... and day 3 "Tatu" - Ngorogoro Crater

Today dawned bright and early... with everyone piling into our vehicle at 6am, to head down into the crater for dawn.



The early start paid off – we had the place to ourselves, and were blown away by the wildlife out every window. From impalas, water buffaloes, antelopes, to the odd elephant, they were everywhere. It was a magical 'enclosed' feeling – at all points, you can see sheer cliff walls rising up 500 meters.



The rest of the morning had a few surprises... we spotted lions at 500 meters, but were disappointed as they were little more than dots. “Oh, well,” we thought. “Our one sighting was still pretty cool.” Days four and five would make us feel a bit silly.

The odd rhino and hippo, wildebeests plus two hyenas and a serval cat rounded out the morning...





...we then headed out to the Serengetti, where we distinctly underwhelmed.

For the first hour, we just drove arrow-straight across a featureless plain with no animals to be seen anywhere, which caused a few of us to mentally question if we'd see anything at all.

If the plains had a voice – I'm guesing that it would say... “oh ye of little faith!”

Immediately right through the formal entrance of the park, and it all began to change. The odd impala or antelope started popping up here and there. But it was only as we came to a rise that we really got a sense of the vastness and the scale of the Serengetti.

There were herds and herds of wildebeests and zebras – EVERYWHERE. Thousands and thousands, just slowly heading north, as part of the great annual migration to Masai Mara in Kenya.



Jaws dropping, cameras clicking (of course), we were right in the midst of it. Turns out that that the zebras have a better sense of direction than the wildebeests, who in turn provide some protection against predators.

We kept driving into the plains – at nearly 15,000 sq km, we weren't in any danger of running out of space!

Just as we were about to head to our campsite, we came across another vehicle who told us that some cheetahs had been spotted just over the hill. Excited, we drove slowly keeping an eye out – and were rewarded with watching a cheetah teaching two cubs to hunt a group of massive impalas. They were a fair ways off – it was never intended to be successful as the animals were far larger than the cheetahs' normal prey, but we were able to just sit and watch the lesson...



Camping was a great experience – we were the midst of the wild, and could hear hyenas and other animals in the dark. Made for some interesting, and slightly unsettling dreams ;)