Day break...
After a great night's sleep in the open air of the tent, we were ready to take on the world...
... or at least wander down the tent rows to breakfast.
The view from our tent was pretty awesome. Looking over the fallen tree to the tarangiri, river of pigs, it was easy to be reminded that the comforts of the beds and the thin veil of the tent were only an illusion to make us feel more comforable while invading the wilds. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago a French child was killed by a leopard here so appreciation of surroundings is at a premium.
I have been to this lodge in Tarangiri now twice this year and each time didn't have a moment to swim in the pool. One of these years, I will swim in that beautifully maintained pool!
Full of a delicious breakfast of made to order omelettes, fruit, toast, and tea Kristen and I headed to the van to meet our guide. One of the kitchen workers was standing my the van with a large stash of lunch boxes. It turned out that one of the guides had left earlier in the morning and forgot his client's lunch boxes. Our guide had agreed to deliver them, if we happened across the unfortunate group.
The grass lands were boiling with activity this morning. Instead of small groups of animals, there were herds. The zebra are always dramatic with their prison stripes.
Wildebeast munched in organized formations.
The ostridge preened to start the day.
And the ngiri families looked for new things to root up with their tusks for munching...
... while water buffalo seemed oblivious to the birds on their backs and noses.
Of course they proved smarter, or at least more on task, than the creatures roaming around the grass lands in the belly of the big white beast with very swift black feet. The water buffalo have a symbiotic relationship with the aptly named reb billed ox-pecker because the bird gets a meal of bugs, fresh from the water buffalo's ears and the buffalo doesn't have to use a Q-tip.
Literally, thrilled with our morning game drive, we were now ready to settle in for the three hour push to Ngorangora crater. The dusty, lumpy, compacted road of the Tarangiri park gives way to a loosely paved road and then with the turn for Lake Manyara pure "Autobahn Bliss". Well almost... the Japanese government wisely decided not to give Tanzania financial aid in the form of cash, but instead came to Tanzania and built the most beautiful road in the country. The road runs from the Manyara turnoff all the way to the entry gate for Ngorangora game park. Giving the Tanzanian people a highly functional asset vs. cash, which will only be swindled away by government officials, was an act of brilliance. Besides, now the Japanese and other tourists receive a two-hour break from the bone jarring roads.
The green Ngorangora Park sign meant that we were to be leaving our Asian MacAdam fantasy and returning to dirt pot-holed reality .
From the front gate to the crater rim is about an hours equivalent of the rinse cycle in a washing machine. You climb out of the grass lands through rain forest and then emerge on the precipice of a now dormant caldera. The shear size is hard to describe, but the horizon equates to the far rim.
To descend into the depths is another forty-five minutes of clenched jaws, combined with indulging any opportune distraction. There are no guard rails and a margin of error is only about a foot and a half on either side. Sometimes the hillside direction looked like the obvious and better option than the cliff.
Once on the volcanoe's floor the safari began. We searched for the less obvious animals, but this time of year the sightings are fewer because the literally millions of animals have move hundreds of kilometers north to Kenya.
Ngorangora crater still has many year round residents to keep the tourists happy, though. A first glimpse of a group of Thompson Gazel was endearing. These graceful animals can be differentiated from their genetic cousins by the black stripe on their sides, which is absent from the Drake's Gazelle.
(Stripeless Drake's Gazelle)
The contrast to the Thomson Gazelle is Coke's Hartebeast. This lone wanderer is interesting, but (I know this is anthropomorphication) he seems to be the loneliest creature in the crater. Maybe it is the heavily weighted shoulders and downward trudging of the front feet, compared with the light upward gazing spring of the gazelle.
Way off in the distance, at about 42x of optical and digital assisted zoom away, hippos enjoyed the relative coolness of the day and seemed washed up on the beach.
Oddly, joining them were our first glimpses of the 120+ pound hyiennas. It must have been a day at the beach for everyone.
After driving along the edge of the large lake in the center of Ngorangora Crater, Jesse began to earn his keep as a safari guide. We headed off the main road, away from the line-up of Range Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers, to find a relatively small oasis filled with creatures. The pelicans owned the spot in shear numbers. (There were probably fifty but these three caught my eye.)
A Grey Heron tried to make a stand for his fair share of aquatic vittles.
While a Sacred Ibis checked around the lilly pads for a meal.
All this took place in plain view of the pool's hippo matriarch.
After enjoying the pool for such a long time that other guides started to swarm the scene we decided it was time to go "lion hunting". Venturing away from the reeds and water grasses the van pulled out into the open fields only to reveal my favorite bird to date, the Crown Crane.
Almost invisible in the grasses was the most mispronounced fowl on our entire trip, the White-Bellied Bustard.
As it turns out, the safari guides are not competitive or secretive at all. They will happily tell each other where the latest animal sightings may be. We heard of four lions just off the road, on the other side of the crater. So, we did a U-turn and were off with eyes wide open or at least as wide as the whirling dust would allow.
Sometimes, the animals are so close that you just plain have to stop to admire them, even if you are really hunting lions. These wildebeast were so close to the van that with a little effort we could have touched them.
As entertaining as this proximity was, we were on our way in pretty short order. After all, there were "big cats" to be found and we were going to find them. As minutes rolled on to tens of minutes the drone of grasses passing by at thirty miles an hour began to ware on the excitement level. Maybe they had moved on. Then out of the corner of my eye a black ear went zipping by. "Si Mama!!!" I cried out, which means "Stop!!!" in Swahili. The driver's foot gradually compressed the brakes and disbelievingly he looked over his shoulder. By then Kristen had seen them too and was pointing vigorously out the back lefthand side of the safari top. Jesse found reverse and we plodded backward. Just over the grass tufted road berm were four lions!
