Village and a Game Drive

Our jeep/land cruiser aka home for the Safari

Our Group of travel buddies and Guide

Our real adventure started out with a moderately long drive to Lake Manyara National Park with a brief stop off in Mtu Wa Mbu Village to experience a little local culture.

On our way to the village we saw our first wild animals in the form of a number of giraffes. We took about thirty photos, even though they were far away, because we weren't sure we would see anymore.




At Mtu Wa Mbu Village we had a cultural walk that included seeing the carvings from a variety of tribes (as numerous tribes have come together in this village), seeing the inside of the mud homes, walking through a banana orchard, seeing a local church, sipping on some fresh banana beer, and then eating a local lunch.

Local Masai People

Ebony Wood and Carvings

Millet for Banana Beer Makings

Tall Glass of Banana Beer

The local lunch was superb local food - in fact some of the best food of the trip. As a lot of the other food at the lodges was fairly generic buffet style food. Which was not too bad most of the time but nothing like this.

Lunch - Delicious

After our lunch we were off to Lake Manyara National Park for our first game drive. We obsessively took photos (especially of our first sightings even when they were hard to see or far away). I will let the photos of the animals below speak for themselves.
 

Baobab Tree

Reed Buck - one of our first animal sightings

Hornbill!

Baboon

 

Elephant in the background - thankfully we were in the jeep

 

Hippos

Warthogs

Impalas

Very young baby elephant

 

Flamingos in the distance

Dik Dik

After our game drive we four wheel drove across loose sand and dirt to our luxury tents at the Rift valley lodge. We had a great multi-course dinner and washed it all down with some premium Serengeti Lager.

View from the lodge entrance

Inside our luxury tent

Sunset over the Great Rift Valley