Sanctuary Swala

We had breakfast before meeting up with the Sanctuary rep for our ride to the Arusha Airport for our onward trip to Tarangire National Park.

Dining room @ Arusha Coffee Lodge
Beef kebab and chapati for breakfast

The drive to the Arusha airport was only 10 minutes, and the airport itself was tiny, like all other regional airports in Africa.

Airstrip with all the planes
Passenger waiting area

The flight to the Kuro Airstrip within Tarangire park took only 20 minutes.

Cape buffalo skull on top an elephant skull

We were met by Samwell, our game drive driver for the next 2 days.  The drive to Sanctuary Swala would take an hour and a half, which served as a mini game drive.  If you ever plan to go to Tarangire, make sure not to wear dark colors such as black and blue, as those colors attract tse-tse flys.  Guess what colors I was wearing?  Black and blue and I was eaten alive en route to the camp.

We had fly swatters made out of cow tail hair in the open-side jeep.

Since last year’s trip to Bostwana, I’ve had a greater appreciation for birds.  The birds in Africa are especially colorful.

Superb starlings
Lilac breasted rollers
Guinea fowls, or what we called bush pigeon because they were everywhere like pigeons in the city.

Tarangire is know for it’s Boabab trees, which look different than the baobab trees in Madagascar.  I personally believe the Madagascar ones are much more dramatic, but the boababs in Tarangire were impressive in their size as well.

The trunk damaged by elephants.

Tarangire is also known for its elephants.

Elephant next to an acacia tree with the boabab behind the acacia.
The elephants in Tarangire take on a dusty orange hue due to the color of the soil, which they will cover themselves with.
This tree produces poisonous sap, which the Masaai warriors reportedly use on their spears

Animals along the way.

Impala
  • Masaai giraffes, which are darker than the southern giraffes found in Southern africa
  • Southern giraffes in Botswana
Kori Bustard – the largest flying bird.
  • Warthogs are hard to capture because they’re always on the run
 A black-backed jackal
and her well hidden pup
Southern ground hornbills can live up to the age of 70 in the wild.  The male has the colorful red neck, and the female is the plainer looking one – a recurring theme in nature.
 A male ostrich with it’s flaming red neck indicating he’s ready to mate.
Elands – largest antelopes

We finally arrived to the camp without seeing any predators.  The jackal pup was the highlight.

Sanctuary Swala
  • Common area
The fire pit
The large baobab on the grounds

We always like to travel around Thanksgiving because of the extra days we get off.  But also because most Americans are home celebrating Thanksgiving, and not a lot of people are traveling overseas.  This makes for less crowded traveling which we like.  Sanctuary Swala has 12 tents, and only 3 of them were occupied.  That goes to show how quiet it was, and this was a recurring theme at every camp we stayed at on this trip.

Our tent

Sanctuary Swala had just recently been renovated, so everything looked new and modern.

Modern decor with the ‘gym’ bag next to the umbrella stand.

One nice thing about all the Sanctuary accommodations is that they provide a ‘gym’ bag with yoga mats, weights, resistance bands for you to use in case you want to exercise while on vacation.  We never touched any of those bags during our trip.

Vervet monkeys all over the camp ground

After a nice lunch and siesta, we went on a short evening game drive, but didn’t really get to see much.  November is the low season when the dry season game have migrated out of the park.

Waterbuck – we were told no one (predators) likes to eat the waterbuck.  Look at that heart shaped nose.
Elephants munching on an acacia tree.  This tree was still green and lush on our way to the camp in the morning, but by the next morning, it was all but decimated.

We saw an amazing moon rise during dinner, and can honestly say it’s something we’ve never seen in our lives.  Didn’t get a photo of it, but it is forever ingrained in our minds.

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