A lioness was totally crashed out while her three cubs took half hearted attempts at keeping watch.
Sitting there enjoying these beautiful creatures at less that three meters away, it struck us. We were easily closer to these lions than any Western zoo would allow.
With the van turned off, our ears easily picked up the pants of the adolescent cats and the deep guttural noises of their dreaming mother.
(She was sleeping on her back.)
Even though there were four, we practically missed them with their golden coats blending right into the grasses. But now, completely flush with our success it was time to head off to the forest for lunch. "Forest" is a loose term for a place with a few trees to break up the constant of moving grasses. Along the way, there was a "Lion King" moment with a young gazelle, zebra, and wort hog all eating side by side.
In the distance a Range Rover was stopped with its Italian occupants staring with lazer focus into the grasses. This is your turn to go on Safari... Do you see it?... Click on the photo to make it larger... Do you see the cheetah now?! To actually see the cat in motion slowed my heart's pace to a concentrated patter. Now this was Safari!!!
I think we were riding the cheetah high when we pulled into the picnic lunch parking lot. Either that or the 2:00pm eating time had left us a little glucose deprived, but either way lunch was exciting. We learned first hand where the term "cheeky monkey" came from. Our food was in the van and Jesse had his window open. This may as well have been a gilded invitation to the resident Velvet Monkies. This, not so little guy came right at Jesse through the open window and was thankfully fended off with the business end of his boot. Other vans were not so lucky, with one teenage Spanish girl left petrified where she stood as the monkey lept through the Safari Roof of the vehicle. It would have made a great picture. Don't worry she was smiling and laughed the whole thing off after the guide chased the velvet intruder away.
Our last treat of the crater floor and forest was to catch a brief shot of the Lilac Breasted Roller.
As much as we loved our Ngorangora adventure, climbing out the caldera rim was a bit of a relief.
The road was typically even more narrow than the descending route, with the exception of a brief broad turnout area for pictures. We were fortunate on the climb for two reasons. First the road was not muddy, logically in the dry winter season, and secondly that there were no elephants on the path. If there are elephants, it can be a long wait. Expectant elephants climb the road to dig rock out of the cliff side. They crush and eat the rock to gain needed calcium and iron. No one knows how they figured out that these particular minerals were needed or how to find them in the cliff rocks.
Well, we never found the other Safari group that had now gone without lunch, so our plan was to give them to the Masai children. Not long after the crater summit, driving along its edge, the road takes a gradual downturn. The van bounced around a corner and then Jesse hit the breaks. There were three Masai children along the side of the road who sprang up and ran to the van.
Jesse handed out two of the lunch boxes. Even though he told them to share, I bet the little guy got precious little.
Across the now opening valley we could plainly see the Masai school where these children would likely attend.
The drone of the wash board road combined with kidney altering pot holes made for a less than pleasant trip down the side of the Ngorangora Volcano and eventually down to the edge of the Serengeti Plain. One of the needed breaks was a stop to see the bands of giraffe wandering the slopes.
They were working hard to bend over to peck at the young acacia trees. The long tongue of the giraffe manages to neutralize the huge thorn defenses of the acacia to strip off the tender new shoots. This guy appears to be saying, "You lookin at me?" Actually the neck and face markings on the underside of the jaw are a natural defense mechanism so that even when eating low growth vegetation it appears that the giraffe has eye contact with preditors.
The turnout sign for the Ndutu Lodge, complete with 28.5 additional kilometers, were a more than welcome vision.
After pulling off the main Serengeti Route we paused to check the tires. Looking in the direction of the almost blinding setting sun I saw two aparitions making their way in our general direction. With full zoom engaged the fuzzy figures became more clear a Masai men making their way home.
To say that we were ready or eager to make it to the lodge may have been an understatement. It was, however, reasonably peaceful in the early evening amber glow. The road was more random and that somehow made is adventurous. The slower pace allowed Kristen and me to notice the animals again and marvel at the size of the Kori Bustard birds.
Then we got lucky and saw a couple of jackals.
Jesse had one more major surprise for us, even after a long, long day of driving and animal spotting. We were almost in eye shot of the Ndutu Lodge when he made a right hand turn into the setting sun.
After our eyes gradually adjusted, many, many small shapes appeared about a kilometer away.
Hundreds and hundreds of pink flamingoes were skimming the surface of a water hole for an evening meal of krill. No wide angle lens would do the massing justice, so I just picked the best lit ones for a glimpse of avian pink.
After viewing the clamor of gangly yet coordinated pinkness, we turned away from the setting sun to see a Tawny Eagle looking down on us majestically from his tree top perch.
The sweetness of the day's end helped to erase the hours of pounding down the Ngorangora Volcano slopes to finally arrive on the cusps of the Serengeti. We were ready for another good evening meal and rest. The Ndutu Lodge did not fail on either account and ranks as our favorite "over all" experience.
(Yum, warm chocolate something with a powdered sugar paw print.)
Walking to dinner, there was already a fire burning, where later in the evening the Lodge Manager would sit with guests to answer as many safari related questions as they could think to imagine.
(Tonight there was even a guardian Cape Hare...haaa.)
Surprisingly, our safari wasn't over for the evening, even in the relative safety of the lodge. Looking up into the rafters a docile Serval cat was "hanging out" enjoying the high purchase and the warmth of the lights as the evening cooled.
The lodge was decorated in fociles replicas found and donated by the famous Leaky Expedition of the 1950's to 1970's and wire artist renditions of large safari game.
One of the reasons Kristen and I enjoyed the Ndutu lodge so much was its innate design that encourages people to mingle and enjoy each other's company. (A little empty here but most people had gone to bed or were out by the fire at this hour.)
Pleasantly full and recovered from the day's travels, the early evening twilight was a perfect ending to a very full day.
