Day 345 - 1 Jun ‘24 - Cairo to Tanzania. Today actually started yesterday, when we woke at 8am, then drove six hours from Hurghada to Cairo. We’d put the kids to bed for three hours’ sleep while we stayed awake, and got in our taxi to the airport at midnight.
We put our bags and ourselves through xray scanners, then joined the queue to drop our bags off at 12:40am, all six zig-zaggy lines of it. We left the queue to drop off our bags at 2am, then joined the queue for passport control, which we left at 2:30am. Our flight was at 3:20am, and we had spent two hours at the airport in queues!
“Look at it this way,” Dan said to the kids when they were starting to get a bit fractious. “We don’t need to sit on a seat, bored, for three hours!”
As it was, by the time we made it to a second bag scanner, then a third, I literally put my bum on a seat for 16 seconds before standing back up to board the plane to our first stop at Addis Ababa.
Which left almost an hour later than scheduled.
Sometime between taking off at 4:15am and getting breakfast at whatever time it was, I managed an hour of sleep. Alex and Abi said they did as well, although they really wouldn’t have any idea since they can’t judge time, and I wouldn’t have a clue on account of being asleep myself!
We stayed in Addis Ababa airport for about three hours, before boarding our next plane for Kilimanjaro. Again, we got an hour’s sleep, probably less, before getting served lunch.
The queue for immigration started outside the airport, where we had to verify our yellow fever vaccination. Inside, we had to queue to get our visas verified, and once we had our bags, we met our private driver who took us to our hostel in Arusha, about an hour’s drive away.
We stopped at a couple of pharmacies on the way, as our last ditch attempt to find mosquito repellent. Not a single pharmacy that I went into in Egypt or Morocco, and I went into a lot, had mosquito repellent that had DEET above 15%. In Turkey, we’d found one that had 30%, but only bought one bottle, as I was convinced we’d be able to find 50% stuff.
How wrong was I!
Luckily I’d brought some essential oil repellent, and the one I bought today was also essential oil based. It would seem that chemical-based mosquito repellent was not very popular.
And there were definitely mosquitos at our hostel. Our beds had nets over them, thankfully, but we would keep our fingers crossed that nobody got bitten.
In the evening, we played a couple of rounds of pool with the kids, which was lots of fun. It had been a long time since Dan and I had played - Dan had lost his touch, while I, however, was on fire!
Our safari tour guide, Albert, came to say hello, briefed us on our trip, and handed us some paperwork to sign; he would return at 7:30am to pick us up.
At dinner time, we chatted for a while with the other guests staying at the hostel, who had come from Germany, the Netherlands, America, and Norway!
But at 8:30pm we called it quits and went to bed. We were all really tired, and we had the first of our early starts tomorrow for our week-long safari.
(In other news, no trips to the toilet other than for wees, and only a couple of minor cramps! I’m taking both as very positive, and am now optimistic I have recovered from whatever it was I had last week).
Day 346 - 2 Jun ‘24 - Arusha to Lake Manyara. The 6:15am alarm was not entirely welcomed. Our beds were comfy, and we had a good sleep, but it was very broken. We were repeatedly woken during the night by cars and people going past, some loud music at 1am, some of the other guests leaving at 4am, then the birds at dawn.
We had asked for breakfast at 7am as we were leaving at 7:30am, but when we went to check, the kitchen was closed. No lights. No people.
“I don’t think they’ve remembered,” I said to Dan.
“No,” he replied. “Let’s just brush our teeth and pack our bags.”
By this stage it was 7:15am, so time to get ready to leave. Of course, our mouths were full of toothpaste when we got a knock on the door asking for our breakfast order! Never mind, breakfast-to-go was just as good, and with our omelettes and fruit salad in takeaway bags, we loaded up the jeep and got underway.
It took us almost three hours to drive to Tarangire National Park. The park was established in 1978 and is 2085 square kilometres in size. It is also home to around 2500 elephants, which meant we had an excellent chance of seeing them today.
