Day Eight: Birthday!

We had cake for my birthday! For breakfast! Best 34th birthday ever. It was a chocolate cake that was rapidly swarmed by bees. Robyn had a birthday on 6 November but they waited to have cake.

Our group! From left: Justine (American), Alana and Steve (Australian), Babu - our amazing cook (Kenyan), Alana (Aussie), Johnathan (American), Melanie (Aussie) holding James (Canadian), Troy (Aussie), Peter and Robyn (Aussie), Alan (American), Clara - our guide (Kenyan) and Jon our driver (Kenyan).

From Meserani Snake Park, we travel to Arusha where the four of us in our group who will be climbing Kilimanjaro leave the group.We arrive at the pick up location at 0800 and or ride to Marangu doesn't get there until 1400.

We go to the restaurant in the hotel for coffee and it is the best coffee I have had on this trip. Kenya and Tanzania are major coffee exporters but internally they drink shitty powdered coffee. At the hotel restaurant they serve brewed coffee and I almost cry it is so good.

We wander in to the CBD almost immediately we have three people guiding us. Three men, including a well off Maasai,  take us to the shops we need to go to. I find it odd they choose to wait outside the Nakumatt, which is a Kenyan Walmart. At the end of the walk, back at the hotel, they try to sell us art.

We get in the shuttle for Marangu and eventually arrive at a tropical resort. It is lush and green and beautiful. The rooms are HUGE. I take three showers; this is necessary because a) I smell and b) there is so much dirt in my hair from Serengeti that there is mud.  After all the camping we have done, this is the perfect end to my birthday.

Next up: Kilimanjaro!

Day Seven: Is that a rhino or a rock? - Ngorongoro Crater continued

I slept in my tent alone last night and it was magical. Nobody snoring beside me, nobody moving around the tent, nobody smelling like sweat and vodka. It was a perfect enough sleep that I got rid of the sore throat/stuffy nose combo that had come in the night before from not sleeping a wink.

In the crater, we switched vehicles from the bus to jeeps with open tops and go on a game drive. The roads are still bumpy but much better; this could have just as much to do with the vehicles as it does the actual roads.

We came across a small pride of lions having a breakfast of buffalo. Fun fact: lions purr when they eat.

We were stopped by wildlife once again. This time it was zebras.

Traffic jam

Baby zebra!

Baby zebra again!

Not a baby zebra

We were so close to the zebras and a herd of elephants that we could touch them. We resisted this urge, as we have brains and wished to keep our hands.

Pumba.

 

 

Off in the distance is a black shape. Our drive is sure it is a rhino, but we are not unconvinced it isn't a rock they put there to tell tourists it is a rhino, and therefore the tourists could cross it off their Big Five Bingo Cards (not actually a thing).

Possible rhino.

Further down, there are more hippos in the river.

Be glad you can't smell this.

We stopped for lunch by a different watering hole and were warned by our guide about the black kite, which is a bird with no manners. It is a huge raptor. It is not afraid to steal the food right out of your hands without warning, and you will probably lose a finger too.
The other group didn't get this warning or didn't heed it and ate their lunch outside of the jeep. One of the Aussie guys had his sandwich stolen from him mid-bite! It was amazing, but scary.

The road to the rim/exit of the crater is semi paved and it is almost orgasmic. Once out of the park and back in our Intrepid truck, we are en route to Meserani Snake Park. The road is fully paved - newly so - and it is fucking glorious. Without exaggeration,  it is the best road I have ever driven on in my life.

Twice a month, there is a mobile market in the Meserani area. It sells literally everything you need for every stage in your life. This covers easily two acres and every inch is crowded with people. There is music and food and beds.

Some time between Ngorongoro Crater and Meserani Snake Park, I get a headache. I think it is because of the sun. After my tent is up, I get in and pass out. I have a fever and am nauseous. Ugh. In the morning I am alright, however, so I will go with heat sick.

Next up: Birthday!

Day Six - Serengeti to Ngorongoro Crater

At breakfast after our first night in Serengeti, a married couple of Sydneysiders said they saw an elephant come through our campsite that night. It stopped at the water tank, had a drink, rubbed itself up against the bus and carried on. We did not believe them as they were the only ones who saw it.

Sure enough, on our second night, the same elephant came tromping through the site. It stopped at the water tank, had a drink, looked really confused at all of us whisper yelling HOLY FUCK ITS AN ELEPHANT WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO OH MY GOD, walked through the tents without taking any of them down and carried on its merry way.
Holy fuck.
Elephants are gigantic. They are also surprisingly quiet and graceful. It was very dark out and the tents were maybe four feet apart; the elephant walked through them like we would walk through an office.
Amazing.

We carried on today to Ngorongoro Crater.
The crater used to be a mountain probably as high as Kilimanjaro, but it is a volcano and as a result, blew up. It is a crater now.
Things in Tanzania are named like coral in Australia - very obviously. Serenget is Swahili for "great plains". Ngorongoro is traditionally one of the areas that the nomadic Maasai people tend to settle in. They are cow herders and the crater is named after the sound the cow's bell makes.

We don't have a lot of time to do much of anything here. It took a while to arrive over more shit roads. The days and nights are equal length as we are almost right on the Equator. We are told that there is less protection from the animals here than there was in Serengeti - amusing because there was zero protection at night in Serengeti. What our guide meant that was in Serengeti, the animals pretty well kept to themselves; they knew where the camps and lodges were and kept a wide berth (except, apparently, GIANT ELEPHANTS). The animals here? Not so much. Instead, there are guards who go around at night scaring them away with rifles. Well, that's fantastic!
We are fortunate to not require this.

The temperature here is a bit cooler at night as the altitude is a lot higher than in Serengeti. We are warned about this and dress for bed appropriately, though I end up stripping off most of my warm stuff in the middle of the night. My sleeping bag is amazing.
The hyenas are a bit more plentiful here, as are the warthogs. Who knew that warthogs were nocturnal? There are also more lions at night.

Next up: More Ngorongoro Crater, including lions!