Lake Manyara National Park - Manyara, Tanzania

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Manyara, Tanzania

February 26, 2008
The safari agency picked us up at the Buffalo Hotel this morning and took us to the Kindoroko Hotel (just two blocks away) which is where we will stay after our safari, so we leave out luggage there except what we will need on the safari. Here we are told that we are not going on safari by ourselves but will share the vehicle with two others. Otherwise we'll have to pay $190/person/day rather than $150. We say that is okay. Then we are told that because some client was stung by a scorpion and was now in the hospital we have to take a four day safari rather than the 3 day one we had planned on. This part doesn't make any sense but since we will spend the additional day in the Serengeti National Park proper Irina is happy with that so we pay the extra $300 for the extra day. Our safari cost has risen to $1200. Arvid frets about this, but Irina says we couldn't tell people we went to Africa and not did see the Serengeti.
Our first day on safari is to Lake Manyara National Park. We are traveling with our driver Steward, the cook Goodlove, Sven an older Swede, and Monika a South African who moved to German 25 years ago. Goodlove says very little but does a good job cooking and helping Steward set up camp. You see we are not staying in a room at a lodge as promised; we are sleeping in tents outside the lodge. Steward, the driver, is nice enough but has a habit of moving the vehicle just as we are about to take a photo of some exotic animal and then stops behind a bush from where we can't see it. The Swede got divorced about 6 years ago and went to the bars in Phuket Thailand for the girls but tells us he was disgusted and left after two days. He's not in very good health and puffs and grunts a lot. But he is very friendly. Monika is a ditzy blond in her late 40s. She is also very friendly. Her husband is back in Germany where he is taking exams for his second career in German and English literature after retiring from a corporate job. She came to Tanzania to teach English for 2 weeks in Moshi, which she will do after the safari. She is constantly asking the driver dumb questions like: "Why do the Masai men carry those sticks, do they get them from their fathers?" Irina says she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But she is so chirpy and Pollyannaish - "Oh, isn't this all so beautiful!" -- that she pulls it off. As far as we can tell she has never had to work for a living. She has this vulnerable helplessness which some men find attractive and it has work for her. But Irina doesn't find it endearing. Monika tells us that after Victoria Falls we just have to go to the Okavango Swamps. Arvid asks about the tsetse flies? "Oh, we just flew into the swamp on this little airplane, it doesn't cost much. A man poles you around in a little boat. It was so beautiful. We didn't have any problem with the flies." We tell her we'll think about it.
Lake Manyara National Park is bordered on the west by the Great Rift Valley Wall. It is a dramatic setting in which to see the wild life. We were supposed to camp at a lodge in the park but instead we are staying in the town of Mto Wa Mbu in tents on the grounds of Lake Manyara Lodge.