Day 5 Showing the Ngorongoro Crater to our children

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Monday 7th February


Sleeping in these semi permanent tents is great. You get the feeling of being under canvas but it still feels safe and secure as there is a proper roof and a raised floor. The tents at Kisima Ngeda had very comfortable beds, unlike the ones we used to have in Mikumi National Park, when we stayed at that camp in the 70s. We adored this camp and there was always lots of wildlife right around the tents. But the beds were terrible and there was perhaps a little too much wildlife inside as well. I don't mind the bats and I can handle mice running over my sheets, but beetles, cockroaches and centipedes sharing your bed are more difficult to accept!
We had breakfast at 8 am as usual. Another glorious morning with a soft wind rustling the palms. I must again stress how wonderful the staff was at Kisima Ngeda. There were at least 3 waiters making sure we had everything we needed and wanted. Chris came in to say good morning, but his wife was unfortunately not well so we didn't get to see her.
We had to tear ourselves away fairly shortly after breakfast as we had a lot to do today. We had again arranged to meet Edwin in Karatu at 11 am, hoping that his safari car would by this time be fixed. When we had packed up and were ready to leave the whole staff came and waved us goodbye and Chris joined them. Next time I really want to see the farm as well, and get to know a bit more about the fish farm. We would have left later today but because we needed to go to the Ngorongoro crater our time was cut short.
The drive on the terrible road was quicker going back. We didn't spot the rotten hyena, quite to my relief, although it would perhaps have made a good photograph. A mild side wind was blowing, which was great as it blew the red dust away in front of us, as we were following Jon-Erik's car. As you know, following a car or bus can be hell on a dirt road if there is no wind. The African dust gets in everywhere, it has its own characteristic smell and it stains clothes. You will blow red dust from your nose for ages afterwards, and the bathwater will be a beautiful ochre when you eventually get to wash.
Back in Karatu it was exciting to drive into the Lutheran Hostel grounds to see if Edwin was there. At first we couldn't spot him and we had that moment of dread deep in our stomachs, but then we saw the vehicle parked under a tree. The garage had fixed it, so we got in but left all baggage apart from a lunchbox. Kisima Ngeda had provided us with packed lunches which we were to eat in the crater. This car was very comfortable, and I was amused to think that we all had window seats as that is one of the things often specified in Kenyan travel brochures. 'Guaranteed window seat for excellent game viewing!' We were now tourists going on safari. It was very relaxing for Harriet and Jon-Erik not having to drive, but just sit back and enjoy. Edwin is a very good driver and also knowledgeable about wild life and knows the area intimately.
First stop was the entrance gate to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Harriet went to buy our permits and Paul and I went to the little Visitor's Centre. There we bought a book which I really can recommend as a guide to Tanzania; Globetrotter TM Tanzania by Graham Mercer. It also contains an informative map. In Tanzania nowadays, prices of goods sold in tourist shops are quoted in dollars and that seems to be the preferred currency for buying. They will quickly convert it to shillings however, so there is no problem with that. When we were there it was roughly 1100 shillings to one dollar, but usually just simply 1000 to 1, which made calculating easy.
The road then led upwards to the crater rim. There is forest growing on the slopes and this is the only place I have ever seen giant forest hog in 1977. In those days the road was much rougher and not as travelled as now, I think you'd have to be very lucky to see any forest hog today. We stopped at a viewpoint and I have to confess that the view is fantastic overlooking the crater. The sheer vastness of it is mind-boggling and it is very beautiful especially when green like now. You can see tiny spots of animals scattered on the crater floor, quite a lot of forest on the nearside and the lake of course slightly off-set to the left. The crater walls are surprisingly steep and again covered by forest. No wonder it is such a popular destination by safari companies, I only hope that the tourists coming from Kenya really do realize that this is Tanzania!
It can get quite cold on the crater rim, and people who stay in the lodges will freeze in the summer months. Today was warm though. It wasn't the most brilliant hour to see animals, being middle of the day, but on the other hand the abundance of wildlife makes any time ok. You'd miss possible lion hunts and other activity, as most animals would be resting in the heat. Because the crater floor is so bare and the grass is short it is easy to see even small animals, and there were lots of adorable babies around, being the time of year when the zebra and wildebeest drop their young.
We drove for a good while along the rim before doing a sharp right turn onto a rough road leading steeply downwards. Again a 4WD was pretty necessary. It wasn't long before we were on the crater floor and for the first 10 minutes or so there were hardly any animals and I despaired and thought poor Scott and Anja were not going to see the wildlife I've been going on about all their life. Thankfully I was wrong and before long we were surrounded by zebra and wildebeest. There were masses of ostrich, we counted 54 in no time. The amazing thing was that we were almost alone in the park! I think we saw two other vehicles - I had been expecting to be in a queue most of the time. How wrong can you be? Before long we saw 3 cheetahs, quite far away. Cheetah has always been my favourite animal and Carita shares my view. She had not seen cheetah before in Ngorongoro so she was very excited. I suddenly remembered something from the old days, and that is to always look carefully around if you see something interesting, as there will often be more behind you. And so there was; a 4th cheetah walking towards the others, facing our backs. This one was a little closer and very beautiful. I reckon it was a mother with almost fully grown cubs, as cheetahs are not normally pride animals.
Onwards we went and then Edwin saw with his eagle eyes a black rhino, far away standing amongst zebra and wildebeest. Now the story of the black rhino breaks my heart. In the old days we used to see them quite often, but nowadays they are very rare. Another of my heroes Tony Fitzjohn in Mkomazi Game Reserve has a big rhino project going on and next time I go to Tanzania I will make sure that I get to visit there. The rescue of the white rhino has been a success story, with South Africa putting in an enormous amount of work and effort to save this huge animal. They have been rehabilitated in Kenya as well. Now the fiercer black rhino deserves the same. It was exciting to see this rhino even from afar. We had good binoculars with us.
