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Last day of safari.... Another good nights sleep and here I encountered the biggest beetle I have ever seen! - I saw it in the night and had to do a double take it was so big!! had the obligatory photo shoot in case people don't believe me! (It really was that big!)
After breakfast we drove the short distance to Lake Manyara National Park which we had seen the previous day from the viewpoint higher up.
The National Park is mainly to the west of the lake itself, between the lake and the bottom of the Rift Valley escarpment. It consists of dense wooded areas and more open sections of grass interspersed with streams running off the escarpment and pools.
We saw a vast array of brightly coloured birds and blue monkeys, vervet monkeys, baboons and mongooses/mongeese? before meeting a group of elephants.
The group we RIGHT by the side of the track and weren't too bothered by our presence. There was a range of sizes in the group, including one very small calf which spent most of its time under its mother's legs being well cared for.
We had several close-up elephant sightings, including one which walked right behind us as it emerged to cross the road - the land rover a short way behind us had to do some swift reversing as it was in the elephant's way!
We also was hippos, giraffes, gazelle, impala, water buffalo, zebra and many warthogs during the morning.
Lake Manyara was the ideal last stop on our safari as it was quiet and the scenery was beautiful. We were all rather tired from the week of camping and the excitements of all the the animal sightings. The four locations we visited in the five days were all totally different environments so there was no feeling that we were doing the same thing day after day. We also had different animal highlights in each location, so each place now holds unique memories.
Arrived back in Arusha at around 4:00pm with time to get in a warm shower (felt properly clean for first time in days!) before dinner with other volunteers and an early night......
Back to the Pare Mountains on Monday and then to Zanzibar via Dar Es Salaam in just under two weeks.....
previous travel blog entry
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