Lake Manyara National Park
Friday, July 11, 2014
Friday, July 11, 2014
After leaving Ngorongoro Crater we drive back to Karatu and spend another night at the Highview Hotel. When I join the group for breakfast the next morning, Deirdre is gently scolding the poor unfortunates who arrived early. It has just come to her attention that some of us – most of us – have been tipping hotel staff. And not just at the Highview, either. We’ve been tipping pretty liberally since we came down from the mountain, and we had been told not to.
In our defense, this was a misunderstanding, not a mutiny. Deirdre issued the no-tipping rule just before we set out for Kilimanjaro. Therefore, many of us – most of us – assumed she was talking only about the porters, not hotel staff. Tipping porters is tricky because unfair distributions, even when unintentional, trigger dangerous animosities. In addition, many trekkers make the mistake of giving all their tip money to the lead guide, expecting him to distribute it fairly among the assistant guides and porters. For obvious reasons, this often results in happy guides and angry, cheated porters. For these reasons, tips were factored in to our initial payments to the Sierra Club, and Deirdre distributed that money directly to each guide and porter on our behalf.
Most of us, however, didn’t understand that the same rule applied to the whole trip. And since arriving in Tanzania we’ve been encircled at every hotel by Maasai tribesman offering to carry our bags. Offering isn’t quite the right word. Expecting to take our bags is more like it. Looking like Shaolin monks who’ve recently discovered the joys of color and pattern coordination, the Maasai bellhops snatch up our duffels as soon as our drivers toss them out of the vehicles. While we try to shoo them away, other Maasai sidle up to us and attempt to lift our daypacks right off our shoulders. A combination of resignation and First World guilt has caused most of us to accede and to tip. And now Deirdre’s on to us.
In our defense, this was a misunderstanding, not a mutiny. Deirdre issued the no-tipping rule just before we set out for Kilimanjaro. Therefore, many of us – most of us – assumed she was talking only about the porters, not hotel staff. Tipping porters is tricky because unfair distributions, even when unintentional, trigger dangerous animosities. In addition, many trekkers make the mistake of giving all their tip money to the lead guide, expecting him to distribute it fairly among the assistant guides and porters. For obvious reasons, this often results in happy guides and angry, cheated porters. For these reasons, tips were factored in to our initial payments to the Sierra Club, and Deirdre distributed that money directly to each guide and porter on our behalf.
Most of us, however, didn’t understand that the same rule applied to the whole trip. And since arriving in Tanzania we’ve been encircled at every hotel by Maasai tribesman offering to carry our bags. Offering isn’t quite the right word. Expecting to take our bags is more like it. Looking like Shaolin monks who’ve recently discovered the joys of color and pattern coordination, the Maasai bellhops snatch up our duffels as soon as our drivers toss them out of the vehicles. While we try to shoo them away, other Maasai sidle up to us and attempt to lift our daypacks right off our shoulders. A combination of resignation and First World guilt has caused most of us to accede and to tip. And now Deirdre’s on to us.
Tipping, she tells us, was not part of local culture until large numbers of foreigners started vacationing here. But it’s catching on rapidly, and it’s changing Maasai behavior pretty dramatically. These guys used to be fiercely independent. In fact, they used to hunt lions with spears on foot. It’s awkward, then, to have them follow us wordlessly around the grounds, and to have them hint so obsequiously for tips by giving us lengthy, silent tours of our tiny hotel rooms, pointing out where the toilet is, and the shower stall, and the bed.
Trouble is, we only have one more night in Tanzania, so Deirdre’s admonition has come a bit late. After breakfast we pack our bags and carry them to the Land Cruisers past a cluster of confused and doleful Maasai.
On our way back to Moshi today we stop at our fourth and final safari destination, Lake Manyara National Park. By African standards the park is small. It's only 126 square miles in area, 60% of which is occupied by the lake itself. With a fluctuating pH that often rises as high as 9.5, the lake is a little more alkaline than baking soda, about the same as a bar of Ivory soap. It’s also a little salty and very, very shallow. In fact, as expansive as it is, the lake manages to evaporate almost completely every dry season. For the rest of the year it is one of the world’s biggest birdbaths. Between 300 and 400 bird species inhabit this park. It is said that an alert visitor can expect to see at least a hundred bird species in a single day.
