The National Parks of Tanzania Tarangire

This park is not on the usual game touring routes making a visit here all the more special as you have a better chance at being a solitary visitor.  And, being solitary, your imagination can enjoy free rein in this place forgotten by time.

Probably the most noteworthy landscape features are the baobab trees.  Primitive and ancient (some get to be over a thousand years old) these “monster trees”� as our guide called them rise up from the hilly plains as a thick slabbed trunk top dressed with a spiky confusion of branches – definitely the stuff of nightmares.  Their unmistakable silhouettes are even visible in very young “baby baobabs.”�  Elephants do them a lot of damage and you’ll see few trees unmarked by holes and tusk rubbing scars.  They’re also home to the occasional snoozing python.  But perhaps what they do best is take center stage in photographs…like so much on this continent, they have to be seen to be believed.

Tarangire is one of the best parks for elephant viewing.  In the northern park regions along the Tarangire River there are great concentrations of many different species as the river is the area’s only fresh water source.  Bird species exceed 300, and other mammals numbered at greater than one thousand members counted include zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, eland, Masai giraffe and oryx.  Human encroachment on traditional migration routes have resulted in many animals making a year round home here.  With over a thousand square miles to the park – grasslands, acacia woodlands and swamps – Tarangire’s diversity and downright eerie atmosphere make it one of our favorites.