Lake Manyara Safari in Tanzania

You may have seen from one of the very first blog posts on here that I travelled out to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro.

I couldn’t possibly return to England without doing a safari. So I donned my cargo shorts and my Kilimanjaro safari hat and headed to Lake Manyara for the first day of our safari.

Bumbling Baboons

On arrival we were greeted by a few stray baboons. Hilarious animals, I could have watched them all day… but I had a safari to do!

Safari landscape

We drove on into the vast open landscape of Lake Manyara. Here we began the search for all the animals I’d dreamt of seeing for real ever since I watched The Lion King.

Driving around in the jeeps is a bumpy ride of fun. I’d highly recommend standing up for the majority of the journey (if your guide allows it) as there is no better feeling than catching the wind in your hair.

The fresh, wilderness kind of wind, not the polluted stuff you get over here in London!

“It’s the Ciiiiircle of Liiiiiife”…

^ trying hard to resist the urge to burst into song

Elephant family

Just as we were leaving the Lake Manyara park, we got a wonderful little surprise as an elephant sprang (more like thumped) out the bushes.

Followed by Baby Elephant…

And then what I presume to be Daddy Elephant!

We left the park with a rude farewell from one of those pesky baboons…

Finally we drove around the Lake Manyara park and up so we could look over the magical expanse we’d just been exploring.

We returned to our tents for some much needed sleep to prepare us for the second day of our safari.

Stay tuned for some more (even better) Lion King fun!