Going back to our room alone last night (http://www.serenahotels.com/tanzania/serengeti/home.htm), I was told to get security to accompany me there. My western thinking: there are bad men lurking around. African reality: there are lions and buffalo roaming the hotel grounds and can be extremely dangerous!! Shane and I got bumped up to the honeymoon suite, it was fantastic!
In the morning, we did a short nature walk. It was really lovely to go for a walk in the bush, however, it was a guided walk and we had to be accompanied by an armed guard with an AK47, again, for protection against wild animals attacking. My foot handled the walk okay, but I borrowed a walking stick, which really helped.
There were 3 huge buffalo watching us, which made me a bit nervous, but we got through it okay!! (very different, seeing the animal's eyes when you are out of the vehicle and somewhat vulnerable...)
Today was a bit of a wash-out. We had car trouble, and so our driver/guide, Abdul, had to bring us to the Serengeti Airstrip. We then waited about an hour and a half for another tour company to drop off their clients to fly away. The guide from the other company, Candy, then drove us to our next destination, Ngorongoro Crater, which took about 4 hours. We just managed to make it to the hotel (http://www.serenahotels.com/tanzania/ngorongoro/home.htm) to catch lunch, and then spent the afternoon relaxing, napping and watching the great view from our balcony. The hotel is perched high on the crater rim, and the views are stupendous. It looks very ‘Jurassic Park’, misty, cloudy and green down in the crater. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a dinosaur down there!!!
So, we have lost Abdul, he had to limp back to his home base in Arusha to get the vehicle fixed. We get a new guide and vehicle, to arrive tomorrow morning sometime.
Friday:
Met our new driver/guide, Juma. He arrived at 8 am and off we went down into the crater to spend the day game driving. We were somewhat disappointed with the amount of game we saw, as all reports led us to believe it is a huge concentration of animals, but anyway, we spotted about half a dozen new birds we hadn’t seen before, and all the types of jackals, plus hyenas very close up. It’s quite a big crater, and we spent until about 4pm down there. Juma had a long day, he had to come here from Arusha this morning, he left at 6am, so he was pretty tired. We did managed to spot the elusive black rhino, but only through binoculars, as it was miles away (we don’t consider it a real spotting unless we can comfortably see and photograph the animal). Black rhinos are very rare, in the crater there are only 22 of them.
So, next trip here, we must look further for the black rhino!!
Late in the day we spotted a few lions, but they were very full from a recent kill and eating frenzy, and were lazy and tired, not doing too much.
Our safari is almost over, and it’s too bad!! We are having so much fun.
Here’s some Swahili I have learned:
Jambo/hello
Lala salama/ good night
Asante/thank you
Asanta sana/ thank you very much
Nina fereho, te menua chui!!/ I am happy, I have seen a leopard! (this one I tried out on the bar staff at the last hotel, they were very impressed!)
Ndia/yes
Apana/no
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