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Tarangire & Swala Sanctuary – Where Wildlife Enjoys an Uneasy Truce

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Tarangire National Park feels different from the moment you arrive. The landscape is warmer, more golden, its air somehow heavier with scent and silence. Towering baobab trees stand like time-worn sentinels, their massive trunks anchoring a land that pulses with life in slower rhythms. This is a place shaped by the seasons, and by the wildlife.

On the road to Swala Camp we stopped to watch a beautiful leopard in a tree. He was kind enough to wait and give Lisa what I call her “money shot”, while I was lucky enough to take some keepers of my own. The big cat sat on a tree branch like it was a lounge chair, then moved gracefully and effortlessly down and merged with the hadows of the brush. It was the kind of encounter that etches itself into memory.

During our stay at Swala Sanctuary Camp, we were surrounded by a quiet, luxurious stillness. The camp itself felt like it was a part of the land, with canvas walls breathing in the morning sun and elephants meandering nearby through the trees. But it didn’t stay quiet for long. Our first night, we lay awake in the dark, listening to the unmistakable sound of lions roaring. Deep, guttural, and alarmingly close. The next morning, one of the Maasai guards told us he had counted three lions just outside the flap of our tent, responding to calls from others in the distance. It was breathtaking, humbling, and unforgettable.

We were there during the height of the dry season, when water becomes a magnet for life. Swala’s nearby watering hole was one of the only sources around, drawing elephants, impalas, zebras, and baboons. Alongside them came the predators that shadow their movements. Lions, leopards, and hyenas all came to drink under the same fading sun. They were separated by distance and instinct, yet bound to the same vital source. It was a place of quiet tension, where survival trumped fear and the dance between predator and prey played out just yards from where we sat.

This final leg of our journey was a winding down, but not a slowing. For us it was a kind of exhale, a time when we felt not just like observers of nature, but quiet guests in its home. 

Next stop, Beaches Resort in Zanzibar!

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