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This group of climbers sure knows how to adapt to safari life. After breakfast we set good bye to our home-bound teammates and jumped in our vehicle for the plains of Africa. We made a quick stop in the town of Arusha to fill our cool with refreshing beverages and then headed out of town. We arrived at Lake Manyara, our first of three National Wildlife Parks that we will be visiting while on safari. Lake Manyara National Park is not the largest park around but it is easy to get to and has a great number of wildlife. Personally, it is one of my favorite places as it is home to the Strangler Fig tree. Right as you enter the park these amazing trees are all over the place, and are homes for groups of monkey and baboon. When mature the pure size and color of the trees are amazing with huge fluted trunks to boot. We had a picnic lunch in the middle of the bush surrounded by nature and otherwise all to our selves. A few tosses of the frisbe for a little exercise and back to work looking for animals to fall prey to our camera lens. Elephants, zebra, Wart hog, giraffe, Rock Hyrex, Dik Dik, Impala, Water buck, Cape Buffalo, Hippo, Vervet Monkey and loads of birds under clear skies in the afternoon. When we had taken lots of pictures and explored most of the park we headed off to the Plantation Lodge. We will spend the next two nights at the beautiful hotel near the Ngorongoro Crater. Tomorrow we will head down to the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater looking for cats and rhino, and other animals that might cross our path. After a climb of Kilimanjaro this is the life! RMI Guide Mark Tucker