Booking a safari had been more difficult than I'd expected, as most companies only offer private safaris, which isn't very economical (or fun!) when you're on your own! Luckily I finally found a reputable operator, Sunny Safaris, offering a 5-day budget camping safari which took in Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater and this is what I booked. Fortunately unlike my last multi-day group tour in the Salar de Uyuni, this time I had a great group: two really nice American girls called Sarah and Laura, and a lovely Dutch girl called Mara (and an obnoxious English guy called Austin, but we kind of left him to his own devices). We sat in the back of the 4x4 together and chatted and had a good laugh as we drove to our first national park: things were off to a good start!
Our first park was Lake Manyara. We stopped off at our camp-site first to drop our stuff and have lunch and were pretty wowed by it! It even had Western toilets and hot showers - luxury! There were no other groups camping there and it was nice to have the place all to ourselves.
That afternoon we had our first game-drive into the national park. Lake Manyara is one of Tanzania's smallest national parks, but still pretty impressive! The first part of the park is jungle, which later opens out onto flat grassy plains and the lake itself.
As soon as we entered the park we were surrounded by primates: blue monkeys, black-faced vervet monkeys and olive baboons.
There were lots of birds here, including grey-headed kingfishers, red-billed hornbills, trumpeter hornbills and grey-crowned cranes.
We also saw our first giraffe, munching on a tree:
Next we came across a family of elephants who stepped out and crossed over the road right in front of our car, which was quite exhilarating! We really couldn't have got much closer!
The lake itself was quite small as it's currently the dry season, but we could see zebra, wildebeest, flamingoes, gazelle, buffalo, warthogs and many more birds here... although unfortunately all too far away to get a good photo! Luckily, the best was still to come...
Our first park was Lake Manyara. We stopped off at our camp-site first to drop our stuff and have lunch and were pretty wowed by it! It even had Western toilets and hot showers - luxury! There were no other groups camping there and it was nice to have the place all to ourselves.
That afternoon we had our first game-drive into the national park. Lake Manyara is one of Tanzania's smallest national parks, but still pretty impressive! The first part of the park is jungle, which later opens out onto flat grassy plains and the lake itself.
As soon as we entered the park we were surrounded by primates: blue monkeys, black-faced vervet monkeys and olive baboons.
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| Baboons |
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| Blue Monkeys |
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| Black-faced Vervet Monkey |
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| Grey-headed Kingfisher |
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| Trumpeter hornbills |
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| Grey-crowned Crane |
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| Giraffe |
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| A very large elephant appears... |
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| ... and crosses the road right in front of our car |
I wonder if Austin ever gets to read this!
ReplyDeleteAre these the first birds you've seen since South America? Apart from roast chicken....
It's OK - funnily enough we didn't exchange contact details!
DeleteI've seen a few other birds on hikes etc but these were probably the first which have been close enough/ still enough to photograph!