A is for Africa

When I visited Tanzania with my Dad several months ago, I knew we would be seeing animals. That was a given. Equipped with my Zeiss Victory FL 7×42 binoculars and a Nikon D40 camera, I had flawless views, and as evidenced above, I came home with some really nice photographs. But almost as much as the memory of this giraffe family, some of my most favorite and lasting memories of Tanzania would be of the remarkable trees. Case in point: The incredible Baobab tree.

The Baobab grows to be so enormous that they were completely different from any tree I knew or had seen before. I was mesmerized, and took every opportunity to photograph them: the denizens of the Tanzanian landscape.

Even the tallest animals were dwarfed by the Baobab’s majestic presence.  This individual Baobab must be hundreds of years old. Radio-carbon dating has shown they can live to be over a thousand!

A stem-succulent, the Baobab tree has the ability to store water which is tapped by elephants during the dry season. When our guide drove our vehicle closer, we could see evidence of the elephants’ scapings along the length of the trunk in their quest for water.  Truly magnificent!