African Safari - Elephants in Lake Manyara

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We spent 5 days in Tanzanian wilderness, visiting Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater. The Safari started from Outpost Lodge in Arusha where our guide/driver Fratern and cook Msafiri picked us up on January 5th 2010. Arusha and Moshi are beautiful green towns, but once we got out of Arusha, it was lush tropical green on both sides of the road. The green plains were dotted with Maasai homesteads and brightly coloured Maasai people grazing their cattle.

Lake Manyara

Our first destination was Lake Manyara. Its a huge lake in the shadow of Great Rift Valley. The drive to Lake was short. We camped at a campsite just outside Lake Manyara National Park called Twiga. Its a campsite and lodge, with swimming pool etc. Honestly after 6 nights of camping on the mountain I was not really looking forward to spending 4 more nights in a tiny camp. So I was quite relieved to find that the tent was huge standing tent. It was also nice and warm.
After settling down into the tent we started off for a game drive at Lake Manyara. The national park is a very dense tropical forest. This was the first game drive and I had no idea what to expect. First few things we saw were monkeys and baboons. Soon I spotted some elephants in trees, quite happy to see them. Then came lots of impalas. I was still not very impressed though, but we had 4 more days to go.
Next stop was a hippo pool where we saw lot of hippos in water, some splashing. In the far we could see buffalos and wildebeasts. That was good and new. From there we headed to a picnic area for lunch. This place at a height had a very good view of the lake and surroundings. While having lunch we first spotted giraffes far away walking in all their elegance. We could also see some elephants near the lake and lots of pink flamingos. The flemingos lines the lake with a pink outline. We wanted to get closer to the lake, so after lunch we headed that way. On the way we found a large herd of elephants really close to the road. We headed there. It was quite a big herd and there were a few baby elephants there too. I was just thrilled to see so many elephants so close, anda little scared too. They were huge with huge fan like ears and big tusks.

After the elephants we headed to more open plains near the lake. This is where I first sighted the zebras. They are the ultimate symbol of Africa in my mind, the zebras and giraffes. I have never seen these live before. It was just awesome to see lot of zebra just grazing along, and even more exciting to see some small babies. In the open we also saw more elephants. Some at a distant, some nearby with a really tiny baby elephant. It was also time to observe the elephants eating. One was digging grass with its leg and then using leg and trunk to take it out.
It was a awesome scene, serene tropical greenery, blue lake in the distance and wild animals going about their business. Very cool, I was quite happy that in the end we decided to add the lake to our trip. We saw so many animals so up close here, a great beginning to safari trip. As I will discover later, this was the only place where we got so close to the big African elephants, they were literally walking next to the jeep. If I was not so scared I could stretch my hand and touch its ears. The guide did tell us later that elephants and buffalos are the only animals known to have attacked a safari jeep. From there we headed back to the campsite, spotting even more elephants on the way. Our guide also said that he rarely sees so many elephants in Lake Manyara. We also saw dik-dik, very very cute smallest deer type animals.
Back at the campsite, Msafiri had cooked a good dinner for us. I was not very hungry, still somewhat tired from the climb. Happy to know that I don't have to crawl into the tent, but can actually stand inside it. We had dinner and went to sleep. At night we heard some Maasai singing and dancing, but unfortunately I could not get to see it.

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