In Search of Elephants

Tarangire National Park is Tanzania’s third biggest attraction, after the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. At 2600 square kilometers, it’s just under half the area of Serengeti, and the terrain couldn’t be more different. Rolling green hills, scattered palms and many iconic baobab trees dot the landscape, and in places it looks like it could easily be converted to a golf course.

Those 2600 square kilometers host 4-5000 elephants, and a single herd can reach 300. We began spotting them almost as soon as we cleared the entrance gates, and the herds got larger as we probed deeper into the park.

It was an extraordinary day, and I’ll write more later, after I’ve gone through the 350 photos I shot there. In the meantime, here are just a few of the wonderful animals we met today.