After conquering Mt Meru and then Mt Kilimanjaro, you would have thought I\u2019d be done with this trip and my body wouldn\u2019t be able to move for a month afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of me did feel that way. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But after a celebratory lunch with all of the hikers, guides, cook, and porters at a restaurant in Moshi and getting a hot shower and a good night\u2019s sleep in a real bed in Arusha, I was mostly feeling human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mostly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If and when my body REALLY started to feel the pain of the past two weeks of hiking, the last place I wanted to be was sandwiched into a tiny economy seat on an airplane for 24+ hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that\u2019s the main reason I had planed a safari for the end of this trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, you HAD to do a safari when you went to Africa or you really didn\u2019t go to Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did enjoy nature and animals, but I usually didn\u2019t have the patience to wait for animals to show up when I was hiking. So being able to take an organized safari trip to areas with a large number of exotic animals that you can\u2019t see in California outside of a zoo was very appealing to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I would have liked to have gone to the Serengeti for the safari, that time of year you would have to travel to the northern part to see the animals and that would take almost 2 days of travel just to get there. So I settled for some nice parks near Arusha over 4 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stayed at a slightly nicer hotel in Arusha than I had before my treks. Particularly since the Outpost Lodge wasn\u2019t available for one of the nights, but also since the Zawadi House had air conditioning, reportedly better hot water availability, and the rooms were a little bit of an upgrade over the Outpost Lodge. After Kilimanjaro, I could use a little bit of luxury to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day 1<\/span> Didn\u2019t take long to see some Blue Monkeys, Impalas, Zebras, Giraffes, and Waterbucks. One interning sight was a pair of Mongooses calling out to each other as they scanned the area for danger (check the movie links directly below for what that looked and sounded like).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We drove from Arusha to Tarangire to start our safari. This is a huge park with a lot of wide open plains and a major river flowing through it during the wet season (but was mostly dry in October).<\/p>\n\n\n\n