Times in Tanzania: Arusha National Park: Trip V

Ana taking in the view.

Our latest trip to Arusha National Park (ANP) (Trip I, Trip II, Trip III, Trip IV) was a lot of fun and certainly a bit different than our previous trips. We love ANP for a variety of reasons; it's less than an hour away, it's one of the cheaper national parks ($22.50 p/p), it is known for having a variety of birds, it is not very crowded, and it has a variety of habitats from montane rainforest to lakes and woodland. The biggest drawbacks, with nearly all the national parks, is that you have to drive pretty much the whole day, unless you want to pay an additional $20 p/p for a guide. I'm sure we'll do it someday but it seems a bit much to pay $45 a person to go on a hike, especially considering we know several other spots in the region that are literally free. This is also the reason we have never gone to Kilimanjaro National Park as the park fees are $35 fee, $20 guide, and $20 rescue fee which means it would be $75 for a walk in the park. Which to me, is crazy. AND that is half off the entry fee since we are residents of East Africa, otherwise it would be $110 for the average tourist. But I digress....

We reached the park gate at 8AM and unlike the busier parks (Serengeti, etc), the registration took five minutes and no one else was there. We had heard there were a few new loops in one of the forest areas so we set out explore. Although you can not go on a proper "hike" without a guide, you are allowed to be 25m from your car AND since ANP is so sparsely visited (and patrolled) I'll admit to pushing the rules.

Well, today wasn't a day that I was going to push the rules because it just so happened there was an infestation of tsetse flies. If you're unfamiliar with tsetse flies, they are a large fly that bites and transmits a handful of nasty diseases. They are also attracted to movement and forested areas. Which means our car attracted a slow building cloud of tsetse flies that were present in such numbers that it sounded like rain was coming down when in actuality it was thousand of tsetse flies trying to enter the car. This was unfortunate because we couldn't have the windows down and thus couldn't see or hear very good as well being extremely hot and stuffy. After about a half hour we both knew what each other was thinking, which was something along the lines of, "uh, what are we doing here?".

We finally acknowledged the challenges of the forest area and agreed to get the hell out of that section and head to the lakes and open plains. Spirits were a bit low but it was still very early in the day so we weren't too worried. We eventually made it out to the "Little Serengeti" part of ANP which really boosted our spirits. The section of the park has a small plain full of zebra, giraffe, waterbuck, warthog and buffalo. Mt. Meru is a striking background with its lush green slopes and cloud cover.

Little Serengeti with Mt. Meru in the background.

The rest of the day was somewhat uneventful. We visited the lakes which had very low water levels and very little wildlife. It started to rain when we were there which wasn't bad timing since it allowed us to drive straight to another section of the park. As birders we often move at a very slow pace and don't cover much ground but the rain gave the perfect excuse to drive for a half hour to a small crater on the south east side of the park. You can drive up the crater rim into stunning montane rainforest and view a spectacular view of the crater from above.

We were sad to leave the park at 6:00pm but it had been a long day. We made a mental note to never again visit the park in March but I'm sure we'll be back sooner rather than later!