Travel reviews by two professors from Albany

"It was such a good choice. On the ride from the airport to the Lodge our superb driver showed us lions (actually two climbing a tree!), buffalo, elephants, hippos, baboons, warthogs, monkeys, flamingos, etc.
The food at the camp was superb. Being greeted at the entrance with a frozen vodka cocktail certainly helped.
We had our only night drive at Manyara, which we thoroughly enjoyed. At night all of the hippos were out to be seen.
As we drove away from the Lodge for the airport we encountered a huge group or two of elephants (our guide theorized 100!). As they were emerging from the thick woods on all sides of us, it was remarkable.
They carefully accommodated my wife's CPAP during the night, so that was never a worry."

"We saw so many lions, but many males were emaciated because the migration had not yet returned to the Serengeti. Out our front porch we could watch a heard of 15-20 elephants (including babies) frolicking in a spring. What a daily site.
We saw a good number of cheetahs, females with cubs, and males with a very recent kill. We also had perfect opportunity to see leopards close up, including a female with two cubs licking the blood from a wildebeest carcass hauled up a tree.
Our driver even heard about a black rhino and drove like hell to successfully show us. When we could get a good photo, our driver was very good about taking our camera and delivering a magnificent photo. Once we were surrounded by a pride of 21 lions all around our land cruiser. It wasn't scary at all, our driver seemed to sense the animal moods quite well. I was impressed that the sleeping lionesses didn't even twitch an ear, when the driver started up again. We liked the surprises of the sun-downer. Once we were following a pride of two lionesses and cubs, we got ahead of them at a small pool they were headed towards. When they came to drink we are all shocked when a hippo rose out of the water and warded them off. There was an alpha male lion nearby nursing a face wound, the females came over and licked him."

"All of our trips usually just had the two of us in a land cruiser. But occasionally we had another couple with whom we formed a great friendship. Here the managers ate at the tables with us and made us feel like welcome friends rather than hotel guests. (Here I forgot to mention that at Manyara Tree Lodge we ate at separate tables; we much preferred the group settings elsewhere.)
We saw the famous Mara river crossing here, with the loss of one Wildebeest to the crocks--a gruesome sight as it took the wildebeest some long to succumb. Again the food was great as were the drinks around the firepit."