Welcome to the fourth blog of my Tanzania series where I write about our adventures in Tanzania last summer. Arusha National Park is not the typical park you would expect from an African game reserve. At least, we didn't. The park is much greener and more hilly than we expected. There are forests, open grasslands with green grass and not yellow and some really nice mountain views. With a size of 552 square kilometres, the park is relatively small, compared to the other parks of Tanzania. But it does have a wide variety of wildlife. Despite the forested area, we did manage to spot a lot of animals... as you can see in the following shots.
The park has a lot of zebras. Here you can see a group of them in an open field. A beautiful sight with the mountains in the background. Did you know every zebra has an unique stripe pattern? It's just like a fingerprint. They use their stripes as camouflage and to recognize each other. And do you know if the zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes?
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They are black with white stripes.
We also spotted a lot of baboons. That wasn't too hard because a lot of times they were just sitting in front of us on the road like in the photo below. They are quite curious and also social animals. We've also seen a lot of little ones. This little one was being groomed. They remove parasites but also strengthen relationships within the group when do do it.
Arusha NP is famous for its black-and-white colobus monkeys. They have a beautiful, long white tail which they use to balance themselves when climbing and jumping from tree to tree.
This is a photo taken from one of the viewpoints in the park. It was quite a long and bumpy road to the top, but it was worth it. We had a perfect view over the park. You can see a group of, I think buffalos in the background. You can also see it's quite swampy too on some places. Arusha NP is at the foot of Mount Meru, which is 4,566 meters high. Rainfall on the mountain creates springs that end up in the park. This is one of the reasons why it is so green.
I just love warthogs. If you have seen Disneys Lion King movie, you must like these Pumbas. I have quite a bit of zoom capabilities on my camera, but we also could get pretty close to this fella.
This photo is a good example of the diversity of the wildlife of the park. In one shot I captured a white egret, a marabou stork, a warthog and a bushbuck (in the background). They all gathered around a small lake to eat and drink.
During game drives you mostly look out for large animals, but the tiny animals can be really interesting and beautiful as well. For instance these caterpillars... We both spotted these during toilet breaks.
The first one had remarkably long spikes on its back. It actually looks more like a Pokemon than an insect 😀
The second one looks nice and fluffy, like a stuffed animal. But I've learned that in Africa, it doesn't matter how small the animal is, you always should consider it to be dangerous. So no matter how big or small the animal is; no touching!
Well, this was in short our visit to the Arusha National Park. Thanks for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed it.
If you are also interested in the other blogs about our holiday, you can find them here, here and here!
And stay tuned, because there are still a few blogs to come!
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