Safari - Days 1&2

Safari Day 1 - getting to Arusha

We took a bus from Dar to Arusha on Monday morning. Originally we were told it was an 8 hr trip, but when we asked the driver before getting on, he told us 10. In the end it took just over 11 hrs, but the bus did have everything they promised - leg room for Jonathan's seat, a bathroom on board, a tv, and best of all, air conditioning!  After being so hot in Zanzibar & Dar, this was a must for such a long trip. And it was really a great way to see the countryside. There were humongous fields of sisal, a plant that looks a bit like agave or a huge aloe plant, but is used for its fiber - to make ropes. 

The strangest thing to happen occurred about 2/3 of the way through the trip. The kung fu movie was long over, the Harrison Ford action thriller had just ended, and we were driving through some beautiful land as the sun began to set. Just then they started Coming To America, the Eddie Murphy/Arsenio Hall movie about an African prince visiting America to find his bride. It was so surreal to be passing poor villages, Maasai people herding cows, etc, as this movie plays in the background, Eddie Murphy pretending to be from some wealthy east African country populated by the lions and zebras we were about to see.

Day 2 - Ngorongoro Crater

Our safari guide, Ignasoro, and cook, Prochess, arrived at 8am on the dot to pick us up. We piled into the Land Cruiser and set off for our destination, Ngorongoro Conservation Area. As soon as we were out of Arusha, the land was so beautiful. We drove about 3 1/2 hours westward, into Maasai country. Everywhere we saw Maasai herding their cows and goats, and Maasai women decked out in all their jewelry. Pretty spectacular. We also came across 4 Maasai Giraffes on the road into Ngorongoro and a troupe of olive baboons.  I really wanted to see giraffes on this trip, so I was already more than happy before we even reached the crater. 

Ngorongoro area has been conserved since 1956 (proper Maasai pronunciation puts the emphasis on the Ns, not the Gs, I learned; it means crater in the Maasai language.) It is an absolutely huge caldera, about 20km across, and the views down into the crater as we drove in were out of this world. 

I cannot possibly describe to you all the animals that we saw and do them any justice. So I'll just list them, along with approximately how many we saw and their name in Swahili, if I learned it:

Giraffe - 4 (twiga)
Baboon - about 6 (nyani)
Wildebeest - thousands (mwumbu)
Zebra - hundreds (punda mlia)
Thomson's Gazelle - hundreds 
Hartebeest - a few
Lions - 7 or 8 (simba)
Hippo - 1 (kiboko)
Hyena - 2 (fisi)
Elephant - 2 lone bulls with tusks (Tembo)
African Buffalo - many (mbogo)
Black Rhino - 1 (kifaru)
Warthogs - many (ngiri)
Gerenuk - a few
Waterbuck - a few

Birds:
Guinea fowl - many
Ostrich - many
Crested crane - many
Ibis - many
Egret - a few
Augur buzzard (looks like a hawk) - 1
White backed vulture - a few
Secretary Bird - many
Superb starling - hundreds 
Lesser flamingo - thousands 
Corybastard - many

The weather was sunny, mild and breezy, our guide is excellent, and our cook is fabulous!  We camped at Simba Campground, on the rim of the crater, underneath an absolutely enormous fig tree. I can definitely say that today ranks in my top 5 favorite days of my life!