On the way to the park, we had spotted some wildebeest that had started their migration, and also driven past lots of Maasai farmers tending their stock. Inside the park entrance, we saw two massive termite mounds!
We spent just over four hours driving around the park, and had a truly fantastic day! Even our picnic lunch (held inside the car to avoid snakes) was delicious, with rice, chicken, and two vegetable side dishes, and then fresh watermelon.
Rather than describe the drive through the park, ‘competing’ with other land cruisers, I’ll just put the names of the animals with the photos underneath. (Because really, that’s all that you want to see…).
Vervet monkeys. They were eating their breakfast of morning glory flowers, and were quite a good sized family. One had a baby, and a couple had some very bright blue balls.
Mongoose family. They popped up next to the vervet monkeys, so that was really cool to see.
Baboons and impala. They apparently hang around each other, with the baboons often protecting the impala from predators. Of course, being omnivores, they could also just be protecting their lunch.
Male impala. He was having a munch on the flowers, all by himself. He didn’t have a harem to look after yet.
Male dik-dik. These guys were miniature antelope, only standing 30-40cm high, and were super cute. They mate for life, but if one dies, they will mate with another widowed dik-dik, not a previously unmated one! How clever is that?
Zebra. We’d seen loads in the distance, but this was as close as we could get. There had been a lot of rain and floods that had rendered some roads not driveable.
Maasai giraffe. He was just by himself, and his markings were beautiful.
Elephants! We saw a family of nine elephants, one of which was a baby! We were incredibly fortunate to be by ourselves, and they came really close to the car. We even had to reverse a bit to let them cross the road. We’ve seen some incredible sights on our travels, but there was something quite magical about seeing elephants in their natural environment, without a care in the world, taking their time eating, or resting their head against a tree.
Leopard! Really, really lucky to see this. We were busy looking at some monkeys when the car in front of us suddenly turned around. Then one further up the road turned around, then a third, and then a fourth. The driver closest to us told Albert about a leopard, so we turned around and joined in the race to get there! We couldn’t get anywhere near it though. It was quite far away, and I couldn’t even see it clearly through my zoom lens fully zoomed in. This photo is zooming in on my zoomed in photo, so you’ll need to forgive it being a little blurry!
Superb starlings, with superbly coloured plumage.
Euphorbia candelabra tree, absolutely covered in spiderwebs. I would NOT want to know how many spiders lived there, or what size they were!
Baobab trees. Massive upside-down looking trees known as the tree of life. The leaves are eaten like spinach, and the fruit is also edible. The inside of the tree is hollow and provides shelter (or a place to stash contraband), and acts as a well when it fills up with water.
We also saw a Cape buffalo away in the distance, and three water bucks in the middle of some long grass.
It was definitely a most memorable day! I’m really not sure how it can be topped tomorrow, or for the rest of the week.
We left the park at 3:30pm and drove an hour to our accommodation by Lake Manyara, where we were welcomed with some baobab fruit juice, which was very sweet and rather tasty although a somewhat grainy texture.
We relaxed in our rooms (we had interconnecting family rooms) for a couple of hours, and played peekaboo with the monkeys outside! They kept climbing onto the window ledges and peering in through the mesh windows.
At 7pm we went to the main building for dinner, and felt like VIPs, as we were the only guests in the entire resort! We had a delicious vegetable soup, then chicken and vegetables, then a slice of chocolate cake with maple syrup. Yummy!
Our rooms were well set up for mosquitoes, with netting over our beds, mesh windows, and even a mosquito coil to burn. The manager told us that this area translated to Mosquito River, but apparently not malaria mosquitoes. We weren’t taking any chances though, and liberally used our repellent, as well as continuing with our anti-malarials. None of us have experienced any of the side effects of the tablets, which is excellent. This meant that either we’re all handling it really well, or we’re all just eating candy. Who knows?!
And excellent news - I have definitely recovered. No tummy cramps at all, (no poos either for that matter), even after bumping along for hours in a Land Cruiser.
