April 14th
We catch an early breakfast and meet Gaspard down in the hotel lobby. Our first stop in the journey is a grocery store, which is really nice because we hadn’t seen a proper grocery store in a while. (I guess seeing something modern like that just makes you feel a little at home for a moment.) We picked up some Somosas, bisquits, bacon...(David has to have his bacon, they don’t have too much bacon around these parts...we never really saw any pigs...so we are not quite sure where they get it from...mmmm mystery bacon.) carrots and we decide to pick up some bananas along the way.
It takes about 6 hours to get to the town where the Serengeti is. The road is bumpy...so OK all the roads in Africa are bumpy...if we are taking a road trip, just assume that the road is bumpy and bouncy most of the time, oh and warm don’t forget warm.
We finally get to Ngoro Ngoro (A town so nice they named it twice.) We are not even in the park and we are seeing Monkeys cruising around the trees and by the road. Ngoro Ngoro is a wild life reserve and you have to pass through it to get to the Serengeti. It is pretty fun because in this place you can go off road a bit and Gaspard took us to see the Giraffes up close and personal. OK so we were kind of torn because on one hand we were cruising through their house, but on the other hand, when were we ever going to see giraffes this up close in the wild? So we went and it was great! There was a while family including babies and elders and everything. We loved it! David took a bunch of pictures and then we were off again. During this trip we are able to see Water buffalo, antelopes, dig digs, zebras, Thompson gazelles, grand gazelles, eagles, hyenas, coribastards, lions, waterbucks, rhinos, ostriches, secretary bird and probably some more than I can’t remember right now, but just know that there were heaps of really cool animals to see! We even got to see the Wildebeest migration, which was amazing within itself. There are thousands of wildebeest that stretch for miles and miles all in a line walking together towards us waiting to cross the road. That was a sight we won’t see again in a hurry. After seeing the parks for a while, Nogoro Ngoro and the Serengeti, Gaspard take us to see the crater. The crater is huge and it is home to many different animals. It is sort of like a zoo in the way that the animals can’t get out. They are all stuck there and evidently this is causing a problem because they are interbreeding, so eventually they will have to introduce other animals into the park if they want to keep it going for years to come to keep the population strong. Gaspard tells us that it is $200 per car to go down into the crater so we take some time to really think about if this is something we want to do. It is now getting late and we need to find a place to stay. We stop at one place, but it is $350 a night so we pass and Gaspard remembers a place where someone mentioned before. It is called the Rhino Lodge. If you ever go to the Serengeti stay here period. The Staff was great, the food was the best we have had in Africa and there are Massai guards that will take you for walks, but mostly they are there just in case the animals come cruising around and start causing trouble. They Massai have a way of speaking to the animals and the animals listen to them. Our room was lovely. Clean and nice, with working hot water. And the hotel also gives you a free dinner and breakfast! Dinner was Marsala Chicken with coconut rice and garlic green beans and breakfast was Spanish eggs with toast and fruit. OMG everything was the best ever!
After breakfast we headed out to the creator. It takes a while to get down to the base of the crater, maybe a half an hour or so. Once down there we saw, a leopard, A male lion and his mate with their two cubs. Flamingos, elephants, warthogs, Ibis, hippos, jackals, water buffalos...just a side note about water buffalos...how funny are these guys? They are really super tough looking when they are in a pack out on the plains. Very aggressive and give you reason to think twice about approaching them or any part of their herd, but in the forest, they are timid and very gentle creatures. We passed by a group on the way to the Rhino lodge the night before and they looked scared of us and one of them was hiding next to a tree with a look like “You can’t see me, you can’t see me I am invisible...” OMG they were so cute! We have a picture on one of them with a little branch of leaves over his ear. They have now made it to one of my favourite animals.
Driving in the crater is not an off road experience. They have people watch you all the time to make sure that you don’t go off road. There are roads that snake around, but if an animal is off in the distance, that is where they stay because you can’t really get to them. We drove around the crater for about 4 hours. Seeing lots and lots...I am not sure what I thought a safari would be like, but this was pretty good. Seeing the animals and having fun taking pictures. I guess I thought it would be scarier. Lions jumping out at you, having to floor it away from stampeding wildebeest, stuff like that, but I guess I have been watching too many movies...
After the crater we headed back to Arusha. It was still early so Gaspard invited us back to his house to meet his family. He has a wife and two little kids. His wife made us a lunch of traditional stew, rice and bananas which are a staple of every meal in every place we have been in Africa. After lunch and showing them our pictures from the trip on the computer Gaspard took us back to a hotel for the night and we said our goodbyes.
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