Safari Day 3

Day 3 started out early in the morning. We got up before dawn, had some coffee and headed out. Our goal that morning was to see some of the lions we had heard the previous morning. Our guide, Adam, thought the best place to see them would be down by the river at dawn.

So, bleary eyed but excited, we went out in search of lions. The first thing we saw that morning were eland. The eland were aggressively hunted at one time, so it's rare to see them today in Tarangire:



We were even able to get fairly close to the eland:



After the eland, we had another fortunate encounter with a pair of jackal pups playing by the trail we took. They were black-backed jackals, and I think this is the closest we ever got to a jackal on the entire trip.



A little while later, the sun finally crested the horizon, and we were happy to see the dawn. It was a great view, and it brought some welcome warmth to the air.



We continued our drive down into the river valley. One thing we all noticed was that we started seeing a lot of vultures.



There were other birds of prey about as well:



While the evidence was all around us that lions were active in the area, we didn't spot any of them. It seemed that they had made a kill in the night or the previous evening and were now sleeping off their feast.

We were treated with a sight of elephants wallowing in a mud pit:



We also got a close up look at some Acacia trees and the amazing thorns they have. I still have a hard time believing that the elephant can eat these without pain.



After the morning game drive, we had to pack up and hit the road. This was our last day in Tarangire, and we were now headed off toward the Ngorongoro conservation area. It would take us the rest of the day, plus a good piece of the next day to reach Ngorongoro and that evening we stopped at a place called Gibb's Farm, which is a coffee plantation with a great view.



We spent the night at Gibb's farm for some great food, and a hot bath.

There are more pictures from this third day on my Flickr account, and for more on the safari see Africa Safari.