This is the largest and best known National Park in Tanzania, covering 14,500 sq km (5,600 sq miles).  The park is mostly a huge expanse of open plains with lofty rocky outcrops which are called copjes.  We realized how huge this open plain is when we climbed to the top of a copje at a rest area we could see the land horizon 360 degrees around us.

 

 

There were many Rock Hyraxes at this rest area which are not very fearful of humans.  We loved these guys a lot!  Also they had many wonderful metal sculptures of local animals.  This was a quite interesting stop.

 

 

The park is known for the number of lions and variety of birds including birds of prey.  The lions are monitored by a conservation organization.  Still we didn’t encounter many male lions while we were there.  There are also occasional acacia woodlands, swamps and lakes, where we observed many Hippopotami. Though they are not so exciting as subjects of photography, most of the time they are under water to protect their sensitive skin, and all that we could see was flat oval things on the water surface.