Before we left New York I had taken a class where we learned how to do star trails (which involves setting up a tripod and taking 1 picture over the course of 30 minutes). I was super excited about trying it out, although it was a little difficult to do so when we were in the Serengeti surrounded by wild animals! (Jon wasn't keen on staying outside of our tents longer than necessary...I couldn't quite figure that one out :-p). Last night I was able to set them up and took 3 pretty awesome pictures :) (Sorry there's no photo - I took them on my fancy camera :-p)
So we woke up at 5 am after a late night and all I can say is - MAN WAS IT COLD!!! We had been told it would be cooler in the crater because of the location on a mountain, but I don't think we were really at ALL prepared for how cold it ACTUALLY was. We just kept thinking - we're in Africa - how cold could it get? The answer is about 40 degrees, seeing your breath all morning. It was definitely hard to get out of our sleeping bags to pack up!
After breakfast we headed down into the Ngorongoro Crater, located in the center of Tanzania. We drove down this beautiful hillside dotted with Masai tribes to get into the heart of the crater.
There, we immediately found 2 lionesses stalking prey! It was pretty great considering lions sleep 16-20 hours a day so they are rarely up and about during the day, but rather hunt at night. We watached as they began to stalk a buffalo from afar...and then the tables turned when the buffalo noticed them! Lions don't usually kill buffalo because of their size (and the fact that buffalos will actually kill lions if they feel threatened). So we watched as this lioness, who had originally been approaching the buffalo, turned and became the target herself for a good 300 meters. It was pretty awesome!
As we drove on through the crater, I realized that THIS was what I had pictured all of East Africa to be like - low lying grasses with animals as far as the eye could see.
It was stunning to see so many animals living so peacefully beside one another - zebras, gazelles, wildebeests, elephants, hippos, lions, hyenas, warthogs, and tons of different birds (and I'm sure I'm forgetting other types of animals), all within one frame in your camera - pretty incredible.
Our goal for the day had been to find a rhino since it was the last of the Big Five that we hadn't yet seen. We searched all morning for one, with some people beginning to get bored with zebras and wildebeests (although I will say I did NOT get sick of the zebras - they quickly became one of my favorites! They are so beautiful and calm I just wanted to pet one!)
Finally, after several hours of searching, we came across a black rhino!
While it was SUPER far away, it was obvious from its horns that it was a black rhino and that it was MASSIVE. We watched it do nothing but lay around for a while before heading on to find a pride of 4 sleeping lionesses (who honestly looked so adorable they could have been giant house cats! I know - super dangerous, but they just look so cuddly!)
We spent the rest of the morning until about noon driving around the crater seeing TONS of animals including a herd of adult male elephants who were HUGE, 2 more black rhinos, hippos out of water, a gaggle of about 200 flamingos, and a few eagles an buzzards. It was a wonderful day in a truly magical place. If you ever find yourself in Tanzania I would definitely recommend spending a full day or two in just the crater!
We then stopped for lunch beside a lake where we were told to eat in our cars because of the crazy birds that were apt to steal food straight from your hands.
While everyone in our group heeded this advice, others weren't quite such good listeners...and we watched as a bird (with a wing span of probably about 3 feet) grabbed chips and sandwiches straight from people's hands! After about 10 minutes of attacks (I'm not sure how they lasted that long) they finally began to eat in their truck!
We spent the next few hours driving back to our hotel in Arusha. I sat in the front on the drive back and talked to Adam for about 2 hours all about Tanzanian culture, technology entering Tanzania, travel, our lives, the differences and similarities between our lives and countries, etc. etc. It was funny because we all thought he had been so quiet, but really we just hadn't given him a chance to speak up! It was really great hearing about his life and the beautiful country and culture of Tanzania.
On the way, we stopped to use the bank and - surprise surprise - the Barclaycard (our credit card) ATM was broken. That was awesome. We wandered between different banks' ATMs trying to find the one with the least surcharge...and so we went to quite a few ATMs. After FINALLY retrieving money, we arrived at our hotel and were able to take hot showers for the first time in several days! I'd never felt cleaner in my whole life! We also did a load of hand washing since we'd worn through most of our clothes in the last 10 days (although we only had space in our bathroom sink to wash the necessities). Hoping we can do a lot more hand washing when we arrive in Zanzibar!
Dinner was ready around 8 pm - vegetable lasagna. We ate and then met back up with our truck driver, Calisto, who talked to us a bit about Tanzania and what to expect over the next few days, driving (12 hours) to Zanzibar, and then what it is like on the island itself. More on that tomorrow during our LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNGGG drive!
Jess' highlight of the day: being in the middle of the crater surrounded by so many animals! (and also a really awesome hot shower!!)
Jon's highlight of the day: seeing the black rhinos
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