Day 3:
Sunday, 6 am:
I woke up to find the entire valley covered in fog. You have no idea how sad I was that we wouldn’t be able to see the sunrise over the crater. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see in your life. I may just go back in a couple of months just so I can see it. We’ll see how things work out though.
The day still started off okay with a great breakfast, which included watermelon, oranges (which are green here… not sure what’s going on with that), crepes, french toast and hot dogs (“sausages”). Immanuel came to sit with us but he was mostly texting on his cell phone. Finally, after everyone packed up for a final time, we headed down into the crater.
Right as we got into the crater, we saw a whole circle of hyenas, jackals, a lioness in the center and a huge male lion on the side, apparently eating something. Just before we started to drive in, we saw one hyena run towards the group and then suddenly get chased away by four hyenas running in a row. Immanuel explained that the sole hyena didn’t belong to the pack (ie: wasn’t from the same mother/father) and would always be chased away. Poor hyena.
Next, we saw flamingos! There were so many of them along the water, it was fantastic. Unfortunately, unlike Serengeti, you can’t get too close so the view was from pretty far away. We kept driving around looking for more animals, but with the overcast sky and rain, I was starting to lose hope. I convinced myself that the weather would turn up soon and we’d finally find our rhino!
And then we did. Again, it was quite far away so my pictures aren’t the greatest but there he was, flapping his little grey ears around in the wind. After 10 minutes or so, we drove around to a different side to see a family of rhinos. They too were pretty far away so we kept searching. Finally, we came on mom and baby rhinos. For awhile, they just laid there in the grass. Immanuel said that they would want to lay down to stay out of the wind because it hurts/irritates their ears. Finally, the little baby stood up, stared at us and nudged mama rhino to get up. She was having none of it and AK needed to use the restroom, so we said kwaheri and went to a nearby restroom.
The view from the site we were at was gorgeous. The lake was filled with fighting hippos and was lined with a beautiful big tree on one side and super bright green foilage on the other. There were several huge birds flying overhead and a stunning metallic blue/green bird that I think made it into one of our pictures.
We then left to drive through the forest, where we heard about the Yellow Tree (that the people cut down because they thought it was making them sick when in reality, they were getting malaria from the mosquitos) and saw a couple elephants and several vervet monkeys . Finally, we came upon a small clearing and had lunch (muffin, bananas, veggie samosa, an amazing french toast w/ something super sweet and yummy in the middle and juice). Just as we were about to leave, we saw a vervet monkey climb on top of the bathrooms. Igi went to say hello and take pictures when suddenly the monkey ran down. I screamed at EG to watch your food! Watch your food! Before I could finish the second phrase, the monkey had grabbed her sandwich and ran into the grass. EG stood there stunned for a few seconds. He then reappeared at the top of a tree in perfect view, eating the sandwich with saran wrap and all. It was hilarious to see him flaunt his spoils like that. I have a video so I’ll try to post it here (or FB).
Sadly after lunch, it was time to head back to the camp, pack up and go home. I was sad to leave such a magnificent place behind but I’m so glad that we did it together and this week. Before we left, Ngorongoro had one more great surprise: a whole family of zebras waiting for us at our campsite. It as spectacular to get back just to see them. We walked really slowly and cautiously towards them and took pictures from 5ish feet away. I also experienced yet another first (I really should start a list) - my first time climbing a tree. I think the tree was a Baobao tree covered in the strangular vine (just like it sounds, it’s a vine that covers/suffocates the tree until it dies). Luckily, it was an easy climb up and down and the view was great. Finally, before we left, Igi rolled up and gave one of the Masai guards a cigarette. So strange.
The drive back was/seemed so much faster. I’m sure with the nice weather, it made it possible to go faster on the roads. Also, I wasn’t trying to take a picture of everything either. The one great thing that I loved about going this weekend: we got to see the area in beautiful fog that made everything look like shadows and then see everything in the clear sun. It was like seeing two entirely different areas.
After a few hours, we finally returned to the White House. We stayed up to tell everyone how great our experience was and while we were, AJ and Mike returned from Zanzi (super tan!). They said they were jealous of our trip - haha OH yeah. We're pretty awesome, and our trip was pretty spectacular.
Even though there are 3 Americans + 1 Canadian + 1 mystery roommate, I think this will be a good summer :)
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