Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater

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We packed our bags for a 2 night safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Our driver, Sunny, picked us up at 0700 in a 4x4. Safari-bound we endured a surprisingly smooth ride to our campsite in the Serengeti National Park, much inspection of the inside of our eyelids was had by all! Now, this was a campsite with a twist. It had no fences or boundaries. It was literally a clearing in the bush where we pitched our tents and where wild animals roamed freely. There was no running water and the toilets were holes in the ground. We could feel the adrenaline rush from our anticipation that we could very possibly have encountered an angry elephant or maybe even a lion. Instead we encountered a mildly frustrated stick insect and not much else in the way of fauna.
Alive and in one piece the following day, albeit filthy from the Serengeti dust we took to our 4x4s for our safari on Serengeti - “the land that moves on forever”. And moving on forever is something that the Serengeti plains certainly does very well. Covering a huge 15,000 sq kms. this is a true wilderness. We encountered many animals that day including the elusive leopard and a lioness with her cubs seeking shade from the midday sun under an acacia tree.
After lunch we made our way to the Ngorongoro Crater, the most densely populated area of wild animals in Africa. En route we stopped at the museum in Oluvai Gorge. This museum was the base for the Leakey’s (a famous paleoanthropological family) excavation of the fossilised footprints of early man, homos habilis.
The rim of Ngorongoro Crater welcomed us coldly as promised. But that was expected at 2400 metres above sea level. As soon as the sun set we could feel a significant drop in temperature so we dressed in our trusty Snugpaks. Dinner was eaten from our laps as we huddled around the campfire before retiring, fully clothed but partially blind, and smelling like a BBQ due to the campfire smoke, to our already damp and cold tents.
After a breakfast of eggs and beans (Darren had toast) we headed into the “crater” for our safari. Our first encounter was an elephant’s graveyard where we witnessed two elephants browsing, possibly waiting to die. A pride of lions wondered freely through the plains, stopping briefly to have a mass toilet stop, one lion notably having eaten a particularly spicy antelope curry the night before! Toward the end of the day our eagle-eyed driver and guide spotted what was to be the last of our Big Five, the rhinoceros.
After the game drive we climbed the crater (not literally) back to our camp where we had another extremely bland and mushy meal courtesy of Tanzanian chefs, at least we are getting our “five-a-day” due to the amounts of watermelon, orange and banana we get with each meal.
After lunch we embark on the 3 ½ hour journey back to the dust bowl aka Arusha Snake Park. En-route Sunny (the driver), stopped to buy bananas and kindly gave us some amazing looking red bananas! Unfortunately they tasted just like regular bananas!
Back at the campsite we feasted upon burger and chips (thanks be to Charlie and Etienne) and spent the rest of the night getting the dust out of our clothes, hair, teeth, eyes………..

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Comments

[Pamelita]

Questions about Ngorongoro and Tanzania
Hi! My mother and I are planning a trip to Ngorongoro and Zanzibar. I'm trying to keep our costs down and fun up. What do you think of coming out on a round trip ticket with a hotel reservation (somewhere near the rim of the crater) but no booked tour? Do you think we'll be able to find reliable tour guides / transport in/out of the crater on our own, not booked in advance? We're planning on traveling in March. Would you think it safe for 2 women traveling alone? Thanks so much for your feedback!