Day 347 - 3 Jun ‘24 - Lake Manyara. Today we got up at 6am, had breakfast at 6:30am, and were in the car shortly after 7am, to go to the Lake Manyara National Park. This park was established in 1961, and was 664 square kilometres in size, with approximately 400 of those being the saltwater lake. The park comprises a dense rainforest area, as well as an acacia forest, and is fed by underground fresh water.
In 2018 there was a massive flood, mainly from the waters that came from the Ngorongoro hills. The annual rains since then have contributed to the lake size, which has expanded by 2km and completely submerged the grazing lands of giraffe and zebra. It also meant the flamingos went away, and hippo pools have gone. In fact, lots of roads to what used to be the lake, are now underwater.
The park was famous for tree-climbing lions, and at last count numbered only 20. Albert said the last lion he saw was clearly starving, so he thinks most of the lions are now dead; after the floods, the government organised the removal of the zebra and giraffe population, due to their grazing lands disappearance. However, this meant the lions had no food source, and turned to baboons instead, which are much smaller and nowhere near as nutritious.
We drove around the park for just over five hours, and saw the following:
Hamerkop (top left), crested Guinea fowl (top right), palm-nut vulture (bottom left), woodland kingfisher (bottom right). The hamerkop make huge, 2m high nests, which weigh up to 50kg and take 3-6 months to make! We also saw great crowned cranes, Egyptian geese, and an African eagle.
Blue monkey. Gorgeous fur colourings, and very sleek looking.
Waterbuck.
Zebras. We saw a male and female pair of zebra with their foal, which had two oxpeckers on it!
Impala. We saw three different groups of impala; one was a bachelor group of three young males, one was a male with about 20 females in his harem, and the third group were hanging around with the zebras and waterbuck.
Baboons. So many baboons! Our first ones were spotted before we even got in the park entrance - they were sitting by the main road, and we were super excited to see lots of babies, including one that looked barely a week old. Inside the park we saw a couple of large troops making their way down the road, and got to witness a few altercations amongst the boys. This park is also home to one of the largest baboon troops in the world, numbering over 300.
A sausage tree. Yes, that’s its real name. The fruit is poisonous when fresh, but can be roasted or fermented.
Elephants! We saw lots of them dotted around the trees, some close to the road, others further into the forest, and a few crossing the road between grazing spots. We even got to watch one elephant pull branches off a tree, then tell a younger elephant to back away! Most of the elephants were small to medium in size, although, still the same size as our cars!
Sadly, we didn’t see any lions, and it wasn’t for lack of trying! Never mind. As Albert said, nature is dynamic, so we have to thank Mother Nature for what we saw today.
We had a yummy picnic lunchbox overlooking the lake, then headed back to the same camp for the afternoon. On the way there, Abi asked one of her many ‘I haven’t been paying any attention’ questions:
“Is Tanzania in Brazil?”
What??!!
“No! Seriously?! Where are we?” I asked.
“In Africa.”
“Why would you think we’re in Brazil?”
“Come on Abi,” said Dan. “Brazil is in South America, and we are in Africa.”
“I’ve never been good at geometry,” Alex chimes in with.
“What? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” I laughed, and laughed.
“You’re not good at English either,” Abi added.
“Fine, geography,” Alex amended.
“You’re good at spotting though,” Dan said to cheer him up, as Alex had spotted most of our animals today.
We arrived back at the camp about 1:40pm. Dan and I thought it was a bit of a shame that this day was booked out as a full-day, as tomorrow’s drive is almost four hours and could easily have been done today. The park wasn’t that big really, since half the roads were submerged, so a half day was more than ample.
That being said, we were all still pretty tired, so an afternoon of rest in our rooms was good. Dan also had invoices to do, but first slept for a couple of hours.
Dinner was at 7pm again, but tonight we were also entertained by a fantastic musical and acrobatic group. They sang and danced, and then performed some amazing acrobatic feats, balancing and jumping in impressive formations. What a wonderful way to end the evening.
