Kenya and Tanzania 2008: 8/16/2008 Morning game drive Manyara National Park, drive to Serengeti, Serengeti Sopa, game drive

Buffet breakfast at our lodge. We meet for a morning game drive. We will return to our lodge to check out and for lunch.

Manyara National Park. Baboons, elephants, mongoose in the road, sausage tree, baobab tree, blue monkey/sykes, termite mound, brown necked parrots in the bare branches of a tree, silver cheeked hornbill, more olive baboons with babies, bushback. We stop at a place where we can see lots of hippos. We walk down to the water where the hippos are in the water. Lots of birds. Hippos can be very dangerous if they're out of the water. When it looks like they may be deciding to come out of the water we quickly return to our vehicle!

Blue monkeys

Termite mound-huge!

Brown necked parrot

Dwarf mongoose

Bushback

Olive baboon with babies

Marabou stork

Monkeys in the trees

Slivery cheeked hornbill birds

Warthogs

Our parked safari vehicle

These hippos are on the other side of the water

Lots of birds

Lots of hippos

Is he getting ready to come out of the water?

Took this picture from the safety of our vehicle!

Can just make out our lodge along the top

At the top of this picture is our lodge

Lunch. By the pool I see an agama lizard. Very colorful! The views during the day are lovely and that pool looks so inviting. But there's no one in the pool! At the gift shop I buy a last minute souvenir-a hat.

Lunch

This is what the rooms/huts looked like

View Lake Manyara

Pool-no one's here!

Agama lizard

On the road again. Driving to the Serengeti through the town Karatu. This drive will take around 4 1/2 hours. Good thing I bought us those buffs as these roads are dusty. They are also bumpy. If I had to do this over I would not drive from place to place if the drive was over 4 hours. Much more comfortable to fly even though it would cost more. On the way we stop at the memorial to Michael and Bernhard Grzimek. So sad. The story is that Michael, son of Bernhard, was involved in tracking the patterns of migration in the Serengeti. On a flight a Ruppell's vulture collided with his small plane causing him to lose control and crash in 1959. He was only 24 years old. He is buried on the top of Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard spent several years working on the conservation of the Serengeti by studying the wildlife. In 1960 Bernhard and Michael (posthumously) won an Academy Award for best documentary "Serengeti Shall Not Die". They had worked on this together. When Bernhard died in 1987 he was also buried here. There is a stone pyramid memorial over the graves.

Memorial to Michael and Bernhard Grzimek

Scenic overlook Ngorongoro Crater where these specks are herds of animals

The Serengeti Sopa is nice but no time to linger as we have a game drive. This time in the Serengeti we see Grant's gazelle, male and female ostrich doing a mating dance, tawny eagle, a hyena den, black backed jackal, defasso waterbuck, magpie shrike, blue duiker. We will spend 2 nights at the Serengeti Sopa.