Safari Day 2

The second day of safari was by far the most memorable day of the trip. We drove to Lake Manyara and seeing lots of baboons in the parking lot closed the top of the Rover to prevent further theft. After we signed in and drove into the park we saw some blue monkeys which moved quickly and hoped about a foot in the air as they ran around in the grass.

We ran into an elephant on the road, reminding us of our encounter the day before and did a lot of bird watching. As a normal passenger I think this would have been tedious, however as cameraman it was entertaining. The challenge was to anticipate when the bird would be in the right position for a picture, then like a hunter after you have targeted the animal you shoot. Sometimes you hit but as a new photographer more often I'd miss. There is a short period where you can try again but often the animal leaves and you have to find new ground.

A little before lunch time we ran into a pile of cars trying to spot a lion in a tree. Apparently most lions do not climb trees but the ones around Lake Manyara do. We tried to spot it for about ten minutes before giving up.

We drove down by the lake and saw more big animals like giraffes and pelicans, but after lunch my eyelids suddenly felt very heavy and I decided to stop lifting them. Judging by the great pictures Jill took I missed a lot of zebra. I woke up shortly before we spotted a water buffalo wading in the river.

Around 3 PM we stopped to watch a pack of about 30 baboons by the side of the road. I took several pictures and took two videos of the baboons playing and fighting. The videos filled the camera's memory card. I guess it was time for me to learn how to delete photos. Suddenly they started to shriek and two lions appeared driving another pack of baboons towards us. A lot of baboons climbed in the tree nearest to them (and us) giving us a clear view of their rears. I am quite happy we were not under any tree branches, as terrified by the lions the baboons proceeded to empty their bowels leaving streaks on the tree and bombs below. Sometime when I was deleting pictures one baboon fell from a tree and a lion pounced on it and ran away with the kill. The other lion chased some baboons down the road, while two more came down from the hill seeing the treed baboons. Finally I had cleared some space and was able take some pictures. The lions were obviously hungry to be hunting during the day and after careful analysis of their hunting techniques it is clear they never passed Hunting 202: Hunting in Trees. Instead of having one lion in the tree shaking out the baboons out of the tree and the other waiting below the baboons killing them when they fall. One went up in the tree while the other waited at the base of the tree and when it would start to climb the tree baboons leaped out of the branches. Seeing some on the ground it would chase after a few but being too late this gave others an opportunity to escape. Eventually it was one baboon and two lions and the baboon still got away.


The chase over we tried to make our way to the park exit. Unfortunately, about a km down the road we ran into an elephant blockade. It only took one elephant to form the blockade but we had to wait for the elephant to sniff the air and determine if any threats were nearby. We must have been down wind from the elephant because despite our proximity it took about ten minutes before the elephant left the road for us to pass.

We took a slight detour and saw warthogs and hippos in the grass near sunset. Fully satisfied we left the park.