Tour Day 12 - Lake Manyara

 

Pictures were added at a later date due to poor internet access at the time]

[Wednesday, August 9, 2023]

It certainly was nice staying in an upper end hotel facility such as this one. The bed was comfortable, the water was hot in the shower, and there was plenty of room to get comfortable. I’ve probably noted this before, but moving from hotel to hotel every day is a bit of a pain in the suitcase. Things never fit back in the same way. I swear they expand overnight and the next time that I go to put things back in there – they just don’t seem to fit. But it was all in there yesterday?! We got up, packed and then went for breakfast. Willi and Wendy passed us as we headed to the restaurant. They like to eat early. After breakfast we went back to the room to validate that everything was collected (yes, we checked the safe which was bolted to the wall in this hotel unlike the previous two) and use the facilities on last time.

When I got dressed this morning, I decided that I was going to wear my dusty clothes from the day before. There is no point putting on clean clothes and then going through what we did the day before. Besides, I’m not exactly sure what or how I’m going to put them in my suitcase. I may need to wrap my coat around them as to protect the rest of the items in there. I first took the pants and shirt out on the balcony and shook them violently to free as much of the African dust from them as I could. Then, I jumped back into them. This was common practice for me on the Camino as there was no point putting on clean clothes when you knew you were just going to get them dirty again. When we arrived at the vehicle and were greeted by Renatus, I asked him if our journey would be a dirty today (hoping that I made the right choice), but he said today would be much less so. Fine.

Our first stop was to pick up some petrol for the Land Cruiser, and then we stopped at a very nice gift shop that had all kinds of amazing items. This was more like a mall than the dirt floor curio shops we had frequented thus far. This place also sold Tanzanite jewelry, a stop we were sure to make. Laureen found a nice pair of earrings that were just under a carat in total and we started the negotiation process with the “sales” person that latched onto us.  At least here they were not as pushy as the other places. We got close to where we wanted to be and then said we want to go find a few other things. Once done, we – negotiated. We got a very good price, but the price included a “tip” that the salesperson wanted in cash. In total I paid less than I was willing for all of the items, but I left there feeling a little like I had contributed to that “under-the-table” economy.

Our guide stopped at a Baobaob tree and explained that these trees have been known to live up to 3000 years. The one pictured below he estimated at close to 500 years old. That’s one old piece of lumber!

We then went to a farm/village called MTO WA MBU where we spent the rest of our morning where 90% of the food they eat is produced on the premises. 

They first walked us through the banana plantation and described about the three different groups of the 30 different kinds of bananas that they grew there. The grouping was: black (used for making banana beer), green (used for cooking, when they turn yellow the can be eaten), and red (which were quite rare, but a sweeter eating kind). Black and green take up to nine months before they can harvest and red take 12 months. Because of the length of time the red take to grow, they don’t have that many on their plantation. 

Next, they showed us the mud & stick houses along with the cement houses that are on the property.

Then we went to a small tribe grouping of people who fled from the civil wars in Mozambique in the mid 60’s who spent their time carving all kinds of items. They showed us the wood and did a little bit of a demonstration of how they rough-cut a carving. We then could browse the “factory” where they had a bunch of the items. We chose a couple of things and then likely overpaid for what we chose. I guess it’s going to their tribe directly, so maybe this makes up for the earlier transaction.  

We then walked to another group of artisans that create paintings. The leader of this group showed us the three different kinds of paintings that they make there. They were all beautiful in their own way. We got a chance to walk around and if there was anything that we wanted to purchase, we could negotiate a price. I think we both could have left here with quite a few items, but we abstained this time.

We then walked through a bunch of narrow streets through the village to get to where we were served some local cuisine as prepared by some of the village ladies. The food was amazing!

Lastly, we went on a game drive in the Manyara National Park where was saw a few animals that we have already seen in plenty in the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti. There were a few that were new, so I grabbed a few more pictures.

After this we headed to our place of lodging for this evening, which was another “camp”. That is code in Africa for “Tents”. Although you can see by the pictures (once I actually post some), that it’s a little more upscale than what it sounds like. 

A nice dinner and then off to write two days’ worth of blogs before turning in for the night.

G’night all.

Curt & Laureen