Day three, we were up
at a decent time, got breakfast (another great one) and then our pack lunches,
and headed off for Lake Manyara National Park.
This park is known for its tree climbing lions (which really are tough to find but aren't that unusual) and the fact that it
borders that big lake we were supposed to be up close to with our lodge (but had
dried up so that the shoreline was at least a km away). It is also tucked right up against the rift
valley escarpment so unlike Tarangira, gets a fair bit of rain. We first stopped at the park entrance so that
Sam could pay the fees and get our pass while we explored the information
centre and a small trail crawling with monkeys, iguna’s and dozens of different
birds. They also explained about the
rift valley (the contintental plates are separating allowing volcanos like
Kilamonjaro to spring up between them.
Its also the cradle of human existence as not far from here in the
Oldavi Gorge is where they found the first humanlike foot prints from 3.5M
years ago – which coincidentally, we’d seen casts of at the American Museum of
Natural History in NYC only 4 days prior to!
They also had a movie poster from
the film Hatari! I talked about last post.
Being the big John Wayne fan that I am, I quite enjoyed this! Unfortunately, the Rhino’s that they had
filmed at the time are all gone from here now.
We then all piled back in the Land Cruiser and headed off
into a thick forest (quite a change from Tarangira!) and immediately had to
come to screaming halt to allow a large troop of Baboons to cross the
road! They are much fun to watch and
little did we know that we’d see thousands of them over the next few days, but
these ones kept us well entertained for about 15 minutes!
It's Rafiki!
No sign of those tree climbing lions but
lots of Giraffes, Zebras, Impalas and so forth.
About 10kms in, we came around a big corner and came upon a large group
of elephants munching away at the bushes…
they were on both sides of us, and we were quite enthralled. Then, Sam noticed that the rear tire had developed
a leak again (we could hear it!). This
obviously wasn’t a great spot to change a tire, so he drove around the next
corner and the two of us got out and jacked it up to replace it. It was clear that the tube had been punctured
somehow as the air was leaking out around the valve stem. Anyway, it took us about 10 minutes to replace
the tire with one of the spares before we were on our way again.
From this side of the lake, the shoreline was much closer to
us, and we could see dozens of Giraffes, Zebra’s, Wildebeests, and even
warthogs. We came upon troop after troop
of Baboons as well. Then we drove to a
nice area by the end of the trees before the long grassy plain before the
lake. Far off in the distance we could
see tens of thousands of Pink Flamingo’s and of course those other animals all
enjoying the grass. After lunch, Sam
took us on a wild race down the bumpy roads to the hot springs. Not a lot of water coming out, but it was
very hot. About 60 degrees Celcius Sam
said. Then off in the distance, we could
see a small mud hole… with large animals moving around… turns out they are Hippos! Well this really got our attention! Though they were too far away to see well
with the naked eye, we watched for 15 minutes or so with the binoculars as we
could see them moving around and yawning…
then back in the vehicle for the race back to the gate before Park
closing when we noticed another sign pointing to a hippo pool, so we directed
Sam to go there for a few minutes. Here
we could see them from about 100’ away.
It was getting dark, so we had to run as we had to get to our next
“lodge”.
Out of the park gates, it was a quick, winding climb up the
rift escarpment… and wow… what views!
Then a long bumpy dirt road into the lodge past mud huts and very poor
(but seemingly happy) people. We came
across a nice stone building marked reception, got out and were greeted with
the traditional juice drinks to quench your dry palate as we checked in. Then the porters grabbed our bags and took
off towards our rooms. WOW!!!! Remember the tents from the previous
place? Well these were nearly as nice…
but were mounted RIGHT on the edge of the escarpment so that each had a large
deck patio overlooking the entire plains 2000’ below. We
arrived there right at sunset and the sight of the reds over the plains and
mountains of central Tanzania along with towering Cumulonimbus clouds was
nothing short of astonishing. We were
rapidly falling in love with this way of life!
Wow...
Another quick shower to wash off the dust and then into the open air
restaurant on the escarpment for a great gourmet dinner. Back to the rooms for another early night as
we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow with a 4.5 hour drive to the Serengeti!
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