March 11, 2025

Arusha, Tanzania to Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

Good morning. We are off to breakfast. All packed up and ready to go. Liliatu will be here at 08:30 to take us to the Arusha Airport for our flight to the Kuro Ranger Station in the Tarangire National Park. Being good campers we were all checked out and at the front desk waiting for her by 08:20.

She was a little early, but we put everything in the car and headed to the airport. The Arusha airport in just a small airport for serving domestic flights, from what I can tell they are mostly Safari tourist flights. We are on Auric Air.

We got to the airport and through security by about 08:40. The airport is fairly new and very modern. There are a couple shops and a café. There is a lounge, but I don’t know for whom. There is also an Asilia Lounge. We were taken to the lounge and offered a cup of tea.

No sooner than we had settled down to enjoy joy our tea than they called our flight. Wait, the flight is at 09:35, and it is only 09:00. Well apparently all four passengers and the pilot and co-pilot are here and ready to go, so lets go.

They put us into a mini van and drive away from the nice terminal. We drive about a kilometer to a paved area near the end of the runway. There are a couple different bush planes here. Ours is a twelve seater prop plane. We wait while they fuel the plane and then they board us.

This is a bush plane. You enter about two thirds the way down the fuselage through a small door. As you enter your luggage is to your left behind a cargo net. Boarding itself is made difficult because the isle between the seats is about 10” inches wide. There are four rows of seats. One seat on the left side and a bench seat for two people on the right. We sat in the last row rather then try and work on way to a more forward seat.

Well, because we are early and there are four passengers at the Kilimanjaro Airport who need to get to somewhere near where we are going, we’re going to take a slight detour and pick them up. Yes it is a scheduled airline. Yes there is a time table. But one needs to be flexible. So we fly in the opposite direction about 20 minutes and pick them up.

It is a group of four tourists from Honduras. We then take off and head for Kuro. The flight took about an hour and a half and we landed just abut 11:00. Along the way Mary struck up a conversation with one of the men from Honduras – a Trump supporter. It helped pass the time.

We landed on the Kuro Ranger Station grass airstrip  fairly near the time we were supposed to. The other couple, who got on with us in Arusha, also got off. They were greeted by their driver, and we were  greeted by Alex. Alex will be our driver and guide for the next four days. He suggested we take a long way to the lodge and have a little Safari on the way and have lunch at the lodge early afternoon.

Kuro Airport

Tarangire National Park lies between the meadows of the Masai Steppe to the southeast and the lakes of the Great Rift Vally to the north and west. It is the 6th largest national park in Tanzania and covers approximately 2,600 square kilometers or a little more than 1,000 square miles. It is slightly off the popular northern Tanzania Safari circuit.

The Tarangire River in the northern part of the park is the lifeline of the park. This is particularly true in the dry season when most of the region is totally dry. The river flows northwards until it exits the park in the northwestern corner and pours into Lake Burundi.

Tarangire park is home to one of the largest elephant populations in Africa. Apparently there are several herds of up to 300 members per herd. Alex tells us we will hopefully have an opportunity to see impalas, elands, buffaloes, giraffes, Bohor reedbucks, Coke’s hartebeest, Thompson’s gazelle and we may see the greater and lesser kudu. The park is also known as a place of cats, leopards, lions, hyenas and cheetah. Apparently, there are also over 545 different species of birds which have been identified in the park.

We our first stop is the ranger station, a newly constructed building along the airstrip, to register. After Alex finishes up the paperwork we head out on the safari towards our camp. Alex is taking the slow route back to the camp. It takes us nearly four hours to get to the camp, however along the way we see many great views. We also got to see several different birds, zebra, giraffes and monkeys.

We get to the camp just before 14:00. It is time for lunch. Lunch is a plate of roasted meat on skewers, rice carrots and onions and an avocado salad. Fortunately, I wasn’t too hungry and was able to skip the salad. After lunch we returned to our room.

Lunch

It is really hot! It is 32° C or about 90° F. It was simply too hot to do too much, so a nap seemed to be in order. It was almost too hot to even take a nap. About 17:30 the rain came down in buckets and really cooled things off. We’ll ok it seemed like it cooled things off but it was still 25° C or about 75° F. But I sure felt a whole lot cooler.

Around 18:00 we headed over to the lounge/bar area. At this camp the only place to get wi-fi is in the lounge. We played a game of Canasta and walked a short distance to the dinning room. We are the only guests at the lodge until Thursday or Friday.

Dinner was a cucumber and mint soup served with a cheesy garlic bread. The main course was tamarind roasted chicken served with cashew nut rice, roasted eggplant, stir-fried vegetables and kachumbari. They did offer a dessert but we couldn’t do it, we were just too full.

After dinner we returned to the room and called it a night. Mary had a little trouble falling asleep because of the animal calls outside the tent. She even accused my of playing a video game in bed – she did it in her sleep which makes it even funnier.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico and Maria.