Day 228 - Ngorongoro Crater

---

At 2200m above sea level we got a great night's sleep, away from the oppressive heat that has characterised so many of our Africa trip's nights so far. We ate a quick breakfast and were soon back in the minibus, christened Mystery Van due to featuring in Scooby Doo, and travelling down the crater descent road. Our driver, James, was evidently an off-road specialist because he was pretty good at driving today. His white-knuckle-ride display yesterday was nearly forgotten. The 20km wide crater has some of the richest concentration of big game anywhere and is one of the best things either of us have ever seen. The only things of note missing are giraffe, because they can't climb down into the crater, and female elephants for some reason. We almost saw the Big 5 in one morning: 2 cheetahs, loads of lions, some rhinos including a baby (cute from a distance) and lots and lots of elephants and buffalo. Just no leopard. We saw a recent kill being devoured by a lot of hyena and vultures. We saw a wildebeast rejecting an orphan - quite violently. Flamingos lending a bit of colour to the area rather than just green. A dead hippo lying on its side in the lake. And so on...

We spent a lot of time just holding on for dear life as the van bounced around, occassionally scraping its underside as we winced and wished we had a high clearance vehicle like everyone else. One of the Landcruisers got stuck in a particularly boggy patch, and we stopped to take a closer look. Ed changed out of jeans and into shorts and flip-flops in the expectation that we'd be getting out shortly in the middle of the mud, but somehow we made it across. The ascent road was a great view spent trying not to hit the ceiling with our heads, and before long we were leaving the park on our way back to Arusha. On the way we stopped to buy those Masai blankets, and back at the campsite had a quite night (whilst one of the snakes devoured a whole gerbil).

---