Lake Manyara National Park

So when we left our journey we were at Lake Manyara National Park. We got to the park towards evening, got settled in, and met the rest of the group for a drink and dinner. We told the gentleman on this trip, for the purposes of this blog we will call him John. We warned him not to eat the dessert. The desserts have milk in them and the milk in Africa is not pasturized. You also cannot eat any fruits or vegetables that you don't peel yourself. But noooo, John wouldn't listen to anybody and he ate not one but two desserts.

This is looking down on the lake.

The next morning we had our first game drive in Lake Manyara National Park. We saw these baboons on this house on the way to the park.
Then at the entrance to the park there were more baboons, I believe these were Olive Baboons.
On our first game drive I saw more animals than I thought we would see on the entire trip. Here is a list of some of the animals that we saw on this game drive as taken from my journal: olive baboons, blue monkeys, elephants, hippos, warthog, giraffe, impala, dik dik, many birds and others.The landrovers we were in did not have roofs so you could stand on the seats and be sticking out of them from about your waist up. Got great views and a few surprises that way too. John and I were standing up enjoying the views and the drive and as we passed under some trees we realized we were getting wet. Not a lot but a light sprinkle here and there. Right before this we had seen some monkeys swinging around in the trees. John and I both felt the wetness at the same time, looked at each other and then looked up, and wiped our faces and arms off. We then sat down in the vehicle and didn't say a word. Then we both noticed the windshield wipers going, and saw the driver Aly was cleaning the windows. John and I both laughed as we realized, we had not been pee'd on by monkeys we had been sprayed by the windshield washer fluid.

This was the first elephant I saw. Every photographer has to have a butt shot somewhere. Buffalo

Hippo Pool
Giraffes and Warthogs

More Giraffes
Zebras on the beach
It was about at this time that John was hanging his head out the window puking his guts out - so John, how was that dessert the second time around! Hopefully a lesson learned.

Lake Manyara was a great place to start our Safari and experience our first game drive. It was a beautiful place. Next stop Ngorongoro Crater.