Day 1 - Lake Manyara
We left our home base of Arusha on a 5 day Tanzanian safari before our trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Tanzania lies on the east coast of the African continent. It is one of Africa’s more politically stable countries. Its people are friendly and welcoming. The main mode of transportation is walking. People walk everywhere while carrying giant bundles of everything imaginable on the top of their heads. People (mainly women and children) still carry their plastic jugs and walk miles each way to a water source. In the countryside, it might mean finding a river, stream, or pond. In more developed areas, it might mean a communal water pump where the line might stretch for blocks and the wait a few hours long.
After a short while, the paved city streets gave way to extremely bumpy dirt roads, only suitable for the toughest of off-road vehicles.
Masaii boy herding his cows. The cows here have humps, similar to camel humps, on their necks. Our guide says the hump is the most delicious part of the cow.
Tanzania is also known worldwide for its wildlife sanctuary, the Serengeti, which also happens to be the main destination of our 5-day safari. En route to the Serengeti, we stopped at Lake Manyara.
The Kigelia Tree, or Sausage Tree as the locals call it, was one of the many wonders we would come across during our safari.
Our first encounter with hippos was a little underwhelming. The lazy things just sunbathed and provided shade for the little birds that flocked around them. Luckily we would see them in action later on in our trip.
We came across a group of vultures that had just discovered a carcass and were beginning to feed.
The buffalo is one of the Big Five, referring to five of the most impressive and hardest to capture animals (using traditional methods) that roam the great savannahs. The Big Five are the cape buffalo, lion, elephant, leopard, and rhinoceros. We saw four out of the five. We had no luck looking for the rhino.
This is the way we would spend the majority of our safari, standing up looking out of the pop-up roof.
The Grey Crowned Crane. One of the more distinct birds of Africa. We found a pair looking for food. As one would keep lookout, the other would search in the grass for a tasty meal. The would take turns, as one head would drop, the other would rise in a comical sort of dance.
We found a large pack of baboons surrounding us in the trees. As they tired of searching for food, they took to the ground and scampered off to find another tree to take over.
A single elephant was walking off in the distance. As exciting as it was to see one in the wild, we couldn't even imagine how much better it would get!
Lake Manyara is a thriving environment for so many different types of animal, all seemingly getting along with one another.
A flock of ostriches was running through the shallows of Lake Manyara. We never really saw where they were headed, but they really seemed determined to get there. This had to be one of the most unique sights we encountered during our trip.
The dik-dik is one of our favorite little guys! He looks tall here, but he’s really only about a foot and a half tall.
A lone Baobab tree rising above the landscape as we drive away from Lake Manyara.
The first lion sighting happened as dusk approached. A male lion strolled along the red dirt path in the opposite direction of our truck. I was so excited that all common sense security precautions were thrown out the window. I stuck my head out the side window, extending my arms and camera as far out as possible to get a better picture of this creature. He was about 5 feet away from my window. In a second, I could have been decapitated. My common sense came back when Jonas reminded me of how dangerous that was. I was better at keeping my body parts inside the vehicle after that. We were now truly in the wild, not the Wild Animal Park anymore.
