Site Report: Arusha National Park

Visits

• 2025-01-27: After a very long flight from Spain via Istanbul, we finally arrived in Arusha at about 3 AM. As everyone stood up to get their bags, some idiot decided that because he has a baby (not with him, but somewhere, I guess), that he must get off the plane first, trying to push his way through all the people. Of course, he barely got anywhere. Once we got off the plane, I saw entitled baby guy pushing his way to the front of the immigration line. I guess he thought someone would arrange a taxi for his baby too, as I saw him with his wife and baby waiting outside at 4 AM after I finally got through immigration as one of the last people in line... Arriving at the hotel, I heard a wood owl next to our cabin to start the festivities. Waking up early for a decompression day, we walked around in the area around our hotel and outside of the national park. We got caught up in a strong downpour of rain on one of our hikes which we waited out inside a shack with a local family. One of the kids, who must have been about three years old, was very interested in looking at the photos on Barbara's camera. He knew how to use the smart phone, and he must have looked at every photo. Later that night, I was looking for moths outside of our room when I saw a black snake curled up in the corner. I heard about it being a black mamba and a spitting cobra from various locals, but in the end, I think it is a harmless egg-eating snake.
• 2025-01-28: After our decompression day, it was time to start the expensive part of the trip with a safari into Arusha National Park. We were not really looking for the "big 5", so it was going to be fine to go to Arusha where we could walk around a bit to look for a bunch of birds from my target list among other things. We drove over to the Momela Lakes area where we went on a short walking safari with the armed ranger to view a waterfall. There were giraffes walking all around us in this area. After visiting the giraffe area, we headed over to the lakes for a bit. We found a lot of grebes and some shorebirds in the area. Finally, we drove to the Mount Mikindu viewpoint to walk around a bit in the forest. We were lucky to find a mixed flock of bird species on the top.
• 2025-01-29: We planned a second day in the national park so that we could visit some of the places that we did not have time for the previous day. Starting out, we drove up to the special "tunnel fig" tree and the trailhead for the Mount Meru crater. On the way up, we were treated to some very clear views of Mount Kilimanjaro covered with snow. Mount Meru also had a dusting of snow. However, we were not seeing a whole lot of bird life in that area. While we were getting in and out of the car, Barbara's laser pointer went missing. Hoping that it was lost rather than stolen... After lunch, we headed back up to the Ngurdoto Crater area. It started raining quite heavily, and there was not nearly the activity that we had the previous day unless you want to count the thousand frogs crossing the road.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Africa
• World

Trips

• Tanzania