Lake Manyara National Park

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Today was mostly about driving from Tarangire National Park to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  Along the way we stopped in at Lake Manyara National Park.

This part of my trip was a bit wonky --- mostly my fault:
  1. I had originally asked the travel company to put together a trip that was mostly on the road and to minimize air travel.  For some reason, I had a fear of the small Cessna planes.  The planes are actually bigger than I thought (mostly 12 seaters) -- and they are a great way to get around a country like Tanzania (it's a big country & there aren't a lot of great roads).  
  2. I was originally booked to spend 3 nights at the Sanctuary Ngorongoro Crater Camp.  I was reading up on lodges/camps around the crater -- and I got it into my head that I wanted to stay at The Highlands lodge -- so the travel company changed my trip to 2 nights at The Highlands lodge and 1 night at the Sanctuary camp.  What I didn't realize is that The Highlands lodge is more than one hour away from the crater rim valley entrance -- over excruciatingly bad roads.  
  3. So with those two decisions -- I had three days that were a bit weird with lots of driving.  The travel company also left a day open assuming that I would visit a Maasai Village -- even though I had told them that I wasn't interested (and that was a good decision!) -- so I ended up with an open day where all I did was transfer camps.
    • Okay -- in the end, the open day was a good thing.  I ate something that didn't agree with me -- so I was sick most of the day (the only time I was sick on the trip) -- and it was cold & rainy.  So I spent most of the day curled up with a hot water bottle and my kindle.  ☺
Lake Manyara wasn't my favorite national park by any stretch of the imagination.  It's famous for its tree-climbing lions (we didn't see them) and flamingos (the water level in the lake was too high -- so there weren't many).  The drive between camps was really nice though -- it's one of the only times that I saw actual villages & local people going about their daily lives.

List of animals that I encountered at Lake Manyara (there were also some birds that I couldn't identify):
Video alerts:  an eagle eating a mouse!


Location: Lake Manyara, Tanzania

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