So today was finally another nonprogram day! We had a short lecture first thing in the morning to share presentations on population density analyses we conducted from Tarangire National Park. Once the presentations were finished, we were finally able to proceed with our non-program day! About 15 of us traveled into Mto Wa Mbu for various activities. Some decided to take painting lessons, others just wanted to walk around and shop and the rest of us grabbed some bikes and went on a bike tour! We first biked through town and then ventured on a dirt road lined by banana plantations. It was beautiful! The bikes were a lot nicer than I thought they were going to be. They had gears and hand brakes and there was only one person who got a flat tire from an acacia thorn (even though they were everywhere). The path we biked was beautiful and not very hilly or difficult but extremely bumpy. We were all pretty sore after 3 hours of biking through the rocks! But it was completely worth it. We finally left the banana plantations behind and entered Manyara National Park where we rode our bikes across the dried lake bed to the edge of Lake Manyara. We stood along the water’s edge and admired the thousands of pink flamingos that were in the lake in front of us. I couldn’t believe how close we could get to them. Then, to make it even better, we continued to ride our bikes along the plain with zebra, wildabeest and antelope running along side us only about 75 feet away. We also saw a hippo that had wandered out of the water to graze on the grass on the bank. It’s the first time I’ve seen a hippo that wasn’t sleeping and mostly covered by water! We were thankful to start heading back because it was extremely hot in the midday sun. We biked back towards town through some more banana plantations saying hello to everyone along the way. We made a stop at a curio shop that specialized in carving. The owner told us all about carving and how his people had migrated to this area from Mozambique in search of a better life. Erica has promised us that on our next program day, we will have the opportunity to go back to the carving shop along with a painting shop and get lessons on how to paint and carve! We were all exhausted and unanimously agreed to go back to camp to get cleaned up before we headed to Happy Days for a late lunch. It was so nice to relax and play card games with everyone without having to worry about assignments.

The rest of the night was spent watching movies, completely taking advantage of the day off. We will really appreciate this day because exams start in just a few days! Then not long after is Serengeti!! I can’t wait!

Until Later 🙂 

Location: Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania