African Safari: Day 42
After leaving Zanzibar and staying a night in Dar Es Salaam, we headed off to the Ngoro Crater National Park in Tanzania to do some game spotting. We left our truck behind at the camp site and used Land Cruisers instead. The roads around this area are the most dangerous I have ever seen - smooth slippery mud covers all the roads here, and it wasn't uncommon for us to spin out of control 90 degrees and stop just in time not to fall down a steep cliff!
The Ngoro Crater is an amazing sight - the crater was formed from an extinct volcano, and the crater is 20 km in circumfrence. This created a circular valley full of rich soil, plenty of vegetation and thousands upon thousands of animals, including Zebra, Impala, Cheetas, Lions, Hyena, Rhino, Buffalo, Wilderbeeste, Elephant, Warthog, Hippos and Giraffe. The highlights of the day were being surrounded by tens of thousands of migrating wilderbeeste, and seeing a Lion hunt a Zebra only metres away from where I was watching - and to top it off, Richard Branson (the owner of the Virgin empire) was in the truck next to us! I was going to ask him if he could arrange a job for Stephanie with Virgin Blue, but he was too busy talking on his satellite phone.
Our next intended destination was the Serengehti National Park. As a result of all the recent flooding in Tanzania, it was unaccessible by road, so instead we drove to the Masai Mara National Park (which is literally the same place, but across the border and on Kenyan land) and spent an extra day there. Although the roads were muddy and full of potholes, we used two-wheel-drive minivans to travel around the National Park.
Here we saw much of the same type of animals as in the Ngoro Crater, but were lucky enough to be only a couple of metres away from all of the animals. Here we saw two Lions mating, and a cheeta killing and eating an impala.
Today is the second-last day of our African tour. This afternoon we are having High Tea at the former house of Joy Adamson (the author of Born Free) and tomorrow we drive to Nairobi to finish the tour.
On Thursday morning I arrive in London, with absolutely no arrangements made for accommodation. I will probably stay a couple of nights in inner London, before sorting myself out and finding a more permanent place to base myself. If anyone reading this is also looking for accommodation in London, or has a room available for rent, let me know! :-)