It was only five minutes drive to the entry of Manyara National Park, where vervet monkeys play in the lower branches of the trees in the car park. Unfortunately Sebi, schooled on the cheeky monkey and cheeky baboon stories, in which his grandfather shoots at and hits the monkeys, grabbed a stick to hit them. He was very cross when Keith restrained him and took away the stick.
The park is an amazing place geologically, being at the edge of the famous rift valley, which runs all the way to Jordan. On one side of the park steep cliffs and escarpments rise and on the other there is a shallow salt lake. There are also deeper lakes in the valley due to volcanic activity.
As soon as we drove in, the contrast to Tarangire hit us. The plentiful ground water provides the perfect habitat for lush, jungly plants, making it hard to see beyond a few metres.
Derek stopped for us to watch the antics of a troupe of baboons, with lots of docile grooming of each other and cuddling of babies, contrasting with the posturing, chasing and screams of adolescent males.
Elephants dragged at branches and munched the leaves that they ripped off. They strolled across in front of the car, rubbed their bottoms on trees, ignored their babies, some of which walked under their mothers and generally were quite unperturbed by being watched. Derek thought that one pregnant female elephant must be ready to give birth very soon, judging by the size of her, with her tummy looking very stretched out to the sides. A family group of mongooses fussed about and seemed to need a committee consultation on how to respond to the cars, for by now two other vehicles had stopped to watch the wealth of wildlife with us. Ultimately they decided to ignore us, but their lookouts still bobbed up and down, and seemed not sure of whether to signal danger or not.There were so many elephants in this park, but maybe their size was a help for viewing here and we were missing lots of other creatures.
Groups of vervet monkeys eyed us from the branches, and the younger ones demonstrated their agility in walking along branches and making great leaps.
We kept our eyes out, but did not see the lions which are reputed to climb trees. It is an adaptation for this area, developed so that lions could sleep out of the reach of tsetse flies. Derek spotted two hippos drowsing in the mud in a puddle in the river.
He was surprised to see them there, since they normally spend the day in the lake and come out at night to graze, being vegetarian. His guess was that these two had wandered far afield, and left it too late to return in the heat to the lake. At least in the mud they could wallow around and cover themselves for some protection from the sun. Elephants use water and dust to create sun protection for their skin in a similar way. Although the lake is salty, there are many freshwater inlets where the hippopotamuses congregate.There were many more birds to see than yesterday, with some quite large ones, like Marabou storks, standing gracefully beside the water. Zebras, buffalo, wildebeest and wart hogs were grazing in quite a crowd along the lake edge, some up to their knees in water or mud. All except the wart hogs gave us a bored stare and continued on with the business of eating. The warthogs posed and presented their best sides, a little like extreme body builders who don’t realise that they are not beautiful.
In the distance a multitude of pink flamingos looked like a shell coloured stain running from the land into the lake.
We drove on towards the hot springs, with our senses a little dulled to the demands and crying of the children, this being the second day of the safari and again they were confined to the vehicle for long periods. The source of the hot springs was just a hole in the ground, with water hot enough to cook an egg gushing out. It cooled as it spread out and made its way between the rocks towards the lake shore, but was still unpleasantly hot ten metres from the source. The progress of the water, through slime adapted to high temperatures, made interesting patterns with the colours changing slightly as it went.
Derek told us that people believe that if they have bad luck and they wash here, their luck will be reversed.
He washed a lot, so perhaps things have not been going too well for him. Sebi was too difficult to control so Rosie departed, saying that she could not relax, leaving him for Ticha to try to deal with. Ticha took him down to see the water but soon, he too found that it was not pleasant or relaxing, so they returned to the car. Freddy and Pius were loving being out of the car and in such an interesting spot. Freddy had the advantage of his long legs to leap onto the little islands of rock between the streams but Pius managed to find rocks to balance on to join in.On our way back, and on our way to see the flamingos, we noticed that the hippos had gone. Derek thought that the elephants, whose territory this stretch of river is, may have chased them off.
There were strict instructions at the park entry warning against leaving the car. This is the home of wild animals that are capable of killing people. We were alarmed when our car got a flat tyre, and concerned for Derek and Ticha, who got out to fix it. The soft sandy road edge didn’t provide a good surface for the jack, so those of us in the safety of the car’s interior, had to stay completely still while the second and third attempts were made. A couple of National Parks Rangers, having come upon us by chance, were giving advice. At last we were on our way again, but unfortunately, since the previous flat tyre had not been repaired, we no longer had a spare and had to leave the National Park without seeing the flamingos close up.
