We found Elephants! Yesterday at Ngorongoro Crater we saw one or two elephants REALLY far away and no Giraffes. Our guide told us Lake Manyara is the place and sure enough we drove in the park and saw fresh elephant remains immediately followed by elephants everywhere. The best was the baby elephant that was just learning to walk. It would take a couple steps and face plant into the dust. Here comes the Star Wars geek in me with this analogy, but watching him trying to walk reminded me of the Imperial Walker things from Return of the Jedi in the jungle with the ewoks (no ewoks sightings here unfortunately). Anyway, check out the video and you can see for yourself how cute he is.
As for the monkey picture . . . no, I did not use photoshop to enhance this photo in any way. This is a Vervet Monkey, aka Blue-Balled Monkey. Maybe it's a distant relative to the Blue-Footed Boobies from the Galapagos Islands?
Other notable sightings were some more hippos, a really colorful bird whose name I forget and from REALLY far, far away, with binoculars, we could see a giraffe. We were all a
little disappointed to not see more giraffes, but I guess you can't 'order' your animal sightings in a wild park.
We left the park and began our two hour trek back to Tengeru to get ready for our second week of work. About a half hour into our trip back, our driver pulled off the road very quickly. I assumed we had a flat tire or something, but no, he spotted giraffes on off to the right. Sure enough, there were 3 - 4 giraffes and a couple of zebras hanging out off in the distance. This is when you really realize you're in Africa and not San Diego Wild Animal Park. It would be like leaving the Animal Park and seeing a bunch of giraffes hanging out on the 5 freeway. Pretty amazing.
Videos from "Safari Day 2 ":
No More BananasAll the shops leaving the park. I'm done eating bananas for a while.
Tanzania's Flag
Map of Tanzania