The food at the Dik Dik was excellent, but quite nouvelle cuisine in its style. After working hard at the orphanage the boys (and staff) really wanted hearty meals rather than 5 tiny courses. The food at the Tarangire lodge fitted the bill exactly, especially at lunch where the boys could fill up their plates from the buffet counter.
The view from the Tarangire lodge is outstanding and offers a 180 degree vista across the river for several miles. While waiting to go out in the cars we could sit and watch two lions lazing under a tree by the river. They were pretty far away and difficult to see, but as this could have been our only sighting we had to make to the most of it.
The early evening safari was very pleasant as the sun had been out all day so the colours were rich and the temperature warm. There was plenty to see from the off, zebra and buffalo in abundance, dik diks, ostriches and many more, including a wide variety of birds. Elephants were a highlight of this safari, where we encountered several groups. At one point in particular we were able to drive right up to a small family group, including a baby only a few weeks old. They were feeding quite happily and didn’t seem too bothered by the presence of the cars.
On our way back to the lodge we saw the highlight of this particular trip; a leopard. It was tricky to spot as it was up in a tree some distance away but soon every vehicle in the vicinity was heading that way for a glimpse. By all accounts we were very lucky to see a leopard; Mr Smith told us that this was his first sighting and this was his tenth time on safari.
The next morning we headed out at 6.30am and to our amazement every boy made it – it was optional! There wasn’t anywhere near as much going on as we had hoped and after 30 minutes or so the boys looked thoroughly bored and had retreated inside the safari vehicles. Some early highlights included some buffalo crossing the road and a large group of baboons collecting food and eating it. We had just given up and were heading back for breakfast when we saw a large group of cars (including 2 of our vehicles) clearly showing interest in something. As we approached we could see that the object of their interest was a male lion. At this point we were on one side of the river and the lion and other vehicles were on the other. However, our vehicle had timed things just right and the lion proceeded to walk towards us, pause at the river for a drink, and then cross the river and walk a few feet in front of our vehicle. Its actions suggested to us that it was on the hunt for something. As we followed this someone noticed that a female lion was also making its way across the river so we turned around and headed back for a look at that too. Once again it popped up right in front our vehicle but didn’t put on quite the show that the male did. Although we tried to track them for a while we soon lost them as we had to keep to the tracks and headed back for breakfast after all, feeling very pleased with ourselves. Meanwhile our other vehicles had raced around from the other side of the river to catch up with the lions on this side. Amazingly they didn’t immediately see the lions, but s pair of cheetahs instead; another extremely rare sighting. Their driver did venture slightly off road for a better look at the cheetahs and happened upon the male lion as well. This group then headed back to the lodge feeling even more pleased with themselves than the first car.
The second drive of the day saw us heading over to Sopa Lodge. One of the highlights on this journey included the baboons again, who were on the move and completely took over the road for a while. A further highlight was the sighting of several groups of giraffes, including a family with their young.
There was one interesting moment in the final drive of the day. There wasn’t much going on for the most part but then someone spotted a smudge that may have been a lion, or a warthog, or both. Eyes were strained for the next thirty minutes or so as every movement of the grass yielded yet more evidence for one theory or the other. In the end it was decided that it was a lion (or maybe two) stalking a warthog but by then they were so far off it wasn’t possible to see anything clearly, even with powerful binoculars; it certainly didn’t match the early morning lion. One of the cars stopped to help another vehicle change a tyre; not terribly exciting but it did give the boys to chat to the dozen or so girls from The Netherlands who were in the stranded vehicle.
The drive on the final morning was a bit of a disappointment in the end. We had all become rather blasé about seeing zebra, water buck, etc. and were really only looking out for lions and cheetahs. We did miss a couple of lions by a few minutes as we found fresh tracks in the road close to the previous day’s sighting, but that was all.
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