Day 16: Ngorongoro to Tarangire to Airport

Today is our last wake up call in Tanzania. The higher elevation and the shady vegetation at Tortilis Camp kept temperatures a bit lower this morning. But when we awoke, the hot showers were ready to go at 5:45am sharp, exactly when the staff said they’d be ready. Hakuna Matata!

Early morning at Tortilis Camp

Loading up the luggage one last time

With our bags packed and portered, we gathered in the main tent for the breakfast buffet, settled our bar tabs, and tipped the staff for their generous service. Juma and Aidano finished re-puzzling our luggage into the back of the Land Crusiers and we were ready to hit the road at about 7am. Which one of our guides made closing the back door and spare tire rack of their vehicle look more dramatic? I’ll let you guess…

Today’s drive takes us back up past the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, through the misty exit of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and back down past Lake Manyara National Park. From there, we turn south and make a stop in Tarangire National Park before turning around and continuing east through Arusha to our final destination… the Kilimanjaro airport (good ol’ JRO).

Safari Day 6 drive (detail)

Volcanic soil makes for colorful landscape photos

Our first pit stop was the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Gate where we need to submit our permits in order to exit (so many permits!). But more importantly, this is where we saw those elephant pants earlier. We found our signature colors, attempted some negotiating, and secured the goods. Go team elephant pants!!! (Jo/Moody/Lily/Melanie/Emily) Very soon we were back in the car… AND back on a paved road for the first time in five days, which was quite a nice change.

Leaving Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Checking out the Crater during check out

Our route took us by the entrance to Lake Manyara National Park and Aidano was gracious enough to stop the vehicle when Matt said he needed to take a very important photo he missed earlier this week.

Rwar Rwar! First down, Fightin’ Tree-Climbing Lions!

Next stop, a bathroom break/gift shop! This is our last chance to get any other Tanzania souvenirs we’d like to take home. Our magnet and ornament quota has already been filled, so we focused on consumables, including some Kilimanjaro coffee beans and Konyagi, a popular local gin. We also bought a water buffalo stamp to “send” a post card that was purchased on day one and will be hand-delivered by Matt to his co-worker’s son Ben (FYI, mailboxes don’t really exist here). Finally, we found a little malachite statue of a lion that Jo couldn’t resist.

Finally found a meerkat in Tanzania

Water Buffalo finally getting some respect

Our goal was to arrive at Tarangire by noon, and after making a couple turns off the more populated main roads, we pulled up to the gates of the park at roughly 11:30am. Making good time!

7km to the park entrance, it’s a bit more urban here than the Serengeti

The tagline for Tarangire National Park is “The Elephant’s Paradise” so there are DEFINITELY going to be some elephants here, right? Right?!? This park is known to be the home to over 300 of them. However, today they wanted to play hide and seek. We drove around and searched for elephants for an hour with no luck. We did see some zebras, giraffes, monkeys, warthogs, and a lizard though, so not a total loss.

You can see elephants here in the dry season

You can see elephants here in the wet season

But you can’t see any elephants today!

Will you accept warthogs instead?

One thing we did see was the famous Baobab trees. The park has some that are up to 5,000 years old (not a typo). This led us to search for young baobab trees to see what they would look like (surprisingly few). The bark of the baobab trees hold moisture, so in the dry season, animals will survive by eating the bark to get moisture. You know, animals like elephants.

Baobab tree, aka. “Tree of Life”

We stopped for lunch in the designated area. The picnic tables were situated inside a large cage. While there were some zebras and other animals nearby, we figured the cage was actually to keep the monkeys out. They were very crafty and consistently plotting ways to get food near the picnic area. We watched a pair of them working together as they attempted to infiltrate another company’s safari car through the open roof.

Heed the lunch area warning

The sign is referring to this guy and his cohorts

Now look who’s in the cages!

