Tanzania - Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater safari

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We crossed the border on the Mzungu meat wagon without hassle and without having to kick any locals and made our way to Arusha. Here we would spend one night in the ominously named Snake Park.  

One of the reasons behind signing up to a 10 day overland tour was to take the strain off ourselves for a while and let someone else do the organising. We discovered pretty fast though that having to stick to someone else's agenda was much more stressful for us. Throughout the tour we were like a couple of pensioners, stressed about packing up on time, getting our tent up, getting to breakfast on time. We were always last for everything and couldn't quite muster up enough energy to get out of the slow-mo we had been in for the past 10 weeks.

At Snake Park we picked up two guys who had just climbed Kilimanjaro, bringing our group to a magic 28. Chris had harboured ambitions of completing Kilimanjaro since the start of our trip but the Lying Planet had given us the impression it was the wrong season. Understandably, his eyes had lit up at the thought of meeting these two fellas and they were subjected to a beer fuelled evening of interrogation.

Not wanting to let them escape our questions, we paired up with them and an English woman called Liz for our 3 day excursion to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. Our driver was called Coppa (nicknamed Copa Cabana by his colleagues to our immense amusement, and provoking  a predictable and disturbing outburst of Barry Manilow). He knew he'd drawn the short straw as we caused trouble requesting extra water from our courier and got generally over-excited about the fact our jeep had proper safari roof openings. Added to the fact that over the next few days we never failed to get his name wrong (Cocker, Cooker, Chopper, Big Chopper - not so bothered about the last one I suspect) and grew gradually more demanding about the animal antics we expected him to spot, I wouldn't be surprised if the guy isn't this minute checking into the Tanzanian branch of The Priory.

Including Coppa, we were six in our happy jeep.  There was Aaron, a 21 yr old Canadian who was to be called Junior - not just because someone had overheard him commenting about how old everyone was on the trip, but also because he was always demanding more and more of the animals in the park. If we saw a lion, he would then want to see one killing something. If we saw a leopard, he wanted to see one mating. If we saw an elephant, he wanted to see want battling bravely with a poacher. Chris caracatured his behaviour as only Chris can and the name Junior seemed to stick.

Then there was Ian - a 30 yr old doctor (yes! NEARLY as old as me) who blamed his afternoon naps and his frequent toilet stops on the anti-altitude sickness pills he'd taken on the climb, and who was consequently called Grandad. Finally, there was Liz, a 27 yr old nurse who could talk the hind leg off a giraffe.  

After a 5 hour drive we entered the Serengeti National Park full of anticipation (although I must admit the scars of our gorilla experience were still fresh and I was trying to talk down the experience in my head) and ready to spot the Big Five. At this point I would like to state for the record that contrary to what Chris might have you believe, the Big Five does not refer to the rather large travelling pants that I got in M&S. 

Within minutes of entering we were simply awestruck. As you descend into the park you are met with the most amazing view of grasslands,  coated with a light mist and fringed with mountains that almost seemed to float on the horizon. The sense of space was just unbelievable and even the nearby giraffes were dwarfed by the landscape, whilst the zebras looked positively Bonzai.

Now I've seen zebras and giraffes in zoos, not to mention getting stubble rash from the former in Nairobi, but seeing them in their natural environment is breathtaking. And whilst I'm firmly on the evolution rather than the 'seven days and He saw that it was good' side of the fence, even the most devout Darwinists must doubt their convictions when it comes to giraffes and zebras. They certainly wouldn't win animal hide and seek.

All of us were hanging out for a lion hunt, which even Junior admitted we'd be pretty lucky to witness, and sure enough towards the end of the afternoon, Big Chopper and his Superman eyes had spotted a small ant on the horizon, which turned out to be a lioness up a tree. Our first lion!

As we approached the lion the wind changed and the animal suddenly became very alert. As we looked in the general direction of where its nose seemed to be pointing there it was - a hartebeest (type of antelope for beginners out there).The hunt was on.

The lion slid out of its tree and it was then that we noticed that it had a mate with it. One lion stalked off through the long grass straight towards the hartebeest whilst the other started to make its way behind it. I have to say that when old David Attenborough is on the box, I am always rooting for the prey but seeing this drama unfold in real life we were all hoping to see a kill. The hartebeest deserved to be caught just for sheer stupidity as just like an annoying character in a horror movie, it actually started walking towards the lion when it sensed something was afoot (apaw? ahoof?) (sorry, that was awful). The lion put on a brief spurt but the hartebeest just skipped blithely away. Maybe we'd get to satisy our blood lust the next day as the sun was setting and we had to make it to camp before dark.

I don't mind camping, in fact it makes for quite a nice change on this trip but camping in an unfenced area in the middle of the carnivore equivalent of Glastonbury is not to be suffered lightly. As we bedded down for the night we were warned that if we needed to relieve ourselves before dawn, we were first to look out of the door through a small crack, check for hyenas, lions or hippos (the most likely visitors in that campsite) and if there were none in site to get as close to the side of the tent as possible and do our stuff. If we were to see one of the above then we weren't to leave the tent - a bit obvious if you ask me because anyone faced by such a sight would have pee'd their pants immediately anyway!

