MACuna Matata: Tanzania Part 3

Don: We've left our vehicles in Moshi in the lee of Kilimanjaro and have embarked on a five day trip with a fly-by-night tour operator (Honey Badger Safaris) as the paperwork and logistics and hassle involved in self-drive in Tanzania's northern National Parks is just too daunting. We're currently into our third day, having visited Lake Manyara where they discovered the so-called missing link, the fossilised remains of a 2 million year old ape-like human. Now we are in the Serengeti and will be moving on to Ngorongoro crater tomorrow. All very nice, but our delayed departure from South Africa means that we have missed the migration (of Wildebeest and Zebra) into Kenya. We may still try to get to see something of the return migration back to Tanzania from Kenya.

So our current safari comprises 6 people, Ian and Heather, Gabi and myself, the driver/guide and the cook. When we get to camp, we drop off the cook to put up our tents and prepare our meal while we go game watching. That is the theory anyway; in practice the vehicle keeps breaking down, so we get to camp so late that we have to put up our own tents (and help the driver with his). So far we have had a broken exhaust (with exhaust fumes filling the cab), stripped studs on the wheels, broken rear-left shock absorber and loss of ignition so Ian and myself push start after each stop and the driver keeps the engine running for all stops of less than 30 minutes.

The latest ruse is that we cannot get through the entrance gate into Ngorogoro because the tour operator paid our fee money into the 'wrong' bank account!

Don and Ian push-starting our safari truck

Nevertheless, these laughs apart, we're having a great time. Serengeti (it means 'endless plain' in Swahili) is just that; a magnificent never ending plain of grasslands as far as the eye can see.

The vehicle has three rows of seats and a pop-up roof so you can peer out the top for excellent game viewing. Yesterday, besides sightings of a number of antelope and bird varieties that we have never seen before (as they do not occur further south), we had three separate sightings of lion, including one of the three lionesses on the hunt and two of cheetah. Today we had two separate sightings of leopard (we have never seen a leopard close up before, despite countless previous visits to game parks in southern Africa).

The driver has just let us know that the payment has been sorted, so provided we do not lose another shock along the way, we should make it to the crater by nightfall after all (whereupon one of us will inevitably help the driver to pitch his tent).

Gabi: arrived on the edge of Ngorongoro crater (which is the world’s largest intact volcanic crater) and although it was almost dark you did get a sense of something quite amazing some sixty meters below you. The crater is sometimes described as ‘God’s zoo’ because it serves as a natural sanctuary for some of Africa’s densest large mammal population. It is a totally self-contained ecosystem since it is difficult for the animals to get out due to the shear drop.

The next morning we got up before dark and ‘dropped into the crater’ as it is described over here. We were greeted pretty much straight away by three male lions going about their business and for the next five hours saw everything you could wish for in abundance. For me personally the landscape was the most impressive, the flat crater floor of about 260 square kilometres enclosed completely by a mountain range. Of course we took plenty of pictures but none do it justice.