Day 348 - 4 Jun ‘24 - Lake Manyara to Lake Natron. After eating our breakfast, we got in the car shortly after 8am.
“It’s a three-and-a-half-to-four hour drive today,” Albert told us. “In approximately one minute we will turn onto the gravel road. You will get bush makeup and an African massage!”
Sure enough, the road made us feel like we were sitting on the vibrating chairs you find at airports. The ‘bush makeup’ Albert was talking about, was the dust on the road that was constantly stirred up by vehicles and the wind. It was rather hot in the car, and we were forever opening and closing the windows to avoid the dust.
The road was badly pitted in many areas due to the rains, and it was impressive that we could still get past. Even more impressive were the busses and trucks using the same road, but since it was the only road to Lake Natron from this direction, I guess there was no choice. Albert said that during the rains, some of the areas are completely impassable.
On our journey we came across loads of zebras wandering around. They were really curious, and looked rather cute with their ears perked up towards us.
We saw both Grant’s gazelles and Thomson’s gazelles, and Albert pointed out two massive birds - a secretary bird, and the Kori bustard, the world’s heaviest flying bird!
We drove past an active volcano, known by the Maasai as God Mountain. They still believe the mountain is a living thing, and when it erupted in 2009, they believed they had angered the god, and sacrificed goats and sprinkled the blood around the base. When the volcano stopped erupting, they believed they had appeased the god sufficiently.
Albert taught us a lot about the Maasai on our drive, including the fact the boys all get circumcised at 12, then get given a stick and told to kill a goat with it (they used to have to hunt a lion). This signified their change from boy to warrior.
The girls often get circumcised as well, but since the government has banned the practice, it is done in secret and frequently results in blood loss or death. Albert told us the girls often ask their mum for it to be done! He explained that Maasai men can have as many wives as he desires, and they do not marry for love, so getting circumcised removes the desire, and sex becomes just a means for procreation.
One girl we drove past, who looked no more than nine years old, had lots of bead bracelets. Albert told us that meant she was already married, and would go to her husband when she was 12. He also told us that he had recently see a 12-year-old who was already pregnant. Albert said that when a wife is pregnant, a man will pay her husband a cow or goat to secure marriage to the unborn child!
“If it’s a girl, then lucky man,” he explained. “If it’s a boy, then unlucky man! He doesn’t get the animal back!”
We arrived at our campsite just after midday, and were traditionally welcomed by Maasai men and women. The men were making some really deep noises with their throats, and the women had beautiful beadwork on them.
After our picnic lunch, we spent about an hour in our rooms before going to a nearby waterfall. We met our Maasai guide Dennis, who led us on a walk alongside a river, which also involved five river crossings!
“Did you not bring open shoes?” he asked.
“We don’t have any,” we replied. “We only have shoes or jandals.”
We explained our luggage constraints, assured him we would be okay, and that we would just take our shoes off and carry them.
The river crossings were at times up to our thighs, and the water was surprisingly warm! Dennis helped us get our footing on the sometimes slippery rocks, but for the most part it was sandy and pebbly.
The waterfall at the end of the river was pretty high, lying against the bubbles was like a jacuzzi, and we were amazed at the force of the current at the bottom.
“This is really strong,” I said to Dan. “Can you imagine was Huka Falls must be like? Or Niagara Falls?!”
We were lucky we got there when we did, as we had it all to ourselves for a while. By the time we left, three other groups had turned up. We put our clothes back on over our togs, and by the time we got back to the car they were mostly dry.
Our next stop was to the water edge of Lake Natron. This was the breeding ground of flamingos, although the numbers have decreased due to the flooding of the lake. The shore had expanded at least a kilometre, changing the alkalinity of the water, which meant the food source of the flamingos became less.
But, we were still thrilled to see the ones that were there!
Besides the flamingos, we also saw spoonbills, sacred ibis, egrets, and four very large pelicans, as well as some rather noisy gull species.
