23rd January - Safari - Arusha National Park

Today we went on safari in Arusha National Park, including a walking safari for half the day. This park often gets overlooked by visitors who merely spend a night in Arusha after their flight into Kilimanjaro airport, before heading off either up the mountain or off to the bigger and more well known parks on safari. We were taken out on a long hike by an armed ranger and although you couldn't describe the wildlife as particularly abundant, you do get up close to them!! We hiked upward and got some great views of Mount Meru.

We were standing just feet from these giraffe

Here the ranger explains that if these buffalo charge we must ditch our back packs so they have nothing for their horns to catch on when they attack! He does have a gun but there are a lot of them!!

Simon and the ranger at the bottom of a waterfall - see, he has got a gun!

The same waterfall

A friendly Baboon

The beautiful Acacia trees

There's also a great view of Kilimanjaro

and Mount Meru too

We returned to the land rover for the afternoon where we toured the lakes in the park and had a picnic above one of them. The birdlife we saw was a little far away for my camera but here's some flamingos.

After a long hot day we went back to Songota where we showered and Joice served us up a lovely 3 couse meal as usual and we had a couple of these

 

before retiring. Most nights of our holiday prior to going to Zanzibar, we were in bed before 9!!