While they were loading up I photographed the lodge saying a special good-by to the bats who I expect help keep the bugs down. We were off to Lake Manyara National Park. This beautiful park is at the base of the Great Rift Valley escarpment and is comprised of forest, woodland, grasslands, and swamps.

After returning to the lodge for lunch we were off to buy some Tanzanite.

Masai tribesmen discovered Tanzanite, supposedly after lightning struck and caused a bush fire which heated the raw brown zoisite into the vivid blue-purple. Whether this is true or not is debatable. Masai tribes are also said to believe that Tanzanite is the stone of birth because of its blue colour, and they give tanzanite to their wives when they have their first children.

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Before leaving the mainland for Zanzibar I would like to comment on our accommodations throughout our journey. In each case after leaving Nairobi our home for the night had blended in beautifully with the surroundings. North American hotels please take note.

Our home was again a delightful experience. I'll let the advertisement for the Mountain View Serena speak for itself.

Secreted in the depths of a tree-shaded coffee plantation, wreathed in multi-coloured tresses of tumbling bougainvillea, cooled by mountain streams and strung like a necklace around the shores of an idyllic wooded lake, Mountain Village offers a haven of calm and serenity just outside the hustle and bustle of Arusha, Tanzania’s premier ‘Safari Town’.

Set in the flowered gardens of a coffee planter’s farm house and surrounded by rolling groves of wax-green coffee bushes, Mountain Village offers wide timbered decks with panoramic views over Lake Duluti, and a selection of ethnically-styled ‘Rondavel’ village-cluster rooms, each one neatly thatched with ‘Makuti’ stems, lavishly embellished with ‘Makonde’ carvings and comfortably furnished in traditional safari style.

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