Rwandan Adventure - 10th Day - Lake Manyara, Karatu, Tanzania - Saturday, 17 Dec 2022

 

Lake Manyara NP and Elephant Cave

Karatu, Tanzania

 - Saturday, 17 December 2022

Up at 5:30am and out for a lovely breakfast at 6:30am.  Eating out on the patio was awesome.  They were cooking eggs to order & it was all lovely.  Coffee was excellent!  Ready for a lovely day!

We loaded into our jeeps about 7:30am & took the short drive back to Lake Manyara NP.  Made a short stop at the park Headquarters for Alex & Nixon to check us in & take an early morning pee break.  Signs got Ken & Sue excited about the possibilities of seeing the Lions in the trees!!!!

Spotted our first troop of Baboons & watched for a bit.  They are always fun!  They were noisy & playful.

Came upon another Elephant.  He paid us no mind & continued his foraging in the underbrush beside the road.

And another troop of Baboons.  This one had a ton of babies.  Wonderful fun watching the antics.

Silvery Cheeked Hornbill

While we were watching the Baboons, either Alex or Marlyn spotted a Silvery Cheeked Hornbill!  He was magnificent!!!  

Silvery Cheeked Hornbill

As usual Ken out did me with pictures - both of the Baboons & the Hornbill!  Thank you Ken!!!

We came upon more Elephants.  They were not afraid of our vehicle at all, just marched along right beside us.  We could have touched them!!!

Eastern Crested Guinea Fowl

We found 4 Eastern Crested Guinea Fowl!  This was another first!  We've seen Helmeted Guinea Fowl many many times.  These are definitely different!

Beautiful Blue Lizard - can't find a common name - INaturalist says it is Agama Dodomae

Flock of Bare faced GoAway Birds

Little Blue Lizard again!

African Fish Eagle

Unconfirmed Brown Snake Eagle

Helmeted Guinea Fowl

There was lots of wildlife near the lake.  It was a lovely visit here!

Yeah!!  Giraffe!!

A Journey of Giraffe!  They were beautiful to see & on the move.

More Baboon!  Healthy population here, for sure!

Fork tailed Drongo

Caught another bird on the move from the jeep.  Alex id'd it as a Fork Tailed Drongo.  Pretty big black bird.

Cinnamon Breasted Bee Eater

Ring Necked Dove

Another species of Hornbill

Crowned Hornbill

We stopped to eat our box lunches at this lake overlook.  It was a lovely place to take a break.  Alex took the opportunity to break out a map & give us a better idea of where we were & where we were going.  We spotted several birds while we were eating.  Added a Crowned Hornbill to my Life List!!

We almost immediately spotted more Baboons.  Just that kind of day, I guess!!

And Elephants!  Up Close & Personal again.  This one was missing a tusk.

A couple of gorgeous Vervet Monkey's caught our attention.  Even I could get a good picture of these two!!

A shy Bush Buck was a bit away from the road in a grassy spot.

This watering hole sported a large herd of Cape Buffalo.  They are such huge beasts!

Then when we looked a little closer, there were 2 tiny young birds.  Still researching to find out what they were!  

We found another sweet little Bush Buck sharing a green glade with more Olive Baboons.

Young Fish Eagle maybe?  In the same green glade.

The Bush buck looks tiny as we drove away.

My best spot of the entire trip!  In the dirt alongside the road, I caught a flash of bright orange & got this awesome picture of a Gray Headed Kingfisher!  Yeah!  He even has a bug in his mouth!!!

Striking a Michele pose!

We took a short pee break back at the Park entrance.  Some of us got ice cream too!  Alex took a group selfie!!  Some of these photos are thanks to Marilynn!!!

Group of folks at the park entrance were celebrating something & this young girl was posing on the dirt cliff!  She was adorable!  Just snapped a few shots on our way back to the Tloma Lodge.

Alex gave us a few minutes to freshen up and use the facilities back in our cabins, then it was time to head to the Elephant Caves UNESCO site.  We were all excited from our eventful morning at Lake Manyara & ready for another adventure!!!  

It didn't take long for us to pay our entrance fees & get ready for our hike.  We had a local guide assigned & we were all ready to go!  We were told that we would see caves (basically holes dug in the mineral rich soil by the elephants) and enjoy about a 3 hour hike through lovely mountainous country.

Our guide chatted along the way with information about the area & the elephants & the flora & fauna.  He pointed our interesting things along the way, like this Owl poop!  This is generally a nature hike with lots of opportunity to relax between safaris at Lake Manyara & Ngorogoro Crater & the Serengeti.

We had been hiking about 45 minutes when our female guide/guard told us to stop while she scouted up ahead.  Said she was hearing animals nearby.

They changed our hiking directions & found us a place to view the caves from a safe distance.  The Elephants were actually there at the caves!!!!  It was incredibly exciting!  

We counted a max of 9 elephants, including the babies.  Our guide said in the 20 years he has been hiking to see the caves, this is only the 3rd time that there have been elephants actually there.  The other 2 times had more elephants, 20 once & 13 the other time.  But we were totally happy with the 9 we saw.  They were coming in from different directions.  It was fun & anxiety building to see them slide down from the upper levels.  They seemed to enjoy it.  

Here's one short video of them sliding down to a cave entrance.  It looked like they were having fun!!!

After all the excitement of watching the elephants, we all started to get a little loopy & silly!  

Not to be outdone, I decided to participate!  Hope my brother & sister-in-law don't see this!!!

With all our adrenalin pumping, we headed out to see the waterfalls of the Endoro River.  It was quite steep & rather intensive - more so than we expected!  But we all got there & back safely & with our excitement still bubbling over! 

The way back included more poop siting's (owl & porcupine - some leopard fur!), but otherwise, uneventful hiking back on the same trail.

Back at the Tloma Lodge, we had a lovely buffet dinner & drinks.  Back to room about 8:30p and had to get everything packed up for another extremely early morning!!!  Fell exhausted into our beds!!!  This is the first overnight in a long time that I didn't get a single picture of our room!  But it was a lovely lodge.  Can't even find it on line.