Back in town, Keith had a snooze in the car while a tyre was fixed, and the rest of the family and I went for a walk along the dusty streets. It was not a pleasant walk, with Sebi misbehaving, but interesting to see so many souvenir stalls, telling us that at some times of the year tourism is a major industry here. Back at the car, I settled down to read Derek’s animal book while Keith snoozed on, and Rosie and Ticha planned to have some drinks while they waited. After only a couple of minutes, a very frustrated Rosie brought Sebi back to the car, where he stayed with us, allowing the rest of the family a little respite and him a lesson in consequences. After the immediate shock, rage and a few tries of changing arrangements by screaming, we settled down to looking through the animal book together. The following is the list of birds and animals that we saw on our safari tour:
Vervet monkeys, baboons, hamerkop (an ancient bird that hasn’t changed since pre-historic times, marabou stork, lesser flamingo (pink), greater flamingo (white juveniles), guinea fowl, hippopotamus, Maasai giraffe, Kirk’s dik dik, bush buck, eland, common waterbuck, wildebeest, impala, Thompson’s gazelle, elephants, Cape buffalo, common zebra, hunting dogs, banded mongoose, slender mongoose, lions (no adult males), blue monkeys, grey heron, olive baboons, helmeted guinea fowl, grey hornbill(small), silver cheeked hornbill (big), yellow billed oxpecker (on a hippo), sacred ibis, the skin of a puff adder, agama lizard, white backed vulture, lapped faced vulture, tawny eagle.
Some trees we had noticed in the districts we had travelled in were: Candelabra tree, sausage tree, palm trees, baobab trees, acacias of many kinds, jacaranda, silky oak (Australian) and eucalypts. Sisal is a succulent plant from Mexico, which was once used to make rope and was grown in plantations, and there were many plants still to be seen.
We set off after lunch and drove to Arusha, one of Tanzania’s major cities and the jumping off point for many Safari tours. We drove up a dusty road looking for accommodation. Once settled, we took two taxis out to the Maasai Camp Lodge where Rosie remembered that there was a nice ambiance and, more importantly, a playground. At last the children could run around and play! Ticha’s sister, Giovanna, was to have prepared dinner for us all, but she was asked to work late so we ordered our meals at the restaurant. We did ask how long the pizzas would take, but we were lulled into thinking that half an hour really did mean that, rather than simply being what the waitress thought we would like to hear. It was quite dark when we came inside, and it was a team effort to keep the little boys happy and out of mischief.
At last Giovanna arrived; a bubbly, sweet natured, extroverted, modern woman, who bore little resemblance to her older brother, but who was a lot like her sister, Gracia. Her friends, Francis and Fatima, were over chatting with Keith, and Francis was going to drive us back later, in another friend, Walter’s, car. They, and Walter when he arrived, were very pleasant and pleased to meet Giovanna’s close and extended family.
I took Sebi outside to play, and together we invented challenges and stories that used all the equipment and the edge of the empty paddle pool. Another boy, quite a bit older than Sebi, but presumably waiting forever for his dinner, was out there too. Although he couldn’t understand us, at least we provided enough interest to keep him entertained and we could use some hand signals of the turn taking variety.
At last the pizzas arrived and they were delicious. The evening, mostly spent outside for me and Sebi, was mild and balmy. At one stage some buskers arrived and put on a show with acrobatics and fire tricks. They passed the hat around at the end, and I hope people put in a lot because the fire swallowing trick would have been doing a lot of damage to the man’s throat.
The first carload of Rosie and family set off, with a fuel hiccup causing a long delay. When the car came back, we squeezed four adults into the back, while Keith took the front seat and Francis drove. Every speed hump (in place to control the crazy speedsters of the district according to Francis) resulted in a crunching sound as we hit bottom. It was late when we made it back to the guest house, in an area we were yet to explore. If only we had known it, we would have made use of the electricity, since this was to be the only night that it was on during our six night stay.
A Maasai woman with cattlebelow: Maasai huts
The road signs inside the national parks are made of stone and concrete. Signs on posts would be very quickly demolished by elephants.
silver cheeked hornbills
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