We returned to our campsite at 5:30pm, just in time to see some Maasai men throwing their spears, then went back to our rooms for a bit. Dan cleaned out a cut on his foot from the rocks, and Alex volunteered to take our electronic equipment to the dining room to charge them. Our rooms had solar powered lights and fans, but no sockets.
Dinner was at 7:30pm, and was again delicious. I really would love to get some of the recipes, but I doubt they exist. We had beef, some kind of tomato dish, green beans and carrots with garlic, rice, and salad, with pineapple and watermelon for dessert.
Day 349 - 5 Jun ‘24 - Lake Natron to Serengeti. What a horrible sleep. It was SO HOT! Our ceiling fans, while working, did sweet fanny adams. The wind that had been present all day, had conveniently died right at bedtime. The bed was also too short - lying flat on my back meant my head and feet touched the bed frame at the same time. The number of times I hit my head during the night wasn’t funny. Both Dan and I tossed and turned, and would wake up every hour or hour-and-a-half. And the mosquito nets, which kept out the mosquitoes, did NOT keep out the other tiny black flying insects, which crawled and bit (?) frequently during the night.
After our breakfast, we got on the road shortly after 8:30am. It was a three to four hour drive, maybe even five, depending on the state of the road. Most of it was unsealed, apart from 45 minutes of tarmac bliss.
There were a few places that had had some repairs, but we came to one part of the road that the repair work had only just started. Our way forward was blocked by piles of freshly dumped dirt! We had to wait for a dump truck to deliver its load, and then watched the grader slowly make its way toward us, flattening the dirt into a somewhat driveable surface.
We arrived at the Serengeti National Park around 12:30pm, and stopped at the entrance to have our picnic lunch. When we booked our safari, we told them about my allergy to nuts, and Abi’s requirement for gluten free food. The first lodge’s picnic lunches had contained a pasty, which we told Abi not to eat, and when asked if she’d like eggs for breakfast, was given a plate with toast on it as well.
We sent a message to our organiser, asking him to remind our upcoming accommodations about gluten free, and also listed as many things as I could think of that both WEREN’T and WERE gluten free. (Obviously, the concept of gluten free was foreign to them, but to be fair, some places in the States and Europe didn’t fully understand either).
Despite his assurances, Abi’s soup last night came with bread, and her lunchbox today had a large tub of pasta salad and a packet of biscuits, just like ours. The cook had thoughtfully also given her two boiled eggs and two oranges, whereas we just had one of each.
We appreciate people make mistakes, especially when they don’t understand, but when we’re paying thousands of dollars EACH for our safari, and are assured dietary needs are easily catered for, three out of three lunches she can only eat half of isn’t really good enough.
Albert went to the park office to pay our permit, and when he came back told us there had been rain last night that had damaged the shortcut through the centre of the park.
“The shortcut was about one-and-a-half hours,” Albert explained, “and is the best game drive in the park. We (the other three land cruisers that had turned up) could all try to go the shortcut so we can help each other if we get stuck. I think it’s safest if we go the long way around, which is about three hours, and half of it is outside the park.”
Bugger.
“Oh well,” Dan replied. “We can’t help the rain. We’ll go whichever way you think best.”
The Serengeti National Park was established in 1958, and is 14,764 square kilometres in size. It is the home of over 4000 lions and no less than 1000 leopards, but only a few hundred cheetah.
The part we drove through was the Africa you see on David Attenborough wildlife shows - endless expanses of Savannah grassland, dotted with acacia trees. Time to keep our eyes peeled.
Our first wildlife encounter were some Maasai giraffes with their beautiful starburst markings. It still blew our minds to see them standing in the open, without a care in the world, and no fences to be seen.
We carried on driving when Albert suddenly stopped.
“I think I saw a warthog,” he said. “I’ll just rev the engine to startle it…oh my goodness…”
A CHEETAH!
“TWO cheetahs!” Alex added excitedly.
