Thurs, June 25: First Safari in Lake Manyara

Today was the start of our Tanzanian Safari.  We had a good last breakfast and the staff have already opened up more with us – but mainly Josh.  They have fun with him – maybe because they don’t see that many younger kids his age.  Or maybe because he’s just Josh and talks with them a lot.  Or maybe it’s because of his long hair which has confused them all as to whether he’s a boy or a girl.  We’ll be back at this hotel for the day before our night departure on the last day here.  So we will see them one more time. 

Today was a little warmer but still good weather.  It’s partly cloudy and in the upper 70s during the day.  We said goodbye to Arusha for now and headed west on a two lane highway out to our next destination.  The landscape changed significantly about 45 minutes outside of Arusha.  We descended from about 3500 feet to 2000 feet in elevation.  The land is now fairly flat and not as lush.  It has some trees and bushes but it obviously does not rain in this area much.  Every once in a while there are people on the side of the road tending to some piece of land but there are no more store-fronts.  It’s just open space.  They have police checkpoints every so often and our guide was just telling us how they normally never pull over a tour bus because they always keep everything in order.  However, this time, they did.  Our guide had to get out and after a minute he came back and we left.  As we are leaving, he told us that this is the part of the minor corruption that goes on within the Tanzanian government still – something their President has not been forceful enough to crack down on.  He had to pay the police a few dollars to get going again.  Even though there was nothing wrong.  He said otherwise, he would just stall us for a while – 30 minutes or more.  We did not get pulled over at other police stops which was good. 

Our first stop was in our guide Robert’s home town to check out their local market.  He said he knows most of the people in that town so we would be free to get out and walk through it with minimal inconvenience and we would also be able to take some pictures.  (we have been told not to take pictures in markets up to now which has been frustrating)   We had yet to educate Josh on the protocol for bargaining for items.  So of course the first thing that happens when we get out of the van is that 4 local guys come up trying to sell us necklackes and shirts.  Our guide was good in trying to limit the number of sellers as this was really the only time we were really accosted.  So Josh immediately starts saying how much he likes the first necklace he sees.  The guy wants $5 for it.  And Josh is saying how much he likes it and is asking us if that’s a good price and if he can get it.  (Dad, this reminds me of our VW buying experience as kids with the entire family saying how much we love the car right in front of the salesman)  We finally get him down to 2 for $5 which was still way too expensive but we gave in just to move on.  So Josh got his necklaces and then got a quick education session later on how he needed to shut up during those talks next time.  J 

This market, like others, is very colorful.  Everyone is dressed in colorful dress.  This market is mainly a fruit/vegetable market.  We saw all kinds of fruit and rice and spices and vegetables here.  They seem to be able to grow just about everything from rice to massive avocados, bananas, apples, oranges, pineapples, you name it.  Robert guided us through it.  The market was not that crowded today which definitely helped us.  This was the first time we’ve been out in a market so far.  Robert explained to us that it isn’t just our skin color that makes us stand out in markets.  He said there are plenty of white people who live in Arusha and they walk around markets all the time without getting bothered.  It all has to do with how you act.  All tourists come in and are constantly pointing to items and looking closely at everything and trying to take pictures.  That kind of activity gets noticed and suddenly there are mobs of sellers trying to sell you things.  And that’s when there is more chance of petty theft.  He said that if we walked through the markets with absolutely nothing in our pockets, then there’s no issue.  They are just err’ing on the side of caution as they don’t want us to get something stolen from our pockets. 

From the markets, it was another 30 minute drive to the Manyara National Park where we would do our first Safari game drive.  The drive starts out in a forested area higher up and there are fewer animals there.  We see some baboons and monkeys and smaller animals but not much more than that.  I could tell we were all starting to get a little impatient to see some of the big game animals because it was about an hour of driving through the forest with minimal sightings before we stopped at the picnic site for our boxed lunch.  But the picnic site was spectacular – it was set on a high cliff above the plains below where we were headed to next.  And sure enough, after our meal, we headed down to the plains of Lake Manyara where we finally saw some of the main attractions:  giraffes, hippos, cape buffalo, zebras, wildabeasts, baboons, and lots of birds, include thousands of flamingoes.  We will leave the pictures to do the talking, whenever we find a place with good Wifi to upload them to the blog.  As you would expect, the Wifi out in the reserve parks is not fast at all. 

We checked into our lodge up the mountain and it is sitting on a very large cliff overlooking the entire park.  It is just plain beautiful up here.  They have an infinity pool that sits on the edge too.  We had a cooking demonstration with the chef where he taught us how to make their version of beef stew, ugali (like polenta) and cooked spinach.  Very cool.

We didn’t get a chance to get into the pool but we got to see some dancers and guys doing a balancing act in front of the guests.  Josh was a little bored until they came over and pulled him out for their final act where he got to stand on top of one of their multi-person balancing act routines!  (he was by far the youngest person there – and they probably liked it because he was also very light!)  He loved it.

We had another good dinner at the lodge and had a long chat with our guide about life.  It’s been very educational.  Time to get some rest before tomorrow’s adventures.

Hopefully the next lodge will have better Wifi so we can upload a few pictures.  I was able to upload some to Facebook earlier but that was it.