Mto wa Mbu, Part 1

The next town I visited was Mto wa Mbu, or "River of Mosquitos." I got a ride from Karatu for 2000 Tsh ($1.33) that took about an hour and a half. Once I arrived, I met a guide from the cultural tourism program, Sondai. He found a guest house for me to spend the night in, and then we headed out to bike at Lake Manyara. We took two mountain bikes and rode out of town. After maybe thirty minutes of riding through farmland and forest, we reached the grassy plains that surround the lake.

 Zebra!

A couple minutes of pedaling later, and I saw my first "real" wildlife of Tanzania! There were herds of wildebeest, zebra, and Thomson's gazelle. Near the lake were some buffalo, and there were hippos resting in a pool of water near the river. It was amazing to be riding a bike so close to such large numbers of those animals out in the wild! It really was a surreal experience for me.

A dead buffalo

As we got closer to the lake, we got off our bikes and walked around for a bit. Lake Manyara is home to tons of flamingos, and at points, the entire horizon of the lake was pink. We spent maybe an hour and a half around the lake, but I could have stayed the whole day just watching the animals. I think the lions come out towards night, so maybe it's best we didn't stay too late.

Flamingos on the lake

As we rode back into town, we passed Maasai grazing lands where hundreds of cows and goats were feeding. It's really cool to think that people live so close to such interesting wildlife. After visiting a Maasai market and eating some roast goat and bananas with some locals, we rode to the entrance of the Lake Manyara National Park. There, we saw baboons and a few other types of monkeys. That day has easily been one of my favorites so far from this trip.