Manyara National Park

Manyara Lake is named for a local plant, a shrub grown by the local Masai as a natural fence to keep their cows in and other animals out. Apparently, the sap of the Manyara plant can blind you. 

Lake Manyara itself is an expansive lake with a surface area of close to two hundred square miles. It is salty, but the salt content varies greatly during the rainy and dry seasons. Manyara National Park is a large park by size, but as much of the park includes parts of the lake, the park itself is not very big. Plus, there has been lots of damage lately with heavy rains and flooding as the park is at the base of a mountain range. So, many of the park’s roads were closed or flooded meaning that we did not get to see quite as much as we would have liked. This park is famous for tree climbing lions, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

We saw some antelope: waterbuck, impala and the tiniest one of all, a dik dik. There were zebras, a few warthogs and lots of baboons. They took over the roads as we interrupted multiple grooming sessions.

But today’s highlight was certainly getting up close to the elephants. Yesterday’s sightings had been across rivers, where today’s sightings were within yards. They were enormous! They were in no way aggressive even though Lou was of course very cautious and aware. They carried on eating, tossing dirt on their backs and stomping through. Once, one adult was eating while two little ones ran about. We heard gurgling sounds and then the air was filled with a not so pleasant smell. But you know what? Being close enough to smell a wild elephant’s fart is quite a memory! We encountered many, many elephants right alongside our car! How magical!

Despite me humming “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” multiple times and Jessica and I checking every viable branch of every tree we drove by, we spotted no lions nor leopards in the park that was known for them. There was little chatter on the CB that Lou and the other guides use to communicate and share when they’ve spotted things. So, we decided to call it a day. On our way out of the park, we came about a true traffic stop. Just like most national parks at home, a congestion of cars means there is an animal close by. It took a while to spot it (and heaven knows how the first person found it), but about twenty yards from the road was a sleeping lion. I only saw the back half, but I do know that it was in fact a sleeping lion because it rolled over a couple of times, just as any good cat would do while enjoying a nap! If only I could have scratched his belly!