The road to Tarangire leads through a parched landscape where Maasai children herd goats and cattle; some look to be only six or seven years old. They run to the dusty road as we pass, holding their hands to their mouths indicating they want food. We are really struck by this – as proud as the Maasai are that they would allow their children to beg by the side of the road. And who stops and gives them anything? Has anyone ever? Or are we putting western values into the equation? But what a can of worms this opens. With as many goats and cattle as the Maasai have you’d assume there would be meat to eat or to barter for corn or millet. But Maasai (and other pastoralists) don’t eat their livestock. It is all for prestige; the more animals kept, the higher your standing. The pressure the cattle and goats put on the dry grazing land is extreme and leads to illegal grazing in the parks and poaching. The future is at stake here and right now it looks bleak as the dry landscape.
Tarangire Park gives respite to these troubling scenes. The park is fairly new, located below Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, and a river meanders through it. Even bigger baobabs than Ruaha Park grow here, as if to show up the trees in the south. At the public campsite elephant, giraffe, eland, impala, zebra and wildebeest wander by the first evening and an eland races past the truck after dark, running from who knows what. We are up early to explore. As the morning rolls on we find ourselves having coffee at the picnic site overlooking the river and as usual I find a bird to fixate on – the Ruppels Parrot. 
It is posing nicely, we admire it for a bit. Then suddenly there is a commotion directly below us in the riverbed. An impala and a waterbuck burst out of the bushes and right behind them is a lion giving chase. We see all of this from above, an uncommon view, and it is so cool. A second lion joins in but the hunt is unsuccessful even with us cheering them on, haha. The lion stroll off to give a herd of zebra a try. Unsuccessful again, they lay down in the shade. That they were hunting in the daytime is unusual; they looked quite healthy and it was almost as if they were just goofing off before it got too hot.
The iconic photo of Kilimanjaro, with the vast plain below it filled with animals, is taken from Tarangire and we drive over the hills to see this view. At last, here is Kili without cloud cover, standing tall on the plain. We chat with a fellow at the view point about game he is seeing in the park; he tells us there is a leopard kill in a tree on river route #4. Late in the day we park the truck there, and we wait. Vehicles come and go but since we are camping nearby we have plenty of time to get to our site by the appointed hour. So we do what we do best. We wait. It is finally quiet. I look at my bird book and Jim looks at photos. 
Movement in the bushes – and here is the leopard hoisting itself up the tree. It is simply stunning. Patience pays. We watch, take a few photos. The cat is shy and isn’t ready to dine on the impala while we sit there. We leave it be and wander off, back to camp. What a day.
In the night we hear many lion and we are off to find them before dawn. The plan is to go back to the leopard tree by way of the lion sounds – but we miss a turn. Not a problem. . . we drive through the half light and Jim slams on the brakes. The pride is laying in the road in front of us. “Nice spot” I tell Jim. Any less light and we’d have run over one of them. They are full of mischief this morning. The little one comes over to the window (yes, it is closed) then does a full truck inspection, as if to say “Now that’s a proper vehicle!” She motions her cousin over – “Check out this spare tire, cuz.” We are watching them in the rear view camera. Two more lion take a seat in front of us, hemming us in. Then a Land Rover pulls up behind us. The lions look up. They shrug. It’s just a Land Rover.
Finally they have had enough of us and the whole pride lies down in the rocks and falls asleep. We move on to enjoy more birds and mammals until it is time for us to relax around the fire at camp. We leave Tarangire for the road to Ngorongoro Crater tomorrow.
The ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar es Saleem holds nearly 1000 people and I would guess that half of them were sick on the voyage; seas were high and rough. Imagine a ship big enough to carry that many people being tossed about by the waves. I made my way to the outside deck, very carefully, and spent the trip out there having never before felt so seasick nor so happy to see land. Jim wasn’t bothered by the motion – I found him with his hat over his eyes trying to avoid the mess around him. We left Dar the next morning and only made it 90 kilometers, both of us a bit wrung out. Mount Kilimanjaro and Marangu town await and we commenced the long drive through desert landscape and sisal plant plantations. Row after row, acre after acre, the agave sisalana plants march toward Kilimanjaro. It appears the leaves are cut by hand – whew, what a job that is; the sharp points and razor edges of the leaves cannot be pleasant. Sisal is stripped and dried in the sun but we only see a couple small operations, this is not the cutting season.
Marangu is nestled in the foothills of the famous peak and is one of the four routes climbers use to ascent Kilimanjaro. The town is hilly and cool with tropical vegetation. Arabica coffee is grown here under banana trees; this type of coffee plant needs shade. What a great combination – coffee, our favorite drink, and bananas – one of our favorite foods. Kilimanjaro is hidden by clouds so we will have to make do with coffee. We find the Coffee Tree House Community Camp and arrange for a walking tour with William and Nelson, the camp liaisons. We walk downhill for an hour and I’m already thinking of taking one of the many bota-botas (small motorcycles) back up to camp when we are finished. 
First we visit the Chagga Caves. Chagga tribespeople dug a system of tunnels to hide themselves and their livestock from Maasai warriors intent on invading, stealing and killing. The tunnels bring to mind the Vietnamese who also lived in tunnels to hide from invaders. How the Chagga (and the Viet Cong) got enough calories to do such arduous work under such pressure is uncertain. There are only so many calories in rice. The Chagga Cave guide tells us of how the Chaggas fended off the Maasai with clubs and also took Maasai warriors as slaves. I suspect the Maasai tell the story a bit differently as they are were never enslaved by Arabs because of their fierceness. The caves are impressive. Happily now everyone gets along ok – the Maasai graze their cattle on the flats and the Chaggas use the foothills for agriculture.
Babu is a third-generation coffee plantation owner and he tours us around his plot. Like many people here on the slopes he raises his domestic goats and chickens in pens and cages. There isn’t enough land to graze them so fodder is found and brought to the animals – now that is a chore. The upside is that the manure is concentrated in one place and can be tilled into the coffee plot. Babu has some fresh picked beans and he takes us through the process – a hand peeler is used to remove the skins; he expertly tosses the dried beans in a basket while blowing on the chaff so it disperses. A timeless blackened clay pot is set on open flames (no
t coals) and the beans are roasted, turned constantly by Babu. He then sets them in the wooden pestle and we take turns pounding the beans to a powder. Some of the grind is combined with a couple spoonfuls of sugar and we eat that out of our hands – it is delicious. The rest of the grind is poured into boiling water for a cup of the freshest coffee ever. Maybe we don’t need a bota-bota ride up that hill after all.
The day is finished with a locals lunch at William and Nelson’s favorite pub. HipHop music blares and bota-bota boys try to attract our attention. We are targets, being white and obviously rich. We can ignore these silly boys. But even many months into our trip, we still get fleeced here – we are overcharged for camping fees and since we did not ask for a receipt, the Coffee Tree House manager demands we pay for camping again. He speaks almost no English so Jim sets up the translator for Kiswahili and we explain we already gave the money to William and Nelson. The manager either doesn’t get it or is pretending not to. It is not about the money – it is just that the next camper is going to be fleeced if we cave in (haha, that’s a good pun). We go to bed with the issue unresolved and next morning we ask the manager to call his buddies – everyone has a cell phone – but Nelson hangs up when he hears Jim’s voice. We ready the truck and honk the horn to be let out and unlikely as it seemed, the guy unlocks the gate and off we go. Being locked into a campground/yard is a problem we often face, so we happily leave Marangu and cloudy Kilimanjaro behind and head for Tarengire National Park where we are sure to be given a receipt for camping. Lesson learned.
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