Lake Manyara National Park

Safari planners was there to pick me up on time at 9 am. We drove to their office to get the rest of the clients. I would be joining a group of 4 Norweigans, 2 couples just a little younger than me. When I walked into the common room there was some obvious tension and anger among the Norweigans. I went into the office alone to pay my balance and asked what was happening. Apparently the Norweigans weren't happy about another person joining them but it was ok now. I sat outside to let things cool down. I met one of the guys and introduced myself as ' The guy you didn't want coming.' He said it was ok now but I think he still didn't like the idea of another joining their group. I met all 4 of them but really only talked to Chris.
After running some last minute errands we finally left Arusha at 10.30. We passed the junction I came from a few days ago and then joined a road to the northern park circuit. This road was only 2 years old and in immaculate shape, not a pothole in it. Along the way we saw some giraffes. We arrived at a small village near the gate of the park. We settled in a Fig Resort for lunch and for our room for the night. It was a nice self contained room with fan. After lunch we left for the park.
It was only a 10 minute drive to the gate of the park. Tanzania's national parks use a credit card like system for payment instead of cash. Isaac was having a problem with his card and the system and this delayed us for almost an hour. While we waited a large, fearless baboon entered our Landcruiser in search of food ( while we weren't in it) but found nothing.
We finally entered the park at 3.30. I didn't care if I visited Lake Manyara or not and wanted to spend most of my time and money in Serengeti and Ngorongoro but since Lake Manyara is on the way to these parks, it's always included on the itinerary. Lake Manyara is small at 330sq km and 230 of this is taken up by the salty lake. The park lies at the foothills of the cliffs of the rift valley and has some lerai forest and open grasslands. We saw plenty of baboons along with a few blue monkeys and vervet monkeys in the forest. In the grasslands were zebras, giraffes, thomson's gazelle and buffalo but these were all in the distance. Upon entering the forest again we came close to a herd of a dozen elephants. There were elephants of all ages and they were feeding on both sides of the road. One of them came very close to us, they were not aggressive at all. On the way out of the park, we came across more elephants and had more close encounters. Lake Manyara was proving to be better than I expected and I was glad we came here.
We left the park around 6.45pm and headed back to Fig Resort. Since we were delayed when we wanted to enter the park, Isaac gave us the option of coming back to the park the following morning at 6am for a 2 hour game drive before breakfast. I could go either way on the matter so I let the Norwiegans decide. They choose not to come back to the park, which was fine for me. It meant I could sleep in till 7.30.