When we woke up for breakfast this morning, the light from the sun was just coming up while a heavy mist blew around the front of the Rhino lodge. It was moving day again today, but first up, a two hour nature walk along the forests on the rim of the crater.
We picked up our guide, Yohana, a twenty something man dressed head to toe in military garb and bearing a rifle, and drove about twenty minutes to the start point of our walk.
About five minutes in, we were walking along a dirt Masai herding road, when Yohana points straight ahead - "oh, elephant there". All we could see was the path eventually disappear into the dense jungle on either side. I grabbed a pair of binoculars and sure enough, about a kilometre away, I could see an elephants ear. What the hell? I don't understand how their eyesight can be that good. Unbelievable.
We cautiously stalked up the path. When we got close to the area where he'd spotted the beast, he told us to hang back a bit. Beth scream-whispered "are we safe?" And Yohana gave the exact wrong answer "mmmm..... maybe.... yes". It wasn't the most reassuring response. Basically, we were trying not to frighten the elephant so we wouldn't get trampled. We heard another two moving about just beyond the first elephant. Then, we heard the familiar cowbell sound (familiar to the Tyndall's from trekking in Nepal) of a Masai herd of cattle coming down the path. That gave emough notice to the elephants to move up the slope and away from the path.
After the cattle passed, we saw another three elephants walking down the hill about two hundred meters from us. Cool.
Yohana explained some of the uses of the various plants and fruits along the way - largely medicinal, including a fern that had a high quantity of Quinine, the active ingredient in anti-malarial drugs. He also pointed out all kinds of different animal feces...water buck, buffalo, elephant, giraffe and more.
Near the top of a rise that brought us out of the jungle and into a high plain, Yohana showed us multiple leopard tracks going each way on the path. Very cool. There were of course, the occasional Masai photo salespeople - it seems that the tourists over the many years have turned the entire Masai tribe into tourism entrepreneurs... not good for them in my opinion.
We spotted a....ok....we didn't.... Yohana spotted a few giraffe across the meadow and in the middle of a nearby forest, so we traipsed over there to get a really close look. They are so majestic. Turning back and presumably heading back to the main road for our pickup, we climbed another hill and down into a valley where we got really close to five more giraffe that really looked like they were studying us.
By 11am, we were back to the cars (much to the chagrin of a few hungry members of our troop who had expected to have a snack at more like 10am....lol).
By 11:30, we'd dropped Yohana off at his ranger station and we were headed down and out of Ngorongoro. The conservation area is quite big, and the border of it would signal the start of the Serengeti - the most anticipated part of our trip. But first, we had to get through two hours of serious massage roads. I'd never been bumped around so much in a car. The road was carved out of the gentle sloped sides of the volcano range and into some serious Masai territory - dry fields with the occasional shade tree, and every so often a circular Masai settlement. Every couple of kilometers you would see Masai holding out for a paid photo stop - two small boys, a lone woman, a pack of jumping teenaged boys - there were all sorts represented.
We all kind of napped....in and out...up and down. At one point we hit a bump and all four of us flew in the air in slow motion (Inception-style when they flew backwards off the bridge), stopped only by our lap belts. We all laughed but Grayson issued a humble apology...he's so professional.
By lunch, we'd finally reached the end of the Ngorongoro and the beginning of the Serengeti!! We got out a fairly developed entry station. There were perhaps a hundred jeeps and a dozen huge Overland vehicles. Half of the people were leaving the park, half were coming in. While Tom checked us in, we ate our boxed lunches and chatted up a couple at our table from Maryland. They'd just been to Rwanda, trekking with gorillas which sounded awesome. We also got plenty of current info about Capetown as that's where they'd started their trip. I'm always amazed at the Americans we meet on our travels - great people who travel a lot. They got us thinking a lot more about a future trip to Ecuador and Machu Pichu.
Out trip into the Serengeti started with a bang. Not five minutes after entering through the gates, driving the main road through the middle of a barren grass plain, we saw a lioness walking towards a lone tree by the road. Wow, two cubs were following here. Hey, another lioness was sitting under the tree! Thirty seconds later we are parked two meters from the two lions and two cute cubs grabbing shade under the tree. We were snapping away when one of the lions looked me right in the eye and I felt the immediate need to slide my window shut. They instill so much fear and exude power - it's awe inspiring.
After getting our fill, we continued on. We veered off the main road, checking out some of the rock outcroppings that form the occasional oasis that are a big feature of the central Serengeti. Moments later, Grayson makes a bee line off road to a small tree - a beautiful cheetah and two cubs were now sitting five meters from our vehicle as we stared with jaws open. What beautiful cats they are. Their tiny heads don't seem to quite fit their long lean bodies, but they definitely have a much smaller build than their lion cousins. We stayed there for close to half an hour. Grayson had to give Tom this description to find our car "look for the large tree with two vultures just past the rock oasis with four big red rocks and one white rock, four hundred meters from the main road" - crazy but he found us shortly thereafter.
Twenty minutes later and back on the main road, we came across two lionesses getting shade from a small group of four jeeps parked in the middle of the roadway. They were nice looking, but looked to be pretty relaxed so we didn't linger too long.
One of the cool things we noticed on the drive today were thousands of gazelles, ninety percent of which were standing still, facing the same direction. Grayson explained that they were not heavy water dependant animals and that if they stood facing the oncoming wind they could extract enough moisture from the faster moving air to meet their water needs - crazy.
At close to 5pm, we reached our home for the next three nights - the Kati Kati mobile camp. While it is mobile, this camp has been in place for two and half years and is due to move in six months. The whole setup of the camp was exactly as we had pictured a tented camp in the Serengeti to be, but it was also so much more. After the group checked out the tent options, it was decided that the kids would stay in the huge, two room, four bed tent, and the adult couples would each share a double tent.
Now I say tent, but each tent had the following setup... a porch with clothes washing station, a huge zippered front door, a main bed area that was about fifteen by fifteen feet and seven feet high. In the bedroom there were side tables, a "makeup table" and clothes hanging area. Behind the bedroom was a little vanity area with plenty of room for all your toiletries. In the back there was a separately zippered area with full functioning toilet and another zippered room for showers. Showers? I was up first - basically you shout out for water, a guy fills a cistern with twenty litres of hot water and you have enough for a great one-man shower. Abby was impressed that there were even "complimentary" (her favourite hotel and restaurant adjective) soaps and shampoos.
One of the guys helped Beth with doing some laundry, and before you knew it the laundry was hanging out to dry and we were all out in front of a bonfire, watching the sunset with a drink in hand, watching the "Serengeti TV" as they called the view here. At 7:30, the chef came out and gave everyone a heads up that dinner was to be served soon. He then described the dishes to be served which had us all drooling. The dinning tent was a thirty meter long, ten meter wide tent that had one side open to the Serengeti. The tables were set with nice linens and elaborate place settings, and before long we were served dish by dish by staff that came around to the tables.
We are in heaven. Thankfully, we're here for three days then two more nights and days in North Serengeti. Heaven.
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