Apart from a worryingly near hippo which occassionally woke us with its grunts (although it could admittedly have been Chris) the night passed off peacefully and suffice to say we were not eaten alive and did not wet ourselves (in fact I had brought a plastic bottle in with me just in case - I'll leave you to think that one over!).

Our second day out on safari was just as eventful and almost within a matter of minutes we had spotted another three lionesses, who were either waking up or going to sleep - hard to tell which as lions seem to spend a hell of a lot of time asleep. Our David Sheldrick experience in Nairobi had already educated us as to the similarities between 'us and them' and lions were no exception. Coppa / Big Chopper / Cooker / Cocker informed us with his characteristically dirty laugh that the man of the family will stick with the women long enough to spread its seed then, when the litter is born, will pretty much bugger off on his own for most of the day, showing minimal interest in his offspring. Moreover, the women do all the hunting and killing and, once they have felled an animal, the male gets to tuck in first, disappearing with a huge belch when it's had its fill (burp bit's not true but you get the gist).

Out of sight from the three lionesses we spotted a male in the distance resting in what must have been its own grassy shed. It was in its normal reclined position but with its eyes clearly on a lone gazelle which was grazing nearby. As it looked uselessly on you could almost here its angry roar of, "where the f*** are the women?".

A couple of hyenas, warthogs, jackals, zebras, secretary birds (Chris's favourite - apparently because of the fact it kills snakes but I'm not so sure) and hippos later we came across a leopard up a tree. We had seen a leopard the day before but this one had just killed, the neck of its victim Tompson's Gazelle hanging down from the branch. I'm not saying we were over lions by that point (better still to come) but we were geared up to see a cat of the spotted variety (in fact Junior was almost sick with anticipation) and were just gob smacked by the leopard. With its incredible coat and stealthy moves it looked almost regal sat up on high with its meal.

Our luck that day continued and we were the only jeep out of our group to get to see a male lion close up. It was resting on a rock about five metres away from us and although it was clearly too hot and bothered for any action it was pretty unnerving being so close and also slightly below the animal and we had our escape route planned in case it decided to tempt a high dive in through the safari holes in the top of the vehicle.

Not only this but we came across a mother lioness who was training her seven cubs to hunt. Well six really, the male, whose mane was just starting to grow in, sat nearby and picked his nose. They had surrounded a wildebeest which was bleeding profusely from one leg so we presumed they had got an upper cut in already. But the wildebeest was putting up a pretty good fight and anytime the lions would attack, it would run at them, actually head butting one of the lions one time so it had to go and have a bit of a sit down. We presumed the lions had eaten already as they didn't put up much of a fight even though they had it surrounded and it was wounded and the prey got away.

By the end of the day we had seen four of the 'big five' - leopard, lion, elephant and buffalo. The latter, again, acting spectacularly like any human male in the morning as we watched have a shit, scratch and then get straight down to business with a nearby female. All that remained was a black rhino, which we were promised in Ngorongoro Crater next day.

Reading this account it must seem that you can barely move for animals in the Serengeti and that's not quite the case. Although there is usually a gazelle or antelope in sight you actually spend quite a lot of time driving through what seems like empty grasslands looking out for our four legged friends. As the rains have just finished the grass is long and only just starting to brown on top so it can be hard to spot the big cats especially and we were constantly impressed by Coppa's spotting abilities. And even when there are no animals in site the huge open plains are a pretty impressive spectacle, with the grass swaying in the wind (hypnotising Grandad into frequent naps) and broken only by acacia trees or the piles of rocks which seem to be randomly plonked in the middle of know where Stone Henge style.

We camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater that night, pleased to be out of lion territory. The relief was short lived however as we were told that whilst the night before we could only pee safely by the side of our tent, tonight we were not to leave them at all due to the visiting buffalos. The bottle was brought in again.

Ngorongoro crater is huge - 20km across and formed when a volcanos 'growth' was interrupted millions of years ago. If you can imagine a bisected volcano, then we were in the middle of it. Because it retains its water quite efficiently it attracts many species of animal including the Serengeti regulars plus flamingos and plenty of hippos. I'm not going to go into the hilarious hippos, enormous elephants and fantastic flamingos we saw as I'm sure you getting a bit Attenboroughed out now but we did see those elusive rhinos - three of them in fact and even Junior's pulse was raised as one of them charged another jeep. Oh, and a couple of lions walked right by our jeep - I mean RIGHT by, like 1m below us!

All in all it was a very special experience and the animals really put on a show for us - and I don't mean just those inside the Jeep. We are off for some beach action in  Zanzibar next and got to thinking that if everyone was ready for some more animal action (not in a dodgy way) by then, Chris and I could satisy their demands because our dodgy tans were starting to make us pretty zebra like ourselves.