By the way, another hot take regarding game drives and lunches… maybe your stomach doesn’t feel great during a safari because you have no chance to digest breakfast while you are getting shaken to death in a Land Cruiser for four hours, and on top of that, you try to eat lunch and that’s gonna make you feel even more bloated. Or maybe Matt’s stomach isn’t back to 100% yet. Anyways, the chocolates and chips made a re-appearance in the lunch boxes, and nobody is complaining about that! 🙂

Needing to stay on schedule to get to the airport by 6pm, we started to drive back to the park’s exit. Were we really going to be shut out of pachyderm sightings in Tanzania’s official Elephant’s Paradise?!? Well lo and behold, about 10 minutes from the exit, Juma spotted about seven elephants a distance off the road. They were close enough to see without binoculars, but still a bit hidden in the bush. Thanks for making an appearance, you guys!

We exited Tarangire’s gates and navigated our way back to the main road. Juma slowed down and bought a couple Baobab tree fruits from a kid for show-and-tell-and-taste at our final pit stop. Meanwhile, Aidano did his best not to run over those kids when they carelessly jumped/rode in front of his jeep, making his best dad-face grimace and telling them to behave better (paraphrasing, of course).

The drive from Tarangire to the airport was roughly another four hours. Much of that time was spent in some crazy slow (Saturday rush hour?) traffic as we attempted to pass thru the city of Arusha. Eventually, we skirted around the city on a bypass route and continued toward the airport. For a few minutes, the sporadic clouds cooperated, and we were afforded a final glimpse at Kilimanjaro peeking thru the skyline to the northeast.

Diving back to JRO… one last peek of Kilimanjaro thru the clouds

A few miles before the airport, we stopped for our final pit stop to take our good-bye group photos, trade Instagram handles, and sample the baobab tree fruit Juma procured earlier. The results? Well, it was a little bit like unsweetened astronaut ice cream. Not too bad. Or as Aidano warned us, “Be careful, you’re gonna need some sugar with that!” Ah, classic Aidano. But then again, do you know which guide is gonna make sure you get to the airport at 6pm if that’s when you need to be at the airport? You know who!

Final group shot

This guy knows what he’s doing!

After arriving at the airport, we said goodbye to Juma and Aidano, performed some necessary luggage re-packing in the parking lot (stashed that coffee and gin in our checked baggage), and strolled up to the check-in desks. There wasn’t much of a rush, as we had to wait in line for customs to open anyways.

Once it did, we got through security and had plenty of time to relax before the flight. We wandered the gate area for a while, checking out a few little stores. But we had successfully purchased everything we wanted and did not need to buy anything else. Then we determined that between us and the Dallys we had enough lounge guest passes for everyone. So we proceeded to have dinner and enjoy the fancy lounge life with our remaining time before boarding.

IS.. THIS… THE… TANZANITE EXPERIENCE?!?! OMG!!!!

That’s our plane!

The first flight was direct to Amsterdam, but with a stop in Dar es Salaam. Some passengers got off while others boarded. Anyone continuing to Amsterdam stayed on the plane. The process took about an hour and we were off again. We paid for exit row seats, which was nice considering the extra time added on the flight with the pit stop.

Dar es Salaam

Next stop, Amsterdam

Once we arrived in Amsterdam, the group scattered to catch their next flights. Adam had a tight connection and left right away to get to his gate. Emily had a seven-hour layover and immediately fled the airport into Amsterdam for a plant show. We hung out with the Cordinas until their boarding time arrived about an hour later. Aaron’s flight was supposed to depart 20 mins after the Cordinas, but got delayed five hours. So he hung out with us in the Priority Pass lounge… which we finally managed to enter after spending a hour at Starbucks. (FYI, Priority Pass is pretty lame these days.)

Splitting up to get our flights back home

Bye everyone!

We said goodbye to Aaron and boarded our flight back to O’Hare. Everything went well and we landed on time. Thanks to Global Entry, we went through customs in about 12 seconds, but then waited an hour for our bags. We decided to take a taxi home to save some time. There was a line to get a taxi, and the usual Chicago traffic, but it still helped. We made it home at about 4:30pm and immediately went to pick up Poe (they close at 5:00pm). Happy to be back home, we unpacked and went to bed early to try to get back on Chicago time.