Night Game Drive in Tarangire

Tarangire is one of the few parks on the northern safari circuit where night drives are permitted, giving guests at Tarangire Nature Camp exclusive access to an entirely different cast of wildlife. Departing shortly after dinner, you set out into the African night with your guide operating a handheld spotlight that sweeps across the baobab woodland and open grasslands.

The spotlight reveals creatures that are rarely, if ever, seen during the day. Aardvarks emerge from their subterranean burrows to raid the park's abundant termite mounds, their long snouts and rabbit-like ears unmistakable in the beam. African civets patrol their territories with a measured, cat-like gait. Bat-eared foxes use their enormous, satellite-dish ears to detect beetle larvae moving underground. Spring hares bounce through the grass like miniature kangaroos, and genets slink along branches overhead, their spotted coats rippling as they hunt roosting birds.

The big predators are the main event. Lions are primarily nocturnal hunters, and encountering a pride on the move under cover of darkness is an entirely different experience from a daytime sighting. You witness the tension, the silent coordination, the explosive bursts of speed that daylight rarely reveals. Leopards, too, are far more active at night, and your chances of a sighting increase dramatically on a night drive. Spotted hyenas are at their most vocal and social, their whooping calls echoing across the darkening plains as clans communicate over vast distances. The two-hour drive returns you to camp under a sky blazing with stars, the Milky Way arching overhead with a clarity that only the African bush can deliver.