From Kisumu, the ‘Wagon’ crosses to Tanzania. We’re standing high above the valley floor with the spread of the lake and the valley’s walls lining the tarmac thread weaving its way along the steep rise to Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti in northern Tanzania. Eurasia bee-eaters fly by while below where the lake lies, something catches the naturalist’s eye. “Look,” he points out. “Down there, a trio of elephants.”
We scan the thick glade of the green forest almost a thousand feet below. It takes a while for our eyes to adjust and suddenly we see the bare red earth of the forest floor around a tree where the elephants are dusting themselves. On the tarmac thread, cars looking like tiny toys pass by, unaware of the trio.
“Lake Manyara is one of the oldest national parks in Tanzania,” narrates Yotham Sulle the naturalist at Lake Manyara Serena. “It was designated a national park in 1960.”
“There are four zones in the park,” he continues. ‘There’s the ground water forest, the acacia woodland thickets, the alkaline grassland where the hippo pools are and the lake itself.”
From the high vantage point which doubles up as the lodge’s banquet site, it’s easy for the eye to take in the natural vistas Yotham points out. “Manyara is derived from the Maasai word ‘imanyara’ or the Euphorbia trulli which is also nicknamed the fingertip euphorbia. The park covers 330 square kilometers of which 220 kilometers is roughly the size of the fluctuating soda lake.
20 million years ago in the history of the earth was quite an exciting time. It was at this time that the Great Rift Valley started to take shape as the continental plates separated and volcanoes erupted, forming features like the Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Meru and the mighty Mount Killimanjaro. I’m reading this part of the earth’s history standing at the new gate to Lake Manyara National Park. The visitor’s centre is an artistic delight of information set in the old forest of the salt lake in the Great Rift Valley. Lake Manyara, reads the plaque by the stained glass impression of the valley stretching 10,000 kilometers from Jordan to Mozambique, lies on the land that collapsed below the high walls of the escarpment as the plates continued to separate. The process is still continuing.
We drive through the forest where the bushbuck and blue monkeys forage for food, to the acacia thickets where the giraffes and elephants browse and along the fresh water river from the Ngorongoro highlands draining into the lake. Where the freshwater meets the alkaline lake, a pod of hippo lie submerged and further the lake turns into a bird watchers paradise. It’s full of pelicans, yellow-billed storks and flamingoes. We spot a flash of jewel blue and orange beak in the reeds and plovers, egrets and Egyptian geese while on a high tree, a lone African eagle keeps vigilant.
Back at the lodge, a full moon rises from behind the thatched roofs of the African-style huts. The Iraqw perform their traditional dance by the pool. They came from the Ethiopian southlands centuries ago. They are of Cushitic origin.
Since the lodge is outside the confines of the park, I venture out of the lodge with Charles Mbuya, the lodge manager. A little drive out and we stop by the water tank fitted by the Serena hotel for the people. Outside a mud-walled ‘kibanda’, Simon Mbaria sits under the shade of the tree repairing an old shoe. His wife, Pascalina Kilian does the day’s laundry. They offer us a seat and we chat. Life is a lot easier for Pascalina now that she can get her water from the tank. “I had to walk miles looking for water before. It was a daily routine from 6 am to 11 am trekking 5 to 6 miles to the river, not once, not twice but as many as five or six times,” says the mother of two. “Now, because of this gift from the lodge I can spend a lot more time on the farm and do a little business.”
Walking out of the homestead, Charles is confronted by the old mama who recognizes him from afar. “Young man,” she bids him, “repair the water pipe. It’s broken.” It’s enough to set Charles in a flurry of calls to get a new pipe straight away. The old mama’s word is law.
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