Ngorongoro Crater National Park
Ngorongoro park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Eden of Africa. It is on a massive scale. As he did yesterday, Peter was on and off a walkie talkie getting intel from other drivers on where the action was. We started at a look-out spot before driving all over the park in the hunt for big game.
I love how the fence includes a shield pattern. Here we all are, cleaner than on the mountain, with our intrepid leader, Cathy.
Ciaran used the camera in his left hand to take 360 photos of us with everything around us but I don't seem to have any. Here is my 180 photo:
Our first stop was a Maasai village, barely visible in the centre of the photo below. From what I just read on Wiki, the pastoralist Maasai were displaced when a dozen or so national parks were created in Kenya and Tanzania. Which might explain why this village felt a bit like a Disney attraction – very well set up for tourists. My guess is the village was allowed to stay in exchange for suffering busloads of tourists coming through. We each paid a $10 entry fee and, after touring the school and the huts, were pressured to buy trinkets from a stall in front of each hut. I told my guide that I had used the last of my cash for the entry fee (true). He said I could borrow from the driver and go to an ATM on the way back to Moshi.
It is sad to see a proud tribe like the Maasai reduced to trinket hawkers. When I was a kid, on the way to the Jersey shore, we stopped at a tent where native Americans sold trinkets. Similar vibe. Here are the women who sang to us as we entered the compound. The song was gorgeous.
We were dressed in similar garb and sang with them, sort of. Here's Lou (Louise).
Ciaran was renamed St. Patrick when he was given an ebony club to hold – which was reminiscent of a shillelagh – and asked to jump with the men. Video posted below but I'm not certain my subscription supports video.
The schoolhouse was small, dark and crowded. The children, boys and girls, were all about three or four. Older boys would be out herding cows or goats – we passed many of them on the drive to safari country. Imagine standing all day in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a stick. No cellphone. No social media. No video. I don't think I could handle either understimulation or overstimulation.
We toured the huts. One room for the parents, one for the children (room might be a stretch?) and a small space for the cow that would be milked in the morning.
Onwards! More elephants.
We parked next to this big dude. There was a line of jeeps observing him. At one point, he got up and strolled to the next bush, where it turned out there was a very well camouflaged female. He got on top of her, did his thing, then went back to his bush and laid down. I mean, are they trained to do that for tourists? LOL Peter said we might come back next year to see Simba.
The goal on safari is to see the big five. Water buffalo, below, is one of those.
The others are lion, leopard, elephant and rhino. We saw a black rhino before leaving but it was so far distant even Cathy's camera couldn't magnify it. A friend of mine has been to Kruger park four times and never seen a leopard, so we were lucky to see all five.
We had a beautiful lunch spot, surrounded by yellow weaver birds that were very eager for table scraps.
This is either a Thompson's gazelle or a Grant's gazelle, not sure of the difference.
Flamingos. They were stunning when they took flight, the underside of the wing a deep orange-pink, however that didn't happen very often. There are greater and lesser flamingos – both shown below.
We also saw warthogs, hyenas, jackals, royal antelope (tiny impalas), hippos (below). The warthogs were entertaining because they chased each other – like puppies having a great time.
Egyptian geese.
Pelicans.
More wildebeest, there's a warthog on the left.
Ostriches are like giraffes to me – unlikely animals, created by a committee where there was no consensus.
This is the national bird of Uganda, the crested crane. It isn't a great photo – the ones online show what a magnificent bird it is.
We also saw kori bustards, but it looks like I didn't keep a photo of them. It was a great day. Yesterday was very hot but today was cooler due to the higher elevation.
We repaired back to Karatu and had a swim – both hotels have lovely pools. Everyone else went on a tour of a coffee plantation. I sat on the second-floor balcony with an excellent glass of South African red wine and caught up my journal, given to me by Andrew Davidson, who hiked Kili early this year with 13 friends.
8 Dec.