Lake Manyara National Park!

            Today was by far one of the most exciting – in terms of wildlife sightings! We had a brief lecture in the morning to set us up for our first assignment of the session. Our assignment is to follow a group of baboons in Lake Manyara National Park for two hours, recording their behavior, eating habits, and interactions with other baboons and other species once every 5 minutes. Tomorrow morning, we set out to the park to begin our observations!

            But today, after having some down time to catch up on readings and prepare for future projects, we headed to Lake Manyara National Park for a game drive to practice identifying species. And YES! We saw amazing wildlife! Including… a whole herd of elephants!!! To start off small, we saw plenty of baboons, including some mother with what looked like very new babies! After wards, we saw impalas, giraffes, zebra, a few lizards, and multiple species of monkeys and birds just to name a few! Driving back to the front gate, we heard a few elephant trumpets and slowed our vehicle down. Looking to our right in the trees, we saw a herd of 5 elephants, including a mother and her baby, which our guide said seemed to be about 6 years old. They were so close to us we could almost touch them! Suddenly, the mother made her way out towards the road, right behind our car. She started towards us, flapping her ears (a precautionary warning sign), and we started the car, moving about 5 feet away. After she surveyed the area and saw we weren't leaving the car, she crossed the road and behind her came her baby and the rest of the herd – which happened to be way more than just 5! We counted 12 as we were leaving and all of them hadn't even left the brush yet. It was so breathtaking and exciting!

            Just imagine, a week in and I’ve seen so much of the wildlife in just one national park – the Serengeti and the rest of the national parks are going to be just as good! But there was something about these elephants acknowledging our presence and passing by us only 10 meters away that was so special and so wonderful. I’m sure the Serengeti will be amazing, but for now, I am definitely more than satisfied! And who knows – we’re going back to the same park tomorrow to make our observations about baboons, so maybe we’ll just have to have a run in with maybe, say, a lion? We’ll see! Enjoy the photos!

A mother baboon and her baby resting on the side of the path

A lone wildebeest in the distance

Couldn't hide from me!

The mother crossing the road - a truly amazing and beautiful animal