Let's Meet in Lake Manyara Over the Weekend
by lute wa lutengano
It was a Friday afternoon when we decided to take off for a tour of Lake Manyara
National Park. That was some three or four years ago. The trip was in response
to calls for locals, or to be more precise, Tanzanians, to promote local tourism
by visiting our natural attractions.
We picked Lake Manyara, first because it was not very far from Arusha town and
secondly because the management of one of the lodges there had offered free
accommodation to our group.
After the normal preparations of making sure enough fuel was in our land rover
and that we had enough stocks of Windhoek and Castle lagers in our cool box we
took off leisurely driving along Dodoma road towards Makuyuni.
It was a rainy season and the Maasai plains were lush green much to the delight
of livestock and other herbivorous wild animals.
Nothing dramatic happened up to Makuyuni where we stopped for some few minutes
to stretch our legs and then face the rough pot-holed stretch to Lake Manyara.
As we took off it began to rain heavily.
Now that road was not meant for rains because it had deep gulleys and potholes
which easily flooded with rain water. Our land rover braved one flooded gulley
after another as the heavy rain pounded all over the area.
A few kilometers after the Makuyuni National Service Camp junction our land
rover plunged into, I believe, the mother of all gulleys. The flood water rose
up to the windows of the vehicle as it spluttered to a halt in the middle of the
pond.
Try as he could, our driver could not get the vehicle out of the floods. Another
vehicle, with tourists, coming from the other direction also spluttered to a
halt at the same stretch.
There was no alternative except for us to come out of the vehicle and try to
dislodge it from the muddy floods. We had not anticipated this development
therefore some of us did not have the right attire for the task.
Well we clambered into the floods and tried as we could to dislodge the vehicle
without success. The time was now approaching six o'clock in the evening. By
then we must have looked like miners who work in muddy pits. We were wet and
muddy from head to toenail.
Thanks to a huge and powerful truck which found us at about 10 p.m. muddy and
obviously drunk, otherwise we could have spent the whole night there.
We arrived at the hotel at about 11 p.m. only to find that there was no power. I
took a shower in the damp dark and drank some generous amount of whisky to
fortify myself against the likelihood of catching pneumonia.
Naturally I woke up in the morning with a splitting hangover. The same was the
case with the rest of the group. We did not even have the urge to go for a game
drive in the park. Instead we sat cuddling some hot mugs of coffee and figuring
out how we could make it back to Arusha. Eventually we managed
to reach home but our ‘tour' had been spoilt by the harrowing experience we had
on that stretch of the road.
It was after much convincing that I agreed to re-undertake the trip the other
day. To my pleasant surprise the stretch of road after Makuyuni is as smooth as
a baby's bottom. Konoike have done a wonderful job and you can easily make it to
Lake Manyara Park in one and a half hours. That is why this time I spent about
three hours in the park, enjoying the Lake Manyara rich birdlife and abundant
herds of animals. I am now an active supporter of local tourism. So! Let's meet
in Lake Manyara over the weekend.
lutengano@hotmail.com
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