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.