Ngorongoro

 Thursday 24 April

It was raining during the night and still raining when we woke up. We also had no power so we had to shower with torches! Breakfast was average but none of us were that hungry after the dinner last night.

On the road by 7.30 and after about 500 metres we reach the start of the road to Ngorongoro caldera which is unmade road. It is a long steep twisty climb on wet unmade roads in the rain and fog. What we can see is a jungle like rainforest. 

As we get higher it gets cooler, but the rain has stopped and we are above the fog. It takes a while to get to the top and then we proceed around the rim and get great views to a depression in the caldera before we get to the bottom. It is cold and very windy. On the way up we came across a troop of baboons and as we make our way down there are occasional zebras and wildebeest not far from where the Maasai herd their cattle sheep and donkeys. The Maasai do not hunt wild animals because they believe their meat is unsuitable for their diet, so they leave them alone. However if a lion or big cat takes a cow or sheep they will hunt and kill it! Our driver tells us if a lion sees the red cloak of a Maasai warriors it will flee the area.

At the bottom, after some spectacular views we reach the edges of the Serengeti. The temperature has risen the landscape has changed to open plains. We now start to see more animals with zebras and groups of wildebeest. Then we come across nearly 20 giraffes right beside the road on each side.

As we continue further and enter the Serengeti through the Nabi gate the groups of wildebeest start to get bigger. First it was 10 or so, then in the 20s, 40s and 100s. Our driver tells us it is the start of the mass migration where they walk to the Maasai Mara along with zebras and antelopes and impala. The wildebeest will gather in the Serengeti and at some stage something will trigger their migration.

We can now see vast numbers stretching out on both sides of the road. There are thousands of them. We pull up and hundreds cross the road in front of us.

Continuing on we see a large number of zebras, 100s of them moving and walking in a waterhole. The line of them stretches for 100s of metres. The other driver believes he has seen a lion and sure enough we can see a lioness lying in the grass about 20 metres from the zebras, at least 100 of them milling around in the waterhole.  We see two more lions who also appear to be lying in wait. The zebras are uncertain what to do the lions are in their way and with the ones pushing up from the back there is quite a crowd forming up. 

Then there is a stampede as the zebras start to run in the opposite direction, the lions have made a charge. I am trying to get photos but it is so unbelievable. A big male  lion grabs a zebra at the waters edge, then we see two other lions raise their heads from the long grass. The zebras stop running about 200 metres away and are unsure what to do. Meanwhile the male lion is finishing off the zebra. It is half in the water and a lioness joins him, both lions have a good hold on it. It doesn’t take long! The male lion is lying all over it and one of the other males comes forward but is chased away by the big male. He has the head of the zebra in his mouth and is trying to drag it out of the water. Between us all we have some great shots and video. I did not think it could get any better than what we have seen so far but it has, unbelievable. 

We continue on with our Africa massage to our accommodation and eventually arrive about 1.30 pm - 6 hours of bone shaking travel, but worth every metre for what we have just seen. Before we arrived we passed an warthogs, impala and one wildebeest

It will be hard to come down from the excitement of what we have seen.

The tented accommodation is fantastic, we have extraordinary views over the plains.  Our lunch was delicious and we have an open bar. We are not allowed to walk anywhere after dark without a guard. We are going to enjoy the next three nights.

Our afternoon game drive was fine with plenty of giraffes but it was never going to beat the drive in. Tomorrow we have a full day game drive to a different area of the Serengeti. The WiFi is slow and not available in our tents so it is difficult to update the blog, and impossible to upload photos. 

This trip has exceeded our expectations and I do not know how we can ever top what we have seen in the next few days available to us