We were too busy looking for lions under the shade of trees, or leopards in them, or even bigger things like giraffes and elephants, that we had completely missed the cheetah lying right beside the road, right where we had stopped the car!
We couldn’t believe how amazingly lucky we were!!
The two cheetahs were brothers, and seemed rather unconcerned about us for a while, but eventually got up and crossed the road to get some shelter under a tree. Albert radioed the other guides to tell them our position, but the cheetahs walked off a bit further into the grass. When they lay down for a bit, it was almost impossible to see them. Good luck to the other guides!
We had a bit of fun on the rest of the road, with some seriously huge dips and holes, and one part was just mud with no identifiable road!
“If this is what the good road is like,” I observed, “imagine what state the bad one is in.”
We flew the rest of the way, at times going a helluva lot faster than was possibly safe, nearly not making it round one corner. We made it back into the park at 4:20pm, hot and sweaty, and a bit over being in the car. Poor Albert, who had actually been doing the driving, and not very easy driving at all.
Inside the park again, we saw more giraffes, zebras, impalas, and baboons. We also saw hartebeests, buffalo, and topi, although too far away to take pictures.
At one point we stopped to see some wildebeest on the hills, and two jackals crossed the road in front of us.
Two new birds we saw were the dark chanting goshawk, and the Rüppell’s long tailed starling, which was a beautiful iridescent blue.
At 5:30pm, at a fork in the road, Albert told us nobody was allowed to drive in the park after 7pm. We could either turn left to go the quick way to our campsite, or we could turn right to go the long way, which would take us past some more wildebeest that he’d spotted in the distance. He made the decision to turn right, but we’d driven no more than 20 metres before he suddenly stopped - there were wildebeest much closer on the road to the left!
And oh my goodness, was there ever! Thousands of them surrounded us - all over the road, as far as the eye could see!
They were all grunting away, a constant stream of sound. There were loads of babies, maybe three or four months old. Wildebeest spend the entire year migrating, moving based on the rain. We were extremely fortunate to end up right in the middle of them.
The sun was going down quickly now, and we were treated to a spectacular Serengeti sunset.
We arrived at our camp just before 7pm, and were shown to our MASSIVE tent. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a lounge bigger than the one in our house! We had to use a walkie-talkie to get escorted from our tent to the dining room, as no guests were allowed outside in the dark; our guide was constantly scanning his torch over the grasses, and we saw some impala but thankfully no lions.
While eating our delicious dinner, we could hear the wildebeest, as well as the occasional zebra. Truly surreal!
Albert joined us at our table, which was lovely, and after dessert, he wrapped Abi up in the traditional Maasai fabric - she was now a White Maasai!
Day 350 - 6 Jun ‘24 - Serengeti. We’d set the alarm but there wasn’t any need, as we were woken by a lion roaring! He started around 5:40am, and like clockwork, roared every 10 minutes until 6:10am.
While we ate breakfast at 6:30am, we got to watch the sunrise, which was a startling red. It really did look like a ball of fire. We were also serenaded by the numerous hot air balloons going past! (Our tent is the mansion on the left).
We left the campsite at 7:30am, with a wishlist for Albert to deliver on, lions being number one. Of course, the list was given in jest, as Mother Nature provides what she sees fit.
Today’s drive was hugely successful! In no particular order, we saw:
Rock hyrax (top). These little creatures are surprisingly related to elephants and live for 18 years!
Dwarf mongoose (bottom). Cute little mongooses (mongeese? mongoosi?), obviously. We spotted them right at the end of the day, sunning themselves on a termite mound.
Hippos! Loads of them, maybe about 30-40 in one pool. They kept swishing their tail to splash water over their backs, as the pool wasn’t very deep.
Lions. Quite a lot of lions, in lots of different spots. On top of rocks, feeding some cubs, under trees, and even UP a tree! The highlight of the day was the honeymooning couple - for seven days, they mate every 15 minutes, not even stopping to eat. We, as well as seven other vehicles, undertook 150m of illegal off-roading to witness the coitus in action. It was hilarious! A lot of growling from the female, then a bit of posturing before lying down in front of him, then he climbed on top for all of five seconds (I’m not exaggerating), let out a squeak that sounded more like a fart, and then hopped off!
