TARANGIRE

Area: 2,600 km²
Location: 120km south-west of Arusha
There is day after day of cloudless skies in Tarangire National Park. The fierce sun sucks the moisture from the landscape, baking the earth a dusty red, the withered grass as brittle as straw. The Tarangire river has shrivelled to and shadow of its wet season self. But it is chocked with wildlife. Thirsty nomads have wandered hundreds of parched kilometres knowing that here there, is always water. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch the parched riverbed for underground streams while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo gazelle, hart bees, eland and Oryx crowd the shrinking lagoons. It’s a smorgasbord for predators, the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem.

Located 120km from Arusha, Tarangire is the sixth largest park in Tanzania.With baobab and acacia trees, much like the Serengeti, Tarangire is home to a legions of elephants which inhabit this park in large herds. In the park you also find other game such as rhino, buffalo, eland, warthog, the fringe-eared oryx, lesser and greater kudu, gerenuk and a large number of impala.

Tarangire's pythons climb trees, as do its lions and leopards, lounging in the branches where the fruit of the sausage tree disguises the twitch of a tail.

Wildlife rhythms: Greatest large animal concentrations June to November. Eurasian bird migrants are present October to April.

Wildlife highlights: Dry season home to migratory mammals, such as plains zebras, wildebeests, gazelles, buffaloes, elands and fringe-eared oryxes. Ele¬phants are a prime attraction along the Tarangire River during the dry season and lions occur in good numbers. One of the very few places where there is a chance to see hunting dogs in Tanzania. Fabulous for birds (more than 450 species recorded in the park and over 500 in the broader ecosystem), especial¬ly raptors; three Tanzanian endemics easily seen.

Watching tips: This is one of the best places in Tanzania to come in the dry season (July to October) if you want to see large numbers of ungulates (at this time, many ungulates in the more famous Serengeti have migrated north to Kenya). The Lemiyon region beyond the park's north-east boundary offers great photo¬graphic opportunities: it is dotted by baobabs, inter¬spersed, in the dry season, with wildebeests and zebras. You are allowed out of vehicles in open areas.