Karatu, Tanzania

Having slept the sleep of the dead last night we awake early, refreshed and recovered, with a bit of time to kill before our departure. Sitting on our little verandah watching the wildlife drinking at the watering holes is so peaceful. On the lake the fabulous pink glitter of the vast flamingo population reflecting in the water is a truly magical spectacle.

Over breakfast the staff tell us that heavy rain is now forecast within the next couple of days and the sultry humidity has definitely been turned up a notch or three, but fortunately - for us - the huge deluge holds off for 48 hours meaning our forthcoming itinerary is unaffected.

We make up packed lunch boxes for the day ahead and load our bags into the jeep, ready for the journey around vast Lake Manyara and then onto Ngorongoro. Azka, who we now learn spells his name Asgar, drives us back along the Tarangire road, past a Maasai market at the village of Makayuni, before taking the turning towards the Ngorongoro Crater and the huge Rift Valley escarpment rearing before us.

After an hour we drive into the town of Mto-wa-Mbu (meaning 'by the mosquito river'). A major agricultural hub, it is situated on very fertile plains producing harvests three times a year. Sugarcane and rice paddy fields surround the town, which is also famous for growing plantain and red bananas which are sold in stalls at the side of the road and transported around by people driving great bunches on bikes. The streets are lined by the glorious flamboyant tree, which we've seen before in Sri Lanka, but is here also known as the African tulip.

On the far side of Mto-wa-Mbu is the entrance to Lake Manyara National Park, which lies across the water from Maramboi. The visitor centre shows evidence of a destructive flood from a year ago and we walk past destroyed buildings on the way to the toilets.

Once inside the park we learn it has five distinct landscapes: jungle, savannah, lake, open woodland, and Rift Valley rainforest. In amongst the grazing animals that are frequent everywhere else we also see blue monkeys, red and yellow barbits, saddlebill storks, yellowbilled storks, African spoonbills, the toucan-like silver-cheeked hornbill, a pair of very rare Klipspringer deer and an albino wildebeest.

As we drive around all the other drivers greet Asgar who tells us he has been a guide for 28 years and now trains other guides so is viewed as an elder by them all. It transpires he is also a mechanic with his own garage, pimping up cars' interiors in Arusha and also a rally-car racer. We ask if he's successful in the sport. "The best!" he replies. "I am the Michael Schumacher of Tanzania." I'm not sure if he's heard what fate befell his hero.

Asgar also tells us that over the past ten years he has seen dramatic climate change, and it's getting worse and worse. There are far fewer animals today and the rate of extinction is rapidly increasing. The seasons are also now unreliable and the impact on the whole region is quite stark, however he remains optimistic.

Unfortunately that optimism will be severely challenged by the ascendancy of climate-change sceptic President Trump, especially as much of East Africa benefits hugely from current investment from USAid. It was increased by George W Bush and Obama has continued to roll it out, but it faces massive cuts ahead from the incoming administration.

We leave the reserve and climb high up the steep road to the top of the Rift Valley, with wonderful views of Lake Manyara down below. From here we move into the land of the Iraku tribe, who thousands of years ago moved down from Egypt and Ethiopia to work the land. The surrounding countryside is almost like the hills of Tuscany, with farms and crops looking like vineyards rolling over the vibrant brown earth.

The Iraku are one of the more than 130 tribes in Tanzania but when the vast country was unified in 1962 the government made Swahili the national language as a means to unite the nation and it worked. All the tribes get on peacefully and intertribal marriage happens often, whereas in Kenya a few tribes now dominate the others, causing a lot of friction.

Driving through the large and relatively wealthy town of Karatu we hear a party political broadcast from deafening loud speakers as the country is coming into government elections, but no hint of trouble is forecast.

Soon after Karatu we stop at our accommodation for the next two nights, the Ngorongoro Farm House. Lush and beautiful it's restored from the original house built in 1934 by a German colonialist, whose photos show him sporting a rather worrying Hitler moustache. It's home to an enormous resident marabou stork who wanders around the grounds.

The main building boasts a large restaurant and bar area, with a terrace for the ubiquitous sundowner cocktails, and the rooms are dotted throughout the grounds, looking somewhat like utilitarian toilet blocks from the outside. Appropriately, our room is named Pongo and shares its block with Pofu. Pongo apparently means bushback antelope in Swahili.

After check-in we join a tour of the gardens and coffee plantation led by a local Iraku chief called Babadingi. The farm is spread over 500 acres and is completely self sufficient in organic livestock and vegetable production, growing everything from broccoli to avocado, banana to coriander, papaya to Swiss chard, along with a huge profusion of flowers and many beehives. It employs twenty gardeners alone amongst its many staff, and we end in the little roasting room, sampling the homegrown coffee of which we later buy a few bags, perfuming our luggage for the trip ahead.

That evening Babadingi plays music on the terrace with an African stringed instrument while other ladies from the local town sing and lead tourists in a traditional dance. When they finish they will all walk 6km home, a two and a half hour round trip they do each day to raise money from tips to help with their children's primary schools.

We finish with a New Year's Eve dinner soundtracked by just two songs on a perpetual loop, the melancholy of Abba's 'Happy New Year' beaten only by the now mournful nature of Wham's 'Last Christmas', the staff blissfully unaware of George Michael's demise.

We head to bed well before midnight ready for our 6am wake-up call.