We headed out after breakfast with a stop at a local creek to video the sounds of the frogs. Sara particularly enjoyed the sounds of Africa whether it was the very loud frogs, the very loud morning birds or the lions we heard roaring every night. If you see a video with no real movement make sure the audio is turned up as it will be a sound recording. After the frog stop we found a pride of lions on the remains of a zebra meal, and right after that a herd of understandably very agitated zebras. Listen to their barking sounds which we often mistook for hyenas. We really enjoyed watching the zebra and managed to get some videos of their carousing! It was a busy morning for elephants, we found a herd with a number of small babies. We stopped to photograph a lion in a tree and noticed the same elephant herd gradually grazing toward the tree. The lioness stayed very quiet and still and looked carefully down as the elephants walked slowly under the tree. Since we had seen elephants chase a lion in Tarangire we were interested to see what happened, but the lion managed to go unnoticed this time.
We stopped at a park museum for our usual enjoyable lunch time picnic, the Kon Tiki staff had the best lunches with rice and a vegetable curry for Sara and chicken for John and Ben. We browsed the interesting open exhibit, accompanied by a very informative young guide who explained the park history, animals, plants and local tribes. We were able to see a good graphic of the annual migration and understand how important Serengeti is to the wildlife population.
Monday we sadly left the Kon Tiki camp, it was our favorite in Tanzania and the staff were particularly lovely. There are many options for camps on safari, and our choice was to stay with local run businesses as much as possible. The staff really work hard, living in the camp away from their family often for months at a time.
It was noticeably greener after the rain from the previous day, it was amazing how quickly the grass and the trees grew with just a bit of rain. We stopped to watch a lone cheetah sitting on a termite mound looking out for a potential meal. The termite mounds are warm and provide a good vantage point. Speaking of termite mounds they really were interesting, each with different formations of large towers that the termites build to help cool the hive below. As an extra gift after the cheetah we noticed a beautiful serval cat hunting in the long grass.
We began the long bumpy dusty drive out of central Serengeti to the incredible Ngorongoro crater. To give you an idea of how bumpy there were many days our Fitbit trackers logged 25,000 steps, and all we really did was walk around camp and to the safari vehicle! At least it was good for core strengthening!
After bumping through 60KM of roads we arrived at the crater rim and descended the 4.5Km to the floor. Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest inactive and unfilled volcanic caldera and was formed two to three million years ago when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself. The crater is about 260 sq km and has different eco systems with forest, swamp and savannah all supporting a rich permanent wildlife population. We slowly drove to the main picnic area next to the fresh water lake and enjoyed another lovely hot picnic lunch. The local birds were very naughty and swopped on John several times to steal some of his food.
We stopped to watch a male and female ostrich, mainly because we felt we hadn't paid the ostriches enough attention. We were rewarded to see the pair perform a complex courtship dance with a lot of wing fluttering and strutting around. The male was successful in his wooing, but we're not sharing the photos to protect the privacy of their savannah romance!
Tuesday 20th September was our last safari day. We made the most of it with a 6:30am departure so we could arrive at the crater descent gate when it opened. After the 20 minute drive down the winding road we reached the floor and immediately saw a group of sleeping lions very close to the road. We then drove into the forest and Ben's sharp eyes noticed two black rhinos in the long grass. We were very lucky to see the mother and young calf as they are quite elusive. We enjoyed this special treat for about 15 minutes before they moved into the longer grass and out of view. We spent the day driving slowly around the crater, stopping to watch the large herds of zebra who came much closer to the vehicle than in the Serengeti. We were starting to head back when we were delighted to see a serval cat relaxing in the sun, and two jackals playing with each other - it was a perfect day.
We very sadly said goodbye to Ben, he was an excellent guide and wonderful person and we became very close during our adventure.
Our next update will describe the extraordinary time in Ethiopia. For now enjoy these photos and videos of our last four days on safari.
Click here for the photos and videos
(The videos have a small play arrow in the top right, make sure the sound is turned on!)
Wildlife seen: giraffe, zebra, lions on zebra kill, elephants, lion in tree, lions on buffalo kill, serval cat, hippo, cheetah, hyena, jackal (side striped), jackal (black backed), grey crowned crane, helmeted guinea fowl, arrow-marked babbler bird, ostrich, black rhino, flamingos, wildebeest, gazelles, buffalo
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