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We arrived at Tarangire National Park which covers about 2600 sq km and is home to 3500 to 4000 elephants. This is a very attractive area for the elephants, since there are many trees, grasslands and a permanent source of water, the Tarangire River. After going over many speed bumps which our driver called "sleeping policemen", we spotted a clan of around 15 elephants. We learned elephants are matriarchal with the oldest female leading the way to new sources of water as needed. They are also very aggressive if there are baby elephants around. We passed by two old bull elephants happily throwing muddy water at themselves. This might feel good since it is very hot today. They also use their ears to help cool themselves. The blood circulating through their ears drops several degrees in temperature. I promptly called this "ear conditioning"!
We started off on our afternoon game drive around 3:30. We saw several Dik Diks, the smallest antelopes. We also saw a leopard turtle (coloring like a leopard) crossing the road. This may be the closest animal we see to a leopard today because there are very few cats in the park as there are relatively few smaller animals for them to prey upon. We also saw large groups of ostriches, with their young.
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We had our breakfast and were frustrated by those who do not understand the concept of waiting in line (annoying tourists! :). I have settled on a breakfast of a cheese omelet and toast. We checked out of the lodge and faced a 22 km drive on a very muddy, narrow, twisty mountain road which took about an hour. Our driver called it a free African massage. Since there was also some fog - there was nothing to enjoy on this ride, and we were glad to see the end. The paved road started from here, and after four days of safari driving, this looked like a major highway! We were back in civilization. Small villages, billboards, stores, electric lines and many people. It seems there are always people on the move, most are walking or riding bikes. We stopped for petrol and made a purchase of African cloth from a vendor right through the window of our vehicle. We then stopped at a very large gift area. So many carvings and African crafts. The prices seem to always start at double what you can end up paying if you know how to barter and seem to be willing to walk away. J&M were negotiating with a "sales clerk": they offered 40 and the clerk was at 50; finally the clerk said, "ok, you can purchase it for 30 if you give me 10"; so that's what they did.
During our drive, Nickson told us that the many unfinished houses are because people build incrementally after earning money following harvest. When their money runs out, they stop until next harvest. It takes many years for them to complete a house. Most of these newly constructed houses are made of brick, since the people are gradually moving away from traditional stick, grass and mud houses. He said that in the town of Kilimanjaro, were he lived and grew up, most people have adopted western ways, so they have tractors instead of oxen and they haul with trucks.
We drove by a herd of over 100 elephants. Boy I guess I was getting my wish to see elephants. Up ahead right next to the road was a very large elephant and as we got closer we realized this elephant was not the greeting committee. She charged her tusks towards us and then kept shaking her head and seemed to point with her trunk to keep moving. Of course she was just trying to keep us away from her calf. It was quite a thrill. She was only 3 feet from the side of the vehicle when she clearly decided to charge us, luckily Nickson was on the ball and gunned the engine taking us forward quickly. Needless to say neither of the people holding cameras did very well at capturing this scene because we were diving for cover! I think Mario got off a shaky one.
We passed many giraffe and made it to our lunch destination - another Sopa lodge. We enjoyed a buffet lunch (much better than our box lunches of several days). We took a swim in the pool and then relaxed. There were some annoying flies at the pool - looks like we are back in bug country! :)
Our driver passed a group of vechicles watching what we thought was a small group of elephants. It turned out that there were more on the other side of the road, and the overall herd had several of the cutest baby elephants we had seen. This herd was in the process of crossing the road in front of us, but they were angling closer to us as more of the herd crossed. Our driver was just telling us this one baby was about four months old when a big elephant came up on our right side and started shaking her head and acting agitated. Two or three of the babies started getting confused and started to run back towards us (they seemed to be charging us and getting agitated like there mothers). Then we noticed more elephants up ahead coming to the rescue. A lot of trumpeting noises, shaking of heads, spitting of water with several of the mothers yelling at us and at the same time trying to control there youngsters. Nickson could not back away because, by now, there were a line of safari vechicles in the road behind us. Nickson made a dash, straight through the line of elephants since some of them still had not crossed in front of us. We did make it to the other side of the herd so that we had a get-away path but while we were doing so, the elephants went crazy. Some of them jetted left, and then right, in an attack position - at least one running towards us as we sped away! The vehicles behind who were now trapped had to back up instead of going forward any more. Quite a memorable moment. 
From then on it was pretty uneventful if by that you mean more elephant and giraffe sightings, a flock of bright green lovebirds a brief rain storm and a beautiful rainbow. We called it a day at 6:30 and had an enjoyable dinner on our last evening.