Wednesday, November 27th

World Tour Day 25

It was hard leaving the Serengeti National Park after our experience had been so incredible, but we were in store for another incredible day. As we left the Serengeti National Park we saw two cheetahs sitting on a large termite mound close to the road. They were snuggling, and watching in many directions. There was also the largest herd of wildebeest we had seen, which were about 3-6 wide and stretched as far as the eye could eye along the horizon. There was a hyena who ran across the road, which had started becoming a regular occurrence.

One of the women on our truck who is excellent at spotting animals had begun talking about places that were great to see lions at. She pointed at some rocks that we were approaching and said, “This would be a typical spot to see lions, oh my god, stop the truck, LIONS! MALE LIONS!”. By the rocks under the shade of some trees were two massive male lions hanging out. We had not seen any male lions in the previous days so that was an incredible spot. After that we also saw lions napping on top of their pride rock: many females with two males laying in the grass below.

It took about 2 hours to drive out of the park to the place where you check out and then check in to the next national park. It would be another 2 hours of driving to reach the crater, but those 2 hours were filled with just as much excitement and animal sightings. There were 2 male hyenas trying to seduce an already heavily pregnant female hyena to mate. You could tell she was annoyed at their attempts. It was a cool photo to capture them in front of a huge herd of zebra, who seemed to not care about the hyenas at all. We drove past two male ostriches, which you can tell are male by their dark feathers and pink legs. The drive to the crater also took us past the largest gathering of giraffes we had seen, with over 30 in the group. Up until this point we had only seen about 10 at a time. We finally arrived to the crater at 11:00am.

The Ngorongoro Crater National Park was gorgeous from the top, we could see the rim of the crater all around, and the lakes in the middle. We could see the various types of biomes inside as well, including yellow grasses, jungles, forests, plains, creeks, and lakes. We drove down the one way road along switchbacks, making our way to the bottom of the crater. The game drive was along the bottom, driving along the various dirt roads crisscrossing the bottom of the crater. Our guide informed us that the animals that live in the crater do not leave because there is a constant supply of fresh water and food. It was a paradise for both the animals and for us.

There were flamingos at the salt lake, both the pink and white ones. We saw them balance on one leg which was funny looking, and we all agreed they were shorter than what we were expecting from seeing them on TV. We saw a male and female lion who had just finished mating and were napping in the mud. There was another pride of lions later on in the day too. As we drove to the lunch picnic spot we passed a large family of baboons with many minuscule babies, some with not all their hair yet and clinging to their mothers.

In the grasses there was a mother jackal feeding it’s baby some meat. Off in the far distance there were 3-4 rhinos, which to be honest I could barely see even using the binoculars, but still cool nonetheless. Due to the high amount of salt in some of the water the animals who roll in mud to cool down sometimes appeared white, such as a warthog we spotted down on its front legs eating. Another neat sighting was watching a dung beetle try and fail to roll his ball of poop up a slope.

Exiting the crater the landscape changed to jungle forest. On our way out we passed a family of elephants, maybe around 15 of them, eating the spiky plants. The drive up the switchbacks was incredible with both views of the jungle and views of the crater behind us. A few hours later and we were in Karatu, Tanzania, which is where we camped for the night. The campsite had a pool which was great after 3 days of dusty dirt roads and safari. It was a relaxing afternoon of laundry, swimming, and hanging out with the fellow travelers on our overland truck. Tomorrow starts our long journey to Zanzibar.