lake manyara national park

Lake Manyara was my favorite for its landscape. Unlike Tarangire, Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, Manyara was jungly and forested, with shade, dappling sunlight and streams. Here's a bushbuck:

The lake swells in the wet season, shrinks in the dry season and is home to millions of flamingos. There are so many that the lake actually shimmers a hazy pink.

I guess we got lucky, as we saw a blue monkey as soon as we entered the park. Blue monkeys are apparently quite difficult to see up close because they are very quick and very shy.

It was interesting to see how expressive some of the animals were. They sometimes seemed downright human. For better...

Or worse. Silly baboons.

I loved the impalas, especially the males with their graceful horns.

And we saw another vervet monkey with his famous bright blue scrotum. I found it interesting as most mammals don't exhibit such bright blue colors.

We saw our first hippos, for which Lake Manyara is also famous, and they seemed like a real lazy bunch-- but there are more hippo fatalities each year than by any other animal. When hippos feel their water source is cut off (i.e., some not-too-bright human gets between a hippo and its water), they will charge said human, often with unfortunate results.

It's funny that Lake Manyara is considered one of the lesser parks, as there are endless fields of roaming animals. Here, for example, are gazelles on the left and baboons on the right, each grazing peacefully.

Giraffes roamed the land with hundreds of meters between them. (And you can again see the hazy pink of the flamingos on Lake Manyara.)

We learned that giraffes drink with their front legs spread apart to protect themselves from lions and other predators. Not surprisingly, the most vulnerable part of a giraffe is its neck, and it's most vulnerable when it bends down to drink.

I loved seeing the different animals living peacefully together and watching the (huge) baby animals wobble around on unsteady legs.

Aside from all of the big animals, the birds in Manyara were impressive, too.

And the comical highlight of our day was an elephant scratching his belly and behind on a (huge) termite mound. Poor termites.

Next up: the famous Serengeti!

tarangire national park

We're back! And we have lots of catching up to do. We went on safari for my partner's 29th birthday, visiting Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. So, without further ado, here are some photos from Tarangire National Park, most famous for its baobab trees and large herds of elephants.

This is a dik dik, which, at about two feet tall, is like a miniature deer. They're usually seen in pairs and quite shy, but one of the ones we saw didn't seem shy at all.

For lunch, we had a picnic overlooking a river where lots of animals came to drink.

There were some vervet monkeys nearby:

There were also baboons just a few feet away, watching us eat.

After I took this photo and turned my back to walk back to my table, a male baboon charged right by me toward a nearby table of picnickers with incredible speed and no warning at all. This female with her baby and another female followed, also charging right past me (one on each side) towards the picnic table, and the poor people who had been eating and enjoying the lovely view were terrified and threw their packed lunches into the air to avoid any kind of direct confrontation with the baboons. The people, who had leaped off the bench and to safety a few meters away, watched as the baboons calmly ate their lunches from the ground. I was lucky I had eaten and had no food on me.

Since nothing unfortunate happened to anyone, it was rather exciting, but it was also pretty scary how quickly the baboons transformed from mellow creatures, just sitting there, to fierce attackers. Our guide told us that a baboon had recently been shot because it had gotten too aggressive.

Here's the mother and baby baboon after they'd enjoyed their stolen lunch.

It's funny. Most people who come to the national parks come to see the Big 5: hippos, lions, leopards, rhinos and buffalo (so called because they were the animals which would most likely kill the hunters). But for my partner, for a long time, his favorite animal was the little warthog. It isn't the prettiest thing, but in my partner's defense, it was one of the more animated animals.

After lunch, we passed more vervet monkeys and some impalas.

The antelopes are considered unimportant, so the guides practically run them over in their quest to find the bigger, "more exciting" animals. It's too bad, though, as I think the gazelles and impalas are really beautiful and graceful.

We saw tons of elephants, and the biggest herd we saw had over twenty mothers and babies. (The males do their own thing.)

We saw zebras (here with wildebeest, probably one of the most awkward, gangly animals I've seen, in the background).

And this one had an itch on his belly that he scratched with a twig, which we found entertaining.

Seeing giraffes was very cool, as they're so tall (about 12-15 feet!) but seem so sweet and serene.

But maybe it's just their long eyelashes.

We saw more baboons, and my partner got a kick out of the babies riding their moms like horses. You'll also notice that the roads are all dirt roads-- the Tanzanian powers-that-be decided that dirt roads would keep the parks more natural.

After our first exhilarating day of wildlife watching, we were treated to a beautiful sunset, a bright segment of rainbow and a sunset-lit Maasai warrior walking by our campsite with his cows.

Next up: Lake Manyara, my favorite of the national parks, even though it's much smaller and no one has heard of it...