hornbills, and Von der Decken's hornbills.  We saw elephants and dikdiks...

AND WE SAW OUR FIRST LION!  Far off in the distance, to be sure, but we saw them.  2 sleepy lions.  There would be more to come!

We returned back to the lodge and headed for the dining hall:  open-aired, surrounded by mosquito netting.

In the evenings, we would settle in after dinner, telling each other what we had seen.  Robert, Ojukwu and Mohammed would join us.

  On to:  More Tarangire                  

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