Wayo Manyara Green Camp

Location

Wayo’s camp sits at the far southern end, on the Endabash riverbed below the falls, with the escarpment rising behind it. It is one of only two permanent camps inside the park. Everything else in the Manyara market is outside the boundary, either up on the escarpment looking down or in the village by the gate, which means most people come in through that gate in the morning and go out through it in the afternoon. Entering from the south at Yambi puts you past all of that before breakfast.

For much of the year the riverbed is dry sand, which is why the camp lays its tables on it. The falls above keep running, though the volume swings hard with the season. What the water does is last. As the country dries out the Endabash becomes one of the few places holding water for miles, and the elephants come down it to drink. They are not passing through. They are coming for the water, where the camp happens to be strategically located.

Rooms

Eight tents stand on raised decks above the riverbed, with solid wooden floors underfoot and canvas walls. Behind each is a bathroom with a flush toilet and a bush shower, hot water carried up when you want it. That is the arrangement throughout, and you adjust to it inside a day. The decks lift the tents a step above the sand, and the sand is where everything else in camp happens.

Over the bed the canvas draws back to leave gauze, so the walls stay closed and the sky does not. You lie there with the escarpment somewhere above you in the dark and the falls behind, and the camp allows itself no other theatrical gesture.

Some tents adjoin, joined by an enclosed walkway, which is the practical answer for anyone travelling with older children.

Communal Areas

Dinner is served on the riverbed. Tables are set out on the sand, the escarpment turns gold above them, and the animals use the same stretch of river for their own reasons. Sundowners are taken above the water. Breakfast, when the weather allows, comes out onto the sand as well.

Behind that there is one mess tent, with lounge chairs and a small library in it. That is all the built communal space there is, and at eight tents it is the right amount. There is one room to sit in and one place to eat, and neither of them needs booking.

Lighting runs on solar, and the camp catches its own rainwater.

Most of the living here happens outdoors, which means the weather has a vote. In the rains the programme can be curtailed, and the riverbed that makes the dining room possible is the same riverbed that makes the approach difficult when it is running.

Activities

Most of what happens here happens outside the vehicle, and that is the argument for the camp.

Game drives run half or full day, and they start from inside the park, not from a queue at the gate. A private vehicle and guide can be taken for up to six, which puts the pace of the day in your hands. The southern sector at first light is effectively empty, the day traffic still an hour away at the gate.

Then the night drive, which is where Manyara separates itself from its famous neighbours. The Serengeti does not permit night driving. Lake Manyara does, and Wayo runs a drive of about three hours after dinner, north through the groundwater forest and along the Simba River to the hippo pools. Porcupine, genet and civet are the regulars, and hippos come out of the water to graze, which is not how anyone meets them by day. It is also where the leopard odds improve. The night drive is always shared with people from other camps, the only Wayo activity where that is so.

The canoes go out on the lake for a couple of hours, low in the water and at eye level with everything on the shore. Whether they go out at all depends on how much water the lake is holding that year, which is not something anyone can promise in advance. In the driest months, which are also the busiest, the canoe is the least certain thing on the list.

Walking is done with a Wayo guide and a park ranger, along the lake shore or, for a full day, up onto the rift escarpment, which is hard work. On foot there are the tracks from the night before, and a good deal along the shoreline a vehicle goes straight past. Twelve is the minimum age for any of it.

Beyond the boundary there is cycling on three routes, and a walk, a tuk tuk ride and a local lunch in Mto wa Mbu, run from Wayo’s centre there. Nearer the entrance a canopy walkway runs through the treetops, which the park authority rates among the longest in Africa. Wayo guides it, but the walkway belongs to the park.