But alas, I am not an alert visitor. After four days on the African plains, I’m all safaried-out. I just want to get back to Monica, who I haven’t seen in four days. As a result, I can account for maybe four bird species during our time in the park. I’m not alone in this, either. There’s very little excitement in the ranks at this point. We’re ready to go home.
Don’t get me wrong; this is a spectacular park. I’m sure I’d have enjoyed it immensely had it been scheduled earlier in the itinerary. But with three other parks already under our belts, not to mention the Big Five, it’s hard to work up any serious enthusiasm for a bunch of birds. What’s more, the particular birds we’ve come to see aren’t cooperating.
The park is home to the usual menagerie of savannah fauna, such as wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, and hippos – but it’s most famous for its tree-climbing lions and sprawling, squawking flocks of pink flamingos. We see no lions, however – in the trees or otherwise – and the flamingos are discourteously hugging the farthest shore of the lake, appearing as a patch of ruddy pond scum in the distance, even through binoculars. I take a few pictures and try not to seem impatient to leave.
At the end of the day, tired and dusty, we finally pull through the gates of the Springlands Hotel. I grab my bags, brush past several disconsolate Maasai, and go looking for Mo’. I don’t have far to look. She heard the Land Cruisers arrive and is halfway through the courtyard on her way to meet me. Unfortunately, she’s still quite sick despite nearly a week’s worth of recovery time at the hotel. Worse still, she will have endure another horrendous trans-Atlantic flight in that condition tomorrow. The luckless passengers around us will surely assume they’ve been seated next to Patient Zero. She will, in fact, cough continuously all way home. Her lungs won’t completely clear for two full weeks.
Trouble is, we only have one more night in Tanzania, so Deirdre’s admonition has come a bit late. After breakfast we pack our bags and carry them to the Land Cruisers past a cluster of confused and doleful Maasai.
On our way back to Moshi today we stop at our fourth and final safari destination, Lake Manyara National Park. By African standards the park is small. It's only 126 square miles in area, 60% of which is occupied by the lake itself. With a fluctuating pH that often rises as high as 9.5, the lake is a little more alkaline than baking soda, about the same as a bar of Ivory soap. It’s also a little salty and very, very shallow. In fact, as expansive as it is, the lake manages to evaporate almost completely every dry season. For the rest of the year it is one of the world’s biggest birdbaths. Between 300 and 400 bird species inhabit this park. It is said that an alert visitor can expect to see at least a hundred bird species in a single day.
But alas, I am not an alert visitor. After four days on the African plains, I’m all safaried-out. I just want to get back to Monica, who I haven’t seen in four days. As a result, I can account for maybe four bird species during our time in the park. I’m not alone in this, either. There’s very little excitement in the ranks at this point. We’re ready to go home.
Don’t get me wrong; this is a spectacular park. I’m sure I’d have enjoyed it immensely had it been scheduled earlier in the itinerary. But with three other parks already under our belts, not to mention the Big Five, it’s hard to work up any serious enthusiasm for a bunch of birds. What’s more, the particular birds we’ve come to see aren’t cooperating.
The park is home to the usual menagerie of savannah fauna, such as wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, and hippos – but it’s most famous for its tree-climbing lions and sprawling, squawking flocks of pink flamingos. We see no lions, however – in the trees or otherwise – and the flamingos are discourteously hugging the farthest shore of the lake, appearing as a patch of ruddy pond scum in the distance, even through binoculars. I take a few pictures and try not to seem impatient to leave.
At the end of the day, tired and dusty, we finally pull through the gates of the Springlands Hotel. I grab my bags, brush past several disconsolate Maasai, and go looking for Mo’. I don’t have far to look. She heard the Land Cruisers arrive and is halfway through the courtyard on her way to meet me. Unfortunately, she’s still quite sick despite nearly a week’s worth of recovery time at the hotel. Worse still, she will have endure another horrendous trans-Atlantic flight in that condition tomorrow. The luckless passengers around us will surely assume they’ve been seated next to Patient Zero. She will, in fact, cough continuously all way home. Her lungs won’t completely clear for two full weeks.
All my photos from July 11, 2014 are available online.