Warthogs. We actually saw them three times throughout the day, each time they would be a little closer, and the final group we saw were just three juveniles without their mum.
Cape buffalo. One lady kindly posed as soon as we stopped, which was very obliging of her!
On top of the ever present zebra and wildebeest (neither of which will be going extinct any time soon), we also saw elephants, two young Nile crocodiles, vultures, topi, impala, hartebeest, giraffes, marabou storks, and an almost-impossible-to-spot leopard up a cactus tree (the only parts we could see were the last six inches of its tail, and part of a shoulder).
We made it back to our camp a little earlier tonight, with time to sit on the deck to watch the sun set and listen to the wildebeest and the whoops of hyenas. Dinner was again fantastic, and we were all tucked up in bed by 9pm. An amazing day!
Day 351 - 7 Jun ‘24 - Serengeti to Karatu. The wildebeest and lion that had been near our camp yesterday, had moved on during the evening. It was a much quieter night and morning, and after a slightly later breakfast of 7am, we said goodbye to our Serengeti bush camp at 8:15am. It had been a fabulous place to stay; super friendly staff, delicious food, and a priceless view! Except, of course, they had put a price on it!
On our drive to the gate, we went back to a couple of the lion rocks, and were fortunate to see the cubs moving around! Albert told us to see cubs is very uncommon, and it proved to be an auspicious start to the day.
We saw lots of Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelles, some common eland (which were HUGE), loads of zebra, and a couple of giraffes. We also came across a kilometres-long train of single file running wildebeest!
But by far, the most wonderful and completely unexpected part of our morning drive to the gate, was when I spotted a cheetah hiding in a bush…
…with a fresh kill…
…AND TWO CUBS!
Two, month-old (to Albert’s eye), still with fuzzy grey fur, oh-my-goodness-they-are-so-CUTE, cubs!!
“This is really rare guys,” Albert told us, as he took some photos. (When a guide takes photos, you know it’s something special)!
We could have stayed there for hours watching them all, munching on the gazelle, but alas, we had to get to the gate before our permit ran out. Albert explained we had to get there 30 minutes before our time lapsed because sometimes their computer system doesn’t work, and it can take that long to reboot. If they don’t have you registered in time, you get charged an extra day, even though you could have been standing there waiting!
We had our packed lunch at the gate entrance, then drove 30 minutes on the most dusty road I’ve ever been on. At times, the passing vehicles meant we couldn’t see anything at all out the window - so dangerous!
We crossed into Ngorongoro conservation area around 1:30pm, which is home to both animals and Maasai. Only the Maasai who were born here can live here; other Maasai have to pay like a tourist.
We stopped briefly at the highway viewpoint of the crater to take a picture. The ride up had been a bit nervewracking, as we drove along the crest of a ridge, with sheer drops down both sides, a dirt road that was only one-and-a-half car widths wide, and no barriers!
We carried on to our accommodation, a hotel in the town of Karatu; we would visit the crater tomorrow. When we climbed out of the car, we discovered exactly how dusty the road had been - our rucksacks were now pale brown, and everything inside where we were sitting, was covered in dust. Including us.
We said goodnight to Albert and relaxed in our rooms, where we found our beds had been heavily decorated with towels, petals, flowers, and bits of leaves!
“That’s really lovely,” I said to Dan, “but now we have a huge mess to clean up!”
“I know!” he agreed. “Do we call them for a turndown service to tidy it up?” he asked, rather tongue-in-cheek.
Our dinner was another delicious buffet, but we’ve had so much food recently that we all had one small helping each, then went back to our rooms. Alex and Abi were in their own room again, but hopefully they would go to sleep without any issues, as we have our last early start tomorrow, with a 6:30am departure.
Long days and a lot of driving made for a supremely long week.
But it sure had been a phenomenal one…
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