DAY 93
We visit a few safari companies with Andreas and find something leaving 2 days from now. The rest of the day is entirely dedicated to chilling :D
DAY 94
Now that the safari business is settled, we can plan Zanzibar. In between power cuts we look for places to stay over there. The electricity problem in Moshi is another scandalous thing. Talking to the lady of the Hibiscus (I like the ring of it) we learn that a sugar company from Mauritius is installed nearby and produces its own electricity. It has more than enough and proposed the government to provide its excess to the region. It's enough to mostly solve the electricity problem Moshi has but the government refused. They then proposed to only step in when there's a power cut. The government refused again... I wouldn't be surprise that someone in the food chain was not getting anything out of it and so had no interest in making it happen, politics at its worst.
DAY 95
We've been trying to do a safari for some time now but it's finally here. And to top it off, the seats in the jeep have a leopard print cover. It has to be a good omen :D
Fun fact: they customize the Land cruiser here. There's no official safari edition with the pop-up roof, etc...
After Arusha we see small groups of Masai teenagers, very dark skin, black garment and white paintings on the face. They just became adults and are traveling around for a bit just like they do in tribal parts of Ethiopia. Their look is very striking. Much like in Ethiopia too, young kids are out shepherding. Some of the older shepherds (teenagers) have bicycle... strange sight :D
We arrive at Tarangire at noon and get started very quickly. The first to greet us is a family of impalas. Animals here seem to be very used to the circus of the cars going all over the place. We notice that the bark of the baobabs has been removed/eaten. Our guide tells us the culprits are the elephants, they eat it! The park is very hilly with quite a lot of vegetation which makes us wonder if it's going to be more difficult to spot the wildlife. No even 10 minutes into the game drive we have our answer, and it's a resounding no. It's a complete wildlife overload at the pond. 3 elephants drinking, hundreds of impalas, zebras, wildebeest, waterbucks, a giraffe crossing the road running... we're like kids in a candy store, pointing in all directions and marveling at the amount of animals all around us. And of course we start snapping pictures like Japanese tourists in front of the Eiffel tower :D In the middle of all that activity (both human and animal), a warthog family (Pumbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) is peacefully sleeping under a tree.
We break for lunch, still in disbelief about what we just saw. It's the customary overcooked chicken with “cream posing as cheese” sandwich... did I already talked about Tanzanian cuisine? Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if they served us they exact same meals as the ones we had in Kilimanjaro. It's already the same lunchbox. The beautiful blue birds don't seem to care and are eager to get a piece of our meal. To make sure we understand, they come quite close and stare at us!
Back on the road for more game drive, it's more of the same. Wildlife all over the place! We're blessed with great moments with a group of elephants. They have curious young ones with them but they stay well protected by the group and are obviously not allowed to come too close. It's fine, we don't want Mommy to get pissed at us either.
One addition to the second part of the game drive are the ostriches (ugly over-sized chicken if you ask me) and lionesses. We come across two of them, trying to sleep under their respective tree with 10 cars parked 10 meters from them... They are so beautiful and proud; but they also are big cats as they remind us at some point :D
The park is known for its huge population of elephants and at almost every turn there's a bunch of them. The majority is in the shade of a big tree during the afternoon but on our way out of the park, we see a family of elephants walking in line; the smallest in front and the tallest last (like the Daltons in Lucky Luke). We stop to watch and take a few pictures and it gets even more interesting. They quickly reach the river and start bathing themselves in mud. The young ones are very thorough with it as it can be expected. It's hilarious to see them rolling in the mud. When they exit, they are a much darker shade of gray (mud gray?) but they regain their dignity and walk away, once again in a line :D