Adventures at Tarangire

Arriving at Tarangire Safari Lodge was an amazing, and very unique experience for everyone, as we safaried to the lodge, which is located inside of the Tarangire National Park! As soon as we entered the park and were on our way to the lodge, we instantly saw a variety of animals including giraffes, impalas, elephants and lots of monkeys! It was a surprising first sight, since none of us expected to see any animals before our first safari day.

Once we arrived at the lodge, we were amazed by the incredible view of the National Park which could be seen from the patio and the lobby of the lodge. We were then assigned our rooms, some of which were tents and some bungalows. The rooms were not what any of us were expecting, especially the tents which were more like small houses, which had full bathrooms and a bedroom. The bungalows looked like small huts but were very similar to the tents as they had a bedroom and a full bathroom.

The dining hall and lounge area were extremely modern, but had a beautiful traditional look that blew us all away. The food at the lodge was buffet style for every meal, and the food was absolutely amazing!

It is important to reflect on the difference between our experiences in Kilema and our experiences in Tarangire. We all knew that Tarangire would be a very different experience than Kilema because it is more of a tourist attraction which would draw people from all over the world. We have really noticed how different society seems at the lodge, because this part of Tanzania has been modernized and developed to serve as a tourist attraction. Without visiting Kilema, and being exposed to their way of life we never would have learned about or seen the real side of Tanzania and the challenges they face within their communities.

We were lucky to have two opportunities to safari and see lots of wildlife within the National Park! We had many close encounters with the tembos (elephants) and even got to see some calves up close. We were astounded by how many huge groups of elephants we saw throughout the day, some groups with almost a dozen! We saw several twigas (giraffes) throughout the day and it was mind boggling that we were looking at these huge animals with only a few meters between us. We also saw many other animals such as impalas, warthogs, ostriches, water bucks and many more!

Coming back to the lodge for lunch, a couple people were surprised to find monkeys in their tent, which had taken a bunch of things and had made a huge mess. It was defiantly a funny and one of a kind experience! The pool at the lodge was amazing, and many of us got the opportunity to go swimming to cool down from the hot sun, before we returned to safari for the afternoon!

Overall, our experiences at the Tarangire Lodge and National Park were something none of us will ever forget. The time we spent there was the experience of a lifetime, from the safari we were able to take part in, to the animal noises we heard outside of our rooms at night. We all hope we will be able to experience this at least once more in our lifetime!

Sincerely,

Ashley and Emily M