Day 8 - Lake Manyara


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Africa » Tanzania
October 26th 2015
Published: November 4th 2015
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Leonce picked us up at 7 to head in to Lake Manyara National Park. We were really excited for this one as it is home to the tree climbing lions!

Apparently the celebration last night was a little premature and the presidential race hadn't been decided. At this point we wanted the opposition (peace sign) to win just to keep the locals happy.

We had learned yesterday that Leonce was in school to be a guide and a bunch of his classmates were at the entrance to Lake Manyara. While we were waiting for Leonce to get his entrance papers one of them taught us about the 4 tribes that used to live in this area. He also showed us a shrub that the Maasai people use to surround their homes. The shrub has a milky white substance inside the branches that will make you go blind. The animals are aware of that and as a result they avoid the Maasai homes.

The registration system for entering a park is horribly inefficient. It almost always takes at least 20 minutes to have everything in order, and sometimes much much longer.

When we got in the park Leonce said to have the camera ready. Lake Manyara National Park started quite differently than any other we had been to. We were basically in a dense jungle.

Leonce kept wanting to stop to have us take photos of stuff we had already seen. We really just wanted to find lions in the trees. This was a big downside to having such an inexperienced guide. He had a hard time understanding why we didn't want to take picture number 4,000 of a giraffe.

We did see one cool bird, a horn billed somethingorother. Sarah and I spotted other animals, like some new monkeys, that we hadn't seen but we didn't want Leonce to stop so we didn't point them out. We knew we would see them later.

The dense forest made it really tricky to see anything. We came across a ~2 day old monkey in the road. The van had caused the monkeys to scatter and he had lost his mom. He started shrieking until she came and got him.

After a few kilometers the dense jungle opened up and we were back in the dry, hot, savannah, although there was still more brush than in other places. We came to a pool of hippos and buffalo and a lot of birds. As we moved further away from the dense jungle and it started getting hotter we could feel our chance at seeing the tree climbing lions slipping away.

We then got clobbered with those nasty flies and spent a few kilometers swatting at them instead of looking for animals. I was actually happy Leonce didn't see anything because I didn't want him to stop. The flies get way worse when the van isn't moving.

The day started to grow long as we weren't seeing what we were so excited to see. It reminded me of the countless number of slow fishing trips or trips to the Pine Barrens. Having been through that plenty of times before, I tried to keep my spirits up knowing that just around the corner it could all change. Sarah was fading though and she sat down for much of the ride.

We got to our lunch spot at this pier that overlooks the lake. We were beat. Just thinking about walking out on the peer was exhausting. We did it anyway, but neither of us were particularly happy about it.

This time of the year, the dry season, the pier just goes out into a somewhat marshy area fed by some small hot springs (60 degrees C). The lake itself is far off in the distance.

After the pier walk and visit to a hot spring, we hopped back in the van. I felt rejuvenated for all of 5 minutes and then we were both beat again. This time there was no coming back. I urged Leonce to get us back to the dense jungle area so we could at least spend a few minutes finding those monkeys again. He drove slow though. Far too slow. And when he stopped again for a giraffe, Sarah and I just about threw him out of the car.

We finally made it to the dense jungle. The temperature drop helped the mood. As did watching the monkeys climb and jump through the trees. We then saw a swarm of mongoose heading down the road. They were fun to watch.

And that was it. No tree climbing lions. We were officially skunked.

We got to our next lodge, Haven Nature Camp, and after the long day we were really hoping for a nice, comfortable place to stay. Unfortunately the room was kind of gross. I tried to see if we could upgrade, but something got lost in translation and we were too tired to try harder.

We washed some clothes and found a couple lounge chairs in the common area. It was still early, maybe 5:00. We drank tea as I blogged and Sarah read a book.

Dinner was good and it turned out our cook from the last place had followed us here. He was a bright spot in the day as he had learned how to cook for us over the past couple days and his food was good.

We were in bed by 8, alarm set for 5:45. Tomorrow we are heading to Ngorongoro Crater, which is supposed to be amazing. Surely we will turn our luck around tomorrow.


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