We’re feeling a little sore about the price of what it costs to drive into and stay here at Serengeti & Ngorangora (yip, we’re here, made it this far, and gonna soak it all up), and after a long day on really shocking roads, I (Laura) said I would do the blog update for you all.
We headed north from Morogoro and decided to stop for the night at a little town called Sane. We parked and slept in the parking lot of the Elephant Motel which also served us a delicious supper. We’re still not sure why it’s call the ‘Elephant’ Motel, because we woke up surrounded by cute little monkeys! On our roof, trying to get into our windows even. They kids loved it of course.
We then headed towards Moshi which was only about an hour away, hoping to get a good view of Mt Kilimanjaro. We found a campsite there, but unfortunately there were too many low lying clouds, so we didn’t get a glimpse of the famous huge mountain that day or even the next before we headed off. We did find a great coffee shop in town that served a great CafeLatte, milkshakes & waffles!
Last night we slept at Karatu near the gate of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We entered the park this morning (after paying a ridiculous amount to just drive through as this is the only way to get to the Serengeti). Once we got to the rim of the Crater we stopped at a viewsite and got out to enjoy the view. After getting back into the truck and driving about 20 meters down the road, we spotted 3 leopards right next to the road (excuse the pun). This was only the beginning of the sightings we would see today. Shortly afterwards we saw a female lion about 20 meters up on a hill. Other game vehicles were just driving past not noticing it, but I think because we were higher in a truck, we could see it better. I really enjoyed the brightness of the Masai people just wondering through the area with their herds of cows & goats, with just a spear for protection from wild animals. Their bright red blanket clothing, and their beaded jewellery – really brings to mind my Std.3 school project, little did I know back then that I’d be sharing a bit of their country with them.
We got to the Serengeti gate, and luckily they took Visa – boy this place is expensive. Ok, it’s a bit more for us because we’re in a 8 ton truck which is triple the price for some reason. They can’t be putting the park fees into building nice roads, because we soon discovered that one of the ways that they control the crowds coming here is to make sure that the roads are almost unbearable! We shook and shuddered our way to the campsite, passing lots of wildlife – wildebeest, zebra’s, various buck, giraffe, warthog, dungbeetle, tortouise, hippo. Now we’re at our campsite, which I’m a bit nervous about...... there’s no fence around us!!!! What’s with that? And there’s a big sign saying that no one must wander out of the campsite because wild animals might attack human beings (those words exactly!), whats to stop the wild animals from wondering through here? I did eventually pluck up the courage to get out of the truck, because the kids were already running around without a worry, so how could I be so nervous? Then we saw the impressive footprint (see photo). Mmmmm, I’ll be opening the blinds and peeking out in the morning before I open the front door.
We have an exciting day tomorrow – Reg (Alex’s dad) is flying in to meet us and spend the rest of our trip with us. The kids are really excited to see Grandpa. We’re planning on spending another 2 nights here in Serengeti, then 2 more at the Ngorongoro Crater, and then heading towards Nairobi where we can hopefully leave Max and all fly back home.
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