Day 22 Nairobi to Cape Town
Kudu Lodge, Karatu to Ngorongoro Crater & Serengeti Game Reserve, Tanzania 150km
We woke at 0430, had a "HOT" shower, broke down our campsite and had breakfast before leaving Kudu Lodge and headed 20 minutes to the Ngorongoro Conservatory Entrance. We were greeted by a troop of Baboons who tried their best to get into our vehicles for food while we received our permits to enter the park.
Once we received our permits we headed through the gates and up through the mist and dense jungle to crater rim where we passed through the descent gate and proceeded down to the crater floor. Gabriel informed us that all the animals in the crater have never left due to the craters own ecosystem.
Ngorongoro Crater was established in 1959, covers an area of 310 square km (14.5x19km across) and 610-720 meters deep, it was formed over 2 million years ago and continues to evolve today by outgoing erosion and deposition. Ngorongoro Crater is set between the western wall of the Great Rift Valley and the Serengeti National Park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site set 180km West of Arusha and in 2013 was voted one of the 7 Natural Wonders of Africa.
As we descended the first animals we saw were Buffalo grazing on wild grass and as we dropped further down to the plains we were greeted by 1000's of Wildebeest before coming across our first Lions of the day laid out relaxing after a hard night hunting.We continued on across the plains seeing Gazelles, Warthogs, Zebra, Hyenas and finally coming to our first rest stop at the Hippo Pool where we sat down on the lake bank and were treated to a yawning display from one of the Hippos only 5 meters away, but very weary of the fact that Hippos kill more humans than any other animal in Africa!
We left the Hippos and went around Lake Magadi where we came upon another pride of Lions eating their prey from the night before, they were continually chasing off Jackals as they constantlycame in close for attempts at a free meal.
We came across various birds in the crater including The Secretary Bird, Sacret Ibis, Curi Bustard, Crowned & Blacksmith Plovers, Crowned Crane, Blackhead Weaver, White backed Vulture & Ostrich. We then headed for lunch at the base of the western side of the crater, we then ascended out of the crater and on towards the Serengeti Game Reserve 3 hours away over very rough gravel road which was punishing on the vehicle.
We arrived at the gate to the Serengeti Game Reserve and checked out of Ngorongoro Park and into the Serengeti Reserve. We got some great pics from the escarpment overlooking the plains before continuing through into the park. 30 minutes down the road we were hustled by local Masai who sadly had taken to begging for money by getting tourists to pay $20 for pictures with the Masai, it was sad to see and Gabriel (our driver) agreed that it was going to have a negative long term effect on the Masai Culture.
We drove across the flat open plains for what seemed like ages and finally came to a more fertile area which we hoped would provide us with some amazing photography opportunities and we were rewarded with a huge diversity of animals to capture.
It began with seeing 3 lioness and a juvenile male relaxing under an acacia tree by the side of the road, after 10 minutes we moved on to see Rothschild Giraffe grazing and then Gabriel got a call saying that there was something special a short drive from us, we sped towards a number of vehicles that we could see in the horizon and when we arrived at the location we were treated to not one but two juvenile leopards in an acacia tree. We sat watching them for 15 minutes and then they jumped down from the tree and disappeared from view. Gabriel drove around to get a better viewing angle and we saw them outside their den play fighting, Incredible!!
We then got a call from Benji (the other guide) saying that he had a problem with his radiator and he was going to limp back to camp so we headed back to camp also just as we were treated to an amazing Serengeti Sunset.
We arrived at the Nyani campsite and quickly setup camp before it got too dark it was then that we had a visitor in the form of an elephant who was hellbent on getting into the cooking building where dinner was being prepared, the cooks tried to shoo him with sticks of fire which angered the elephant and he proceeded to knock over rubbish bins and a couple of nearby acacia trees before moving on.
We had dinner and Gabriel informed us that Benjis truck was out of action and that it would be taken early in the morning to be fixed which meant that the 2 remaining trucks would be a tight squeeze for the 16 of us. Paul and I agreed that we would stay behind and look after the tents and gear so the rest of the guys could do the early morning safari. We called it a night and went to bed.
