A Great Day

This morning we drove out to Arusha National Park, about 40 minutes east of Arusha, with Joel, Bryant and Libby.

It was a perfect day (80+ and sunny), although the cloud cover at high altitudes obscured our view of Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro.

We drove for some time into the park before we saw many animals, but it was a beautiful ride. The plant life is amazing, with bright reds and oranges. The trees are overgrown with vines that have adhered to their trunks- a very old growth look to the experience. We drove around Ngurdoto crater near Mt Meru and along the Momella alkaline lakes (pictured above with a water buffalo skull and flamingos in the back).

This park had several big name animals for Africa: zebra, giraffe, warthogs, bushbuck, flamingo, baboons, black-white colobus monkeys and several more. No big cats/rhinos/hippos yet!

Ngurdoto Crater


For the most part we needed to stay in our vehicle- the Selian land rover. Joel's joke for the day: What's the difference between a Jehovah's witness and a land rover? You can shut the door on a Jehovah's witness. Very true for many of the vehicles here. Charlie did very well in the car:


It helped that there was a lot to see and the rocky road kept him relaxed. Overall it was a great day! We moved around several aspects of the crater and then down to the lakes.

Our first encounter was a troop of ~30 baboons and 5 colobus monkeys. The colobus are very beautiful but hard to get pictures of due to the thick greenery. Charlie loved the monkeys and was "OO-oo-ah-ah"ing every time he spotted one. The baboons were very loud as they past in front of our car.

Once in the crater we came upon the big animals: zebras, giraffe, etc. All were at quite a distance, but for our first "natural" encounter with them it was an amazing site. Hopefully on our next safari we can get in closer, but until then here are a few videos of the trip (I hope to gain a steadier hand at filming as the trip progresses).

L to R: Charlie, Eric, Joel, Libby, Bryant

videos coming soon:
Colobus monkey- can you hear Charlie?


Giraffes

From Our Tanzanian Experiment

Flamingos

and finally, Charlie!


Have a great weekend,
Eric

ps- charlie now says "chalk", as we spend the days/evenings drawing on the porch. He is becoming increasingly more verbal as this trip progresses!