Tanzania, Lake Manyara (22 Feb 2010)
The beauty of touring Northern Tanzania is that all the national parks are very near to one another, geographically. So you spend very little time 'in between'... and even 'in between' you can see the odd elephant or giraffe or zebra by the road side, so the fun of 'treasure hunting' never stops.
Lake Manyara was the greenest park by a long shot. The first glimpse we saw of it was from a road high up, looking down on the Great Rift Valley, with a low cloud hovering over this massive lake at the bottom. It looked pretty neat !
We checked into the Kirurumu Tented Lodge and I quite liked it there as it looked very old fashioned, with old lanterns in the tent (but with safe bulbs inside, instead of candles) and proper cemented en-suite bathroom with hot water and flushing toilets. The only downside is that I got bitten to death overnight because I think that in spite of all the mosquitoe nets, they find it a lot easier to get inside a tent than a hotel room. But the staff was lovely (most spoke French to us) and so was the food. Throughout our week we heard French spoken almost *everywhere*, it must have coincided with the French school holidays ?
We then went to the park and we really wanted to see a lot more zebras. In Tarangire we'd seen lots of ostriches and baboon colonies but in Manyara they had lots of flamingoes and quite a few giraffes and elephants. We saw 3 species of monkeys there too. But still no big cat. It was quite frustrating though we had been warned that we probably wouldn't see any big cat until we got to Nnorongoro and Serengeti. Still, being in the land of 'Simba', we were getting itchy to see a lion at least.
However, the vegetation there was quite different from the other parks so it was nice in this respect.
We got back to the lodge on time for dinner (with enough time for a shower beforehand as they know you'll be covered with dust due to the open roof, esp. if there was a car in front of ours). I actually had to wash my hair every night... not because of pollution but mainly because my hair was caked with fine dust ! I had to wash my clothes most days too for the same reasons. The SOPA lodges all had hair-dryers in the room but here we could request to borrow one (they had at least two, thankfully).
When we were in the car at a reasonable speed, we did feel the cold a lot more and welcomed a scarf around our necks even. Wearing sunglasses was also a must to protect our eyes UVS and from insects that could have flown into our eyes.
Over dinner I suggested to Roberto & Nathalie to change our itinerary. We were due to drive to Nnorongoro as of 10am but as there was very little to do at the lodge once we'd be there, I suggested heading back to Manyara for one more drive, otherwise we would have had no game drive in one out of 6 days. They agreed it made sense and we negotiated to have a late lunch at the next lodge (since they serve till 2.30pm). I thought we may have to pay extra (at least for the entrance fee) but we were not asked for any more money. The whole point of this 1:4 tour anyway was to be flexible so that we could do just that (within reasons), i.e. linger on where we liked and go faster where we didn't. No stop over at the tourist trap, etc. You really get maximum value for money then because it's exactly how YOU want it... not a 'happy medium'... besides, I think I've lived on my own for too long by now and I know I'm not great at 'compromising'.
I'm glad I suggested this because we saw a very beautiful kingfisher (the biggest in Africa) on this game drive. It was sitting just inches away from our car roof top and I was able to take some truly gorgeous photos of this beautiful bird. It turned out to be one of my top 10 best shots in the whole safari (out of 2,300 pix I ended up taking in 10 days !). I was so pleased with it (I've always had a connection with birds anyway).
We had an enjoyable morning but at the same time I think we were eager to get to Nnorongoro as we were so keen to see some big cats :)
The beauty of touring Northern Tanzania is that all the national parks are very near to one another, geographically. So you spend very little time 'in between'... and even 'in between' you can see the odd elephant or giraffe or zebra by the road side, so the fun of 'treasure hunting' never stops.
Lake Manyara was the greenest park by a long shot. The first glimpse we saw of it was from a road high up, looking down on the Great Rift Valley, with a low cloud hovering over this massive lake at the bottom. It looked pretty neat !
We checked into the Kirurumu Tented Lodge and I quite liked it there as it looked very old fashioned, with old lanterns in the tent (but with safe bulbs inside, instead of candles) and proper cemented en-suite bathroom with hot water and flushing toilets. The only downside is that I got bitten to death overnight because I think that in spite of all the mosquitoe nets, they find it a lot easier to get inside a tent than a hotel room. But the staff was lovely (most spoke French to us) and so was the food. Throughout our week we heard French spoken almost *everywhere*, it must have coincided with the French school holidays ?
We then went to the park and we really wanted to see a lot more zebras. In Tarangire we'd seen lots of ostriches and baboon colonies but in Manyara they had lots of flamingoes and quite a few giraffes and elephants. We saw 3 species of monkeys there too. But still no big cat. It was quite frustrating though we had been warned that we probably wouldn't see any big cat until we got to Nnorongoro and Serengeti. Still, being in the land of 'Simba', we were getting itchy to see a lion at least.
However, the vegetation there was quite different from the other parks so it was nice in this respect.
We got back to the lodge on time for dinner (with enough time for a shower beforehand as they know you'll be covered with dust due to the open roof, esp. if there was a car in front of ours). I actually had to wash my hair every night... not because of pollution but mainly because my hair was caked with fine dust ! I had to wash my clothes most days too for the same reasons. The SOPA lodges all had hair-dryers in the room but here we could request to borrow one (they had at least two, thankfully).
When we were in the car at a reasonable speed, we did feel the cold a lot more and welcomed a scarf around our necks even. Wearing sunglasses was also a must to protect our eyes UVS and from insects that could have flown into our eyes.
Over dinner I suggested to Roberto & Nathalie to change our itinerary. We were due to drive to Nnorongoro as of 10am but as there was very little to do at the lodge once we'd be there, I suggested heading back to Manyara for one more drive, otherwise we would have had no game drive in one out of 6 days. They agreed it made sense and we negotiated to have a late lunch at the next lodge (since they serve till 2.30pm). I thought we may have to pay extra (at least for the entrance fee) but we were not asked for any more money. The whole point of this 1:4 tour anyway was to be flexible so that we could do just that (within reasons), i.e. linger on where we liked and go faster where we didn't. No stop over at the tourist trap, etc. You really get maximum value for money then because it's exactly how YOU want it... not a 'happy medium'... besides, I think I've lived on my own for too long by now and I know I'm not great at 'compromising'.
I'm glad I suggested this because we saw a very beautiful kingfisher (the biggest in Africa) on this game drive. It was sitting just inches away from our car roof top and I was able to take some truly gorgeous photos of this beautiful bird. It turned out to be one of my top 10 best shots in the whole safari (out of 2,300 pix I ended up taking in 10 days !). I was so pleased with it (I've always had a connection with birds anyway).
We had an enjoyable morning but at the same time I think we were eager to get to Nnorongoro as we were so keen to see some big cats :)
posted by Sylvie at 7:41 PM
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