July 25
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| Ngorongoro Crater from the lip |
I visited the gift store
and begged at the reception desk for cashews when I found out they didn’t
normally sell them. They agreed to sell
them to me – a kilogram for $40. The
most expensive cashews in the world, but I did it for Dad. They are really good nuts!!
We were able to pack our
own lunches from a selection on the patio and a chef made us a sandwich for our
lunch boxes for safari, which was really very cool. Stanley got a lunch, too. I had a chicken and lettuce sandwich, with a little mustard, a small piece of quiche, a banana (awesome bananas - small and really sweet), and a juice box. LOVE those juice boxes!
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| Main Gate - Stanley is going to pay our park fees |
It was about a three
minute drive to the entrance of the park and a VERY LONG drive once we passed
the entrance to actually get down into the crater. They have to do this since the trails in and
out are one way – too narrow for more than one car at a time. The view on the way down was incredible. Words can’t even describe it – I’d seen it on
TV before, but nothing prepared me for the real thing.
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| Buffalo - one of the Big Five! I guess they're very dangerous, though this one just looked hungry to me. |
Right off the bat, we saw
a buffalo, a jackal, and a caracal, which Stanley had never seen before in
eight years of driving. He said it was
good luck, and it was! We saw a pair of
lions from a distance and watched them for awhile, him getting up to follow her
when she moved. They were fun.
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| Caracal - his ears were awesome! A few minutes later, he pounced on something while we watched. |
The Big Five of African wildlife include the following: elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, and rhino. I asked Stanley why giraffe and zebra weren't included since they were so popular and he explained that the big five all have something hunters want - they are dangerous and they have trophies of some sort. Giraffe and zebra are not dangerous, really, and hippos are incredible dangerous (they can bite you in half) but they have no trophy body part. The Big Five are the goals of hunters. Shame on them. But I digress.
We searched for rhinos and
cheetahs, but no luck for those. That’s
okay, since we saw everything else!! We
saw a few older elephants and an elephant graveyard. The older bulls that come down into the
crater usually come here to die. It was
a bit spooky since the bones were just sitting out in the open.
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| Lazy Hippopotami! |
We saw hippos close to the
road and no one was there but us, which was great! We got some excellent pictures of them
lounging by the water. We also saw more wildebeest
and zebras. The sheer number of animals
was staggering – so many at one time. We
must have seen 400 wildebeest together in one area!
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| Snoozing in the shade. |
And then the crowning
glory – a lioness in the shade of another safari truck. Many jeeps were gathered around to watch, but
Stanley stayed with her a little longer and when she got up to move, we kept
pace with her along the road. I was
literally ten feet away from her, taking pictures with my phone. Thrilling!!
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| She walked on the road for awhile and we kept pace with her. |
We stopped for lunch
before leaving (it’s a five hours drive back to Arusha) and we decided to eat
in the car by the lake. It was very
windy and there were a lot of black kites.
But in the water, we could see hippos and some of them came very close
to shore so we got a good look at them doing hippo kinds of things.
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| Our way out of the park was blocked by zebras! |
I finished my book on the drive home – it was good.
We had dinner at the hotel
with Brian, then had to say goodbye. He
will be embarking on his grand journey in the morning.
I posted a few safari
pictures to hold everyone over and then we went upstairs to organize our things
before trying to get a little sleep before our early pickup. We will have to get up at 2:15 in the morning as Emmanuel is picking us up at 3. Our flight leaves at 6:00 AM and it's an hour drive to the airport.
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