The last two days have been unbelievable. Wednesday afternoon we were driven to the Serena Lodge at Lake Manyara. We had a great buffet dinner, sat by the pool and were entertained by a local group of dancers. The lodge is on the rim of the Great Rift Valley, and the view is absolutely amazing.
The next morning we went on our first game drive around Lake Manyara. On the way down to Lake Manyara National Park, we saw several herders, each with his small group of cows and/or goats. The hillside is very steep, and some of us were worried that the livestock would slip and roll to the valley floor, hundreds of feet down.
Once in the park, we saw blue monkeys, vervet monkeys, baboons, a lone elephant, some water buffalo from a distance, zebras, gazelles, and hippos in a pond. Our Driver/Guide is Masha and he stays with us for the entire time we are in Tanzania! He is very knowledgeable and is intent on showing us the game we want to see. After our morning game drive and lunch at the lodge, we started the transit drive to the Serengeti Lodge, where we spend the next two nights. Next year, they’re going to have a great, smooth, paved highway from Manyara to Serengeti. We know, because we drove on the dirt road detour next to it for six hours.
Ironically, we saw more game on the transit drive in the afternoon than on the morning game drive. Lots of wildebeest, though the migration is north of here right now. As a result, we only say groups of a few hundred instead of the uncountable thousands in the migration. One highlight of the drive were a lioness about 5 yards off the road who let us stare and take pictures for quite a while before disappearing into the grass. The other, more amazing, event was our encounter with a newborn wildebeest. We saw the mother just standing up, and the calf at the edge of the road, still covered with … well, you know. We watched the calf get up take its first steps, which happens about three minutes after birth. The group of half a dozen or so wandered off, their newest member a little unsteady, but keeping up.
We won’t try to name all the animals we saw, and really won’t attempt to get the order right. The whole experience is just incredible. Random memories:
Corey’s bustard is the heaviest flying bird. (Michael’s response: That thing can fly?!)
Thompson’s gazelle has a stripe on its side and a white rump below the tail. Grant’s gazelle has no stripe and a white rump that extends above the tail. (Common comment at the end of the day: Wait, I see something! Never mind, just more gazelles.)
Baby zebras are born without stripes. They just look like fuzzy brown horses.
Road crews are the same everywhere. Smoothing pavement takes one man driving a roller and five men watching him.
Finally, with everyone sore and exhausted, we pulled into Serengeti Lodge at 7:30 p.m. The good news is that the hot water stays on until 9:00. In fact, there is hot water from 6 pm until 9 pm — plenty of time for everyone to shower!
The next day (Friday) started bright and early with a 4:00 wake-up call. There are no phones in the room. Someone comes and knocks on your door. We got dressed and went to the lobby for coffee (instant) and tea before climbing into vans for the one hour drive to the balloon ride. You forget how dark it is when there are absolutely no street lights or other cars. There were only two hold-ups on the drive. First, we saw a hippo grazing by the size of the road, and had to stop and watch until it wandered off. Next, we came upon ten or twenty piles of dirt dumped intentionally in the precise center of the road. Apparently, they’re planning to grade it sometime this week. As a result, the drivers had to go completely off the road (which is not only dangerous, but illegal) for a couple hundred yards. It is important to point out here that the “road” is not like the roads you and I are familiar with — most of the roads are one or barely two lanes and not paved. Fortunately, we were in the van with the best driver, because he was the one who pulled up next to the other vans to tell them how to get unstuck. Ours was the only van that had no problems.
We got to the launch site to find four huge balloons being filled by large fans. I learned later that the balloons are 450’s (450,000 cubic feet of air). Attached to each balloon was a very large basket for the sixteen passengers and the pilot. The baskets were lying on their sides. During the preflight, we were instructed on hopping into the balloon while it was on its side. The basket was like a weaved picnic basket, separated into 4 sections — 4 people fit into each section. Think of a rectangle sliced into 4 even sections. The 2 sections on top (as the basket lay on it’s side) required those 4 people to hop into them. Needless to say, our pilot (Dan) took one look at Michael, Karlene, and I and said you 3 (plus our Australian friend) on the bottom. That still required us to basically lay on the ground and scootch into our tight spots. Once in, we were laying on our backs in a sitting position. The position you would be in if you tipped over backwards in a straight-backed chair. We were instructed to clip our seat belts (really, belts that looked like car seat belts) onto the strap connected to the bottom of the basket. That’s so you don’t fall out on take-off or landing. Once all in – like eggs in a carton — the pilot starts the fire which fills the balloon further and the basket straightens out (with help from the ground crew, who are pulling on the side of the basket). We were up!!! We didn’t see a lot of animals, but the view was breathtaking, nonetheless. It was too wonderful to be scary. The entire flight was perfect, as was the landing! We all have a new-found respect for balloon pilots – who have very challenging jobs.
Hippo Pool
Our first Lion(ess)!
Talk about “Monkey on Your Back” (Baboon)
A view of the other balloons from our balloon.
We’re ready to go!
The basket on its side waiting for us to climb aboard.
Safari So Good 