We criss-crossed the crater floor and the children were delighted. The baby zebras were cute and we also saw a large herd of buffalo. They look like old women, with hair parted in the middle and bunched into two pigtails. They also had little ones in the herd, quite a lot lighter in colour than the adults.
Eventually we saw the compulsory lions, sleeping in the heat of the day. Again there were more of them behind us, up on a hillock, one with a rather magnificent mane. No sign of any kill and no circling vultures anywhere. Scott and Anja were very pleased to have seen lion and they are gorgeous. These ones also had young ones, still spotted and playing amongst the shrubbery, which made them slightly difficult to see.
Edwin was getting a little bit agitated as time was going fast and you have to be out of the crater by late afternoon. We still had our lunch to eat, so after a quick visit to the lake where a small flock of flamingos strutted about, we picnicked in the forest before the climb up back to the rim. There were toilet facilities, again very clean. We expected to have vervet monkeys trying to steal our food, but there were none! Harriet told us about another picnic spot in the crater were you get a type of kestrel that swoop down and steal food from your hand. Sounds like fun, but is in reality both annoying and dangerous. The vervet monkeys can be a nuisance as well, cute though they are. Now we only had starlings begging for crumbs. The Kisima Ngeda lunchboxes contained meatballs, sandwiches, salad, boiled egg and Cadbury's chocolate bars. Delicious! The lunch was accompanied by Safari Lager in cans, still cool from the cool box.
We then said goodbye to the crater and climbed up the slope in low gear. Our cars were still where we'd left them at the Lutheran Hostel, and we said a heartfelt thank you to Edwin. He'd had to spend an extra day away from home because of the car trouble, but he didn't seem to mind too much.
Then came the rather tedious drive back to Moshi. It took us almost 3 hours, with a fair amount done in the dark. The road between Arusha and Moshi, although good, is very busy and not pleasant to drive at night. This time of the year it gets dark about quarter to 7, in the typical quick fashion of any tropical country. One minute it's light and then it's dark! We had to get Harriet's children to ISM, preferably before 7 pm - which was impossible. Poor Carita had a rather big problem at school. She is 12 and goes to S2 (our year 8 in England). She has been unlucky with her boarding, as she quite often has been virtually alone in her year group. She has had to stay with the 'little ones', that is the primary children, and everyone knows that when you are a secondary school student you do not want to be treated like a primary school child. The last few months she had been a lot happier as she had stayed with older girls and there were a few of her age boarding as well. But now they were redecorating, well rebuilding Kijana were she was staying, and she had again to move to a boarding house called Kiota, full of primary children. She was to share a tiny room with three other girls and she was not happy at all. For adults the time to Easter when Kijana would be ready to move into, seems a short time, but for a 12 year old it's a long time indeed. Harriet and Jon-Erik had promised Carita to speak to the relevant teachers/boarding mistresses involved, but I could not see how the situation could change. The main thing was to make sure she was not treated like a small child, with god forbid an earlier bedtime. I found it a real shame, as Carita had found it hardest of the 3 to adjust to boarding. She was of course the youngest and there had been at the time questions about how it would affect her to be so small and stay away from home. My Paul had been left at boarding school from the age of 4 and a half, and he is no exception, but in Sweden it is virtually unheard of for any child to be left so young. Now that Carita was beginning to enjoy the boarding experience it was like turning back the clock a year or so. I somehow felt that the people involved did not fully take her views into any serious consideration. However, Kijana would become fantastic once it was ready built and Carita would get her own room.
We eventually got to ISM around 8 pm and dropped the children off. It was quite exciting for me to have my first glimpse of the school for 20 years, even though it was dark. The plan was for Scott and Anja to spend tomorrow with their cousins, joining them in class and having lunch in the dining hall. We would then join them around 2.30 pm and Carita would show us around the school, which I was very keen to see of course. When we got to know that classes start at 7.30 am we quickly readjusted the schedule, so that Scott and Anja would arrive at the first break, 10.15. This sounded much more sensible to all of us! They would still see plenty of school life, and we would get a bit longer over breakfast. But that was tomorrow's program. Now we were quite keen to get to Jon-Erik's house to have a shower, a beer and then a reasonably early night as it had been a full day, yet again.
This time we could all stay at the house as there was plenty of space. Jon-Erik's maid was well again, so all was tidy. Anja saw a huge cockroach in the kitchen, which she promptly named Cocky and then kept an eye on for quite a while. She was worried we'd step on it if we had to go into the kitchen at night. Now I am an animal lover, but cockroaches are the limit. Fascinating for sure, but as pets - no!
And that is how day five ended.

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Photos

Zebra with foal
It was hot and dusty and the animals were quiet and easy to get close to

our touristy safari vehicle!
Harriet and Jon-Erik wanted a break from driving, so we borrowed a friend's vehicle that had room for us all

Ngorongoro visitor's centre
This entrance and visitor's centre is really very good and has a good selection of maps

Ngorongoro crater
The beautiful crater seen from high up.

Looking out over the crater
Here we are admiring the view!

Ostriches
I have seldom seen so many ostriches here before

Wildebeest
A wildebeest or gnu lay down very close to us - it was hot mind!

Warthogs in the mud
The animals in Ngorongoro are so very used to people so they don't care about cars at all

Water hole
There is amazingly water in this dry place.

There is a lazy lion there!
Scott loved his first lion!

Looking out at a waterhole
Anja and Chicky are trying to see flamingoes

Wildebeest and black backed jackals
I love the black backed jackals in the background

Forest
Strangely the crater also holds a forest (apart from the forested sides of course)

Food
We had a pick nick in the shade of the trees before heading out of the crater