Not Quite the Easter Bunny!!

Chalk up another new experience...waking from a pup tent in Arusha National Park (where my friend and colleague Corey & I were the only campers in the entire place) to the sight of the Easter warthog and her two young ones contentedly grazing a stone's throw from our camp. She initially inspired thoughts of bacon for breakfast, but we let that pass and settled for watching the wee ones tussle about in mock fights between munchings.

We spent 24 hours in the park, mostly puttering along nasty roads through the rainforest, up the slopes of the mountain and along the lip of a crater. Arusha Park is relatively little-visited compared to the far more famous (and expensive) National Parks in Tanzania. Supposedly it offers limited opportunity for wildlife sightings and such. However, we saw zebra, buffalo, various gazelle-like critters, colobus and blue monkeys, baboons, some great birds and brilliant butterflies. And, after spotting piles of coconut-sized elephant poo every few meters along the road to a viewing spot at about 2000 feet, we were thrilled to see a small herd of forest elephants who were happy to pose for a photo shoot. Only thing we'd hoped to catch of a glimpse of, and didn't, was a leopard. Oh well, got to save something for another day!