Day 7: Lake Manyara National Park

We had an early start to the morning with the alarm going off at 6am, because I needed to be outside the conference centre to set off on today's excursion at 07.15. When we'd checked in the hotel had said that breakfast started at 06.30. While that was technically accurate, all that was actually out at 06.30 turned out to be the instant coffee and a bit of fruit. It was more like 06.45 before the hot food and bread arrived.

Never mind, I managed to eat some pancakes and get back to the room with enough time to spare to put on my insect repellent and sun cream before setting out. It was a nice clear morning and as I set off towards the conference centre I could just make out the shape of Mount Meru, the big mountain which sits behind Arusha, in the distance.

There were seven off us going on today's excursion: three Brits, one Italian, two Chinese people and a Korean. We piled into the safari jeep.

The driver explained that it would take us over two hours to drive to our destination: Lake Manyara National Park. The national park is located around 70 miles to the west of Arusha. The first part of the journey took us through the suburbs of the town and out the other side, past both coffee and banana plantations. Then as we got closer to the national park the landscape became wilder, with some large cactus trees by the side of the road.

We stopped at a tourist centre to use the toilets and then we were at the national park entrance.

We had a short break while the driver sorted out the paperwork for us to enter the national park. Once that was done, we got back in the jeep and he opened the roof so that we could stand up and look out when we encountered animals.

It didn't take us long to find our first animal: a blue monkey!

I've never heard of blue monkeys before, but they're native to this part of Africa. They don't actually look very blue! More grey really. But still cool to see.

Shortly afterwards we saw a second type of monkey: this one was a vervet monkey.

The landscape of the national park itself that we were driving through was really beautiful.

The area was very forested and there were lots of interesting trees.

Before too long we spotted something in a tree.

Baboons! These were bigger than the monkeys we'd seen earlier.

But we were about to see a much bigger animal. We turned a corner and came across another jeep, stopped beside an elephant.

Wow.

Elephants were one of the things I really wanted to see on this trip, but I didn't expected to get so close to them.

We were able to watch for ages as this elephant feasted on vegetation.

Apparently elephants need so much food that they only spend around 4 hours per day sleeping, the rest of the time being spent eating!

When eventually the elephant moved on, the jeep continued down to the shore of Lake Manyara.

Theoretically you're supposed to be able to see flamingos here, but we didn't see any today. The guide explained that there's been an abnormal amount of rain over the past couple of years which means that the size of the lake has increased and the pH of the water has changed, which means it's not supporting whatever it is the flamingos normally come here to eat.

The lake is also saline, so the fact that the water is now covering a larger surface area means that any trees submerged in the water are being killed off by the salt.

We stopped for lunch at a picnic site around here, with views of acacia trees.

We also got a view of a very colourful bird. No idea what this was, though!

After lunch it was back in the jeep, where we quickly came across some more monkeys.

These baboons were casually crossing the road...

...and this one was even carrying a little baby.

We turned another corner and the driver alerted us to some giraffes in the distance.

The giraffes were more timid than the elephants had been earlier, so my photos feel a bit like "spot the giraffe", but it was still so exciting to see them

After the giraffes we came across some smaller antelope-like creatures hiding in the undergrowth...

...and then... more elephants!

I don't think seeing elephants would ever get boring

It was around 3pm by the time we'd finished watching the elephants, so it was time to start the long drive back to Arusha. On the way out of the park we spotted this fascinating hornbill bird.

Our journey out of the park was slightly delayed when we came across a troop of baboons.

There were so many of them!

I think they were all walking down to the lake to drink.

It was a fun end to what was a very exciting day in the Lake Manyara National Park. 

Tim's day wasn't quite so exciting as he was lecturing about Esperanto publishing. Wednesday is officially excursion day at the conference though, so we'll both be able to go on trips tomorrow