Hello journey rockstars, welcome to the 2nd post in the Tanzania Adventures series where I talk about my experience at Tarangire National Park & the gorgeous view I had of Mount Kilimanjaro. If you missed the 1st post, you can do a quick catch up here: TNZ Adventures 1
Tarangire National Park
Tarangire National Park is one of several wildlife parks that dot the landscape across Tanzania. Other parks like Tarangire include Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara Park which has tree climbing lions and others. We got to the park in the afternoon after missing our way (blame it on the language barrier). When we got to the park, the price for a tour was set at 53usd per person which is the price for non-Tanzanians. Mans was not very rich as we had other places we still wanted to explore so my friend and I put our Nigerian-ness to work and asked to see the manager. We were taken to this very pretty woman named Beatrice and after introducing ourselves and all we do (I said I was a travel blogger and my friend, David also runs a travel company and we said we were going to promote the park), they gave us a whopping 50% discount so we basically just paid one gate fee and we were both allowed in (Beatrice if you are reading this, thank you so much). We also had to pay for a tour vehicle and we coughed out another 70,000tsh (equivalent to 11,000 naira) for our ride.
After our successful negotiations, we began our safari experience at about 4pm and although it wasn’t ideal timing (early mornings are the best time to see a variety of animals), we still hoped for the best. It wasn’t long before we saw some Zebras leisurely enjoying their therapeutic evening walk and wondering why are all these guys taking photos of us? Oh well, flips tail and continues striding along.
We then came across more Zebras (infact, I think I saw enough Zebras at Tarangire Park to last me a lifetime), then some Rhinos, elephants, waterbucks, antelopes but we were looking for the king of the jungle and after driving for over an hour, we were almost giving up when we sighted a thick mane chilling under a tree…we asked ourselves, could it be, could it just be that was a lion? Alas! We were correct…it was a lion in all of its jungle majestic glory. We tried to go as close to it to get good pictures but we were mindful not to arouse it so as to return with complete limbs. It was at this point I wished I had a DSLR and if the Lord is leading you to do it for your boy, please do not delay. I love you already in advance!
After our safari was done at Tarangire Park, we posed for pictures with the staff as per celebrity travel people and then we were off to the city of Moshi which is the closest city to Mount Kilimanjaro (100km).
Mount Kilimanjaro
We arrived late and we quickly settled for a meal of Chipsi Mayai and we met some new Tanzanian friends who assured us that we were going to see Mount Kilimanjaro in all of its glory at sunrise the next morning. Thankfully, the hotel we booked at Moshi placed us on the 3rd floor and I think I barely slept because immediately my eyes opened up, I rushed to the balcony and true to the words of our friends, there was Mount Kilimanjaro in all of its glory & snow peak heights.
Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world. The peak is named Uhuru which translates to Freedom and it is 5,895 meters above sea level (Africa’s highest point). It typically takes about 5 days to climb to the top through the safest route (3 and a half days for the ascent & 1 day for the descent). We promised ourselves we will be back for the climb.
That concluded our short stay in Moshi and we were on our way back to Dar es Salaam (This was when the bus incident I spoke about in the 1st post happened?) where we would catch a boat to Stone town in Zanzibar for more adventures.
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