Lake Manyara

Today, we took a tour of Lake Manyara park. As soon as we got into the park we were able to see tons of animals.  The drive started out in the lush forested area of the park with hundreds of baboons playing in the trees, a few hornbills jumping around, and some blue monkeys.

Later, we headed into a more open space where we saw a terrific view of the lake and the plains below. We saw our first wildebeest here and also got some amazing shots of elephants. One area had a stream bed with about 40 elephants trampling through.  There were even a few baby elephants that we caught playing in the mud.

Lake Manyara park was a great place to start our wildlife viewing in Tanzania.  The animals here seem a lot more accessible than in Kenya. They are right out in the open most of the time. The one bad thing is the parks are definitely more crowded and everyone has the same itinerary.