Cruiser, completely distracted by looking at animals.

Yesterday, we left the comfort of the Rivertrees Country Inn, which has made a great home base throughout the expedition, and ventured to Lake Manyara National Park. The wildlife being described as sleepy in this park is somewhat laughable to anyone who has never been to East Africa. But either way, it is a good place to get acquainted with “safarying”: figure out the focus in the cameras, know when you need a soda or coffee as a pick me up and just generally understand what it feels like to bump around in a car all day while looking at animals.

At Lake Manyara we were treated to quite a nice show of elephants, these being the African Savannah Elephant, the largest land animal in the world. We even spotted a handful of Masai Giraffe, the tallest land animal in the world. In fact, Tanzania is the land of giants. Today in the Ngorongoro Crater we saw the Kori Bustard, which is possibly the heaviest bird that can fly and we also had an up close encounter with mating Southern Lions and the White Rhino, not to mention plenty of massive Cape Buffalo. In fact, that leaves us just a leopard shy of seeing the Africa’s Big Five safari animals. Maybe tomorrow…

In the morning we will head for Tarangire National Park and spend our last night in Tanzania at a lodge in the bush!

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier