Horses have nothing on elephants.

I'm pretty sure I heard hyenas last night; based on John's rendition of their calls. I might have heard a lion roar, but it could have also been someone snoring in another tent. I'm also pretty sure that I heard elephants trumpeting at some point, too.

We were asleep by 9pm last night. I'm still suffering from some jet lag, and I think our circadian rhythms are changing to adapt to the lack of light and other stimuli out here in the bush. The downside of being asleep so early is that we got up really early, too, like around 5 or 5:30. We got to hear the natural wakeup call with the bugs and birds sensing the arrival of the sunrise and the tent got brighter and brighter. Since our tent is kind of private (we're the 2nd to last tent and have some dense acacia bushes between us and our neighbors), we had all of our flaps open to encourage a nice breeze through the tent.

Unlike dinner, breakfast is buffet-style with a small selection of cereals, porridge, fresh fruit, bacon (I think pork bacon), and crepes. Once we sat down, some of the camp staff came around asking how we would like our eggs. "Cheese omelette, please" I said. There's so much food that I might actually gain weight on this trip.

Today we decided to ride in Kumbi's jeep and Scott and Karan decided the same thing. Eventually we'll ride with some of the other guests, but there's lots of game drives yet to go.

From the get-go, it was apparent that Kumbi has an eagle eye, especially for birds. It has also become apparent that we are already desensitized to certain animals that we see, like the ubiquitous Impala or the slightly less ubiquitous Warthog (or "warty" or "pumba"). How long before we are not impressed by hardly anything?

In general the day was amazing. The first half of the day we spent following the course of the Tarangire river; since eventually every animal in the park will make its way to water and the Tarangire river is the primary source of fresh water here. Kumbi spotted a pair of "dik dik"s resting/hiding in the shade of an acacia bush. They're so small and cute, like you could take one home as a pet. Full grown they're only about 12" high at the shoulder. We spent a few minutes or so watching a couple ostriches. Such weird looking birds. We saw an old elephant carcass; just skin and bleached out bones.

We saw another lion today, too. It was a young male who was resting behind a rock when he was spooked by the arrival of a family of elephants coming down to the river. He headed out back towards the woods Angela was beside herself with this family because there was a very tiny baby in their number. Very tiny as in less than 2 weeks old (according to Kumbi). He or she was so adorable. When the little babies run to catch up their ears flare out and flap and they have to hold their little trunks up to keep from tripping over them. It's so amazing to see the females take so much care of the babies in the family, and not just the baby's mother. In the elephant world, it really is a village raising the children. We followed this family down the river to a wider part of the river where several other families were converging. There might have been 50 or so elephants there.

By this time, we'd been out for a couple hours and it was time to take a bio-break. There was a picnic area up on a ridge overlooking this part of the river, so everyone was able to do their business (in a very nice bathroom, by the way) and we were able to get a nice look at the section of the river where we just came from.

Activity down at the river was increasing as everyone was coming down for a nice refreshing bath in the cool water, so we went back down to get in the middle of the action and maybe have some more close elephant encounters. We saw tons of cool behavior from the elephants. We saw juvenile males fighting a little bit to establish their position in the mating pecking order. We saw two other "ellies" in what looked like sexy-time, but it turned out to be 2 adolescent males "play mating" (not that there's anything wrong with it). That was a strange sight, especially considering that the "receiver" didn't seem to mind too much being mounted and almost violated. For the record, the phrase should officially change to "hung like an elephant."

Sadly, we couldn't stay and watch these elephants interact forever. It was time to head to our picnic spot for lunch. On the way there, and while we were watching a vervet monkey, the monkey started raising the predator alarm. All of the impala in the area took heed, and Kumbi peered into the distance in the direction that the monkey was looking. We waited with bated breath for 10 minutes, all looking downrange for the signs of leopard or lion or cheetah. Nothing; not real sure what the monkey was barking about (maybe it was us?), so we proceeded to our picnic spot overlooking the Tarangire Swamp. What a different landscape this was! No trees; just lush green marsh grass.

Lunch was so much more than a picnic lunch. John, Leonard, and Kumbi brought out the picnic boxes full of real plates and silverware and tins of food that was prepared back at the camp I guess this morning. There was fresh fruit, grilled beef, grilled vegetables like cassava and carrots, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

We spent the remainder of the day watching the elephants down by the swamp. We (and by "we" I mean just the 5 of us city folk in the jeep, not Kumbi) had a nervous couple minutes when an adolescent male elephant made like he was going to charge the rover a couple times. He would trumpet; growl a little; flare his ears out; and then back down before deciding that he'd rather eat some grass.

One thing we noticed that was funny is how the elephants would scrape off the dried mud after they were through wallowing. They'd find a nice fallen tree or large trunk and just rub against it until they had scraped it all off. They would straddle low limbs to scrape the mud off their bellies; would rub their hind quarters back and forth. Eventually we were able to spot the popular "scratching posts" by looking for tree trunks that had been rubbed smooth.

We had another "Hakuna Matata" celebration at dinner as a new safari group that arrived today was celebrating a birthday in their group. Apparently 3 of them were repeat Thomson guests and there was quite a reunion between them and John and Leonard. Evidently, They were doing a short safari after a Kili trek. One of them didn't make it all the way to the top, and she was clearly disappointed, but the other 4 travelers had all made it up.

Tomorrow we're heading out from Tarangire to the Ngorongoro Crater by way of Gibb's Farm for lunch and some other cooperative gift shop for more shopping. "Jambo Jambo" is at 6:30, breakfast at 7, and departure at 8.

What a great day. Sad that we didn't see more predators, but the elephants were amazing. Karan's "ledger" had us seeing over 40 different species of animals today. It's mostly birds, but damn!