East African Vacation - Day #6 (12/18)

Today we woke up before 6, had breakfast, packed up the car, and set off for our safari. Today our goal was to see lots of animals in the crater rim of Ngorongoro. We descended down to the bottom of the rim in the safari vehicle. We saw so many emails including:

·      Wildebeest

·      Lion

·      Zebra

·      Hippos

·      Water buffalo

·      Heartabeast

·      Jackels

·      Hyenas

·      Warthog

·      Thompsons gazelle

·      Flamingoes

·      Ostriches

·      Bird of Uganda

·      Baboons

·      Elephants

·      Mongoose

·      Waterbuck

·      Hyenas (babies)

One of the first things we saw was a dead zebra that was just killed by a humongous lion. The lion was sleeping after his fresh kill. Then, we saw a family of lions sleeping next the road. There was a male and two females, which was the minimum number of females in a pride. Our guide told us that there were usually more females per male. Males do not live in the same pride, unless they friends or brothers. We were impressed with the scenery and I think it looked very much like New Zealand. We saw an elephant bone yard, which we think several elephants died there. There were just bones which has been stripped clean. We saw hippos in the lakes and some were sunning themselves. We also saw baby hippos on the shore with their mom. Hippos feed in the morning and then relax during the day before feeding again at night. We had to leave the park by 2:30 because our permit was only good for 24 hours. On our way back up the mountain, we encountered a stranded safari vehicle and picked up a passenger who was from Canada. We dropped her off at her hostel in town.

When we stopped for lunch, some locals told about a emergency plane landing at Arusha airport, which we knew only accepted smaller aircraft. It would be similar to the Spirit of St. Louis airport. We passed the airport on our way back to the hotel and saw the plane. It ran out of runway with just the front wheels in the mud. There were so many people and vehicles parked along the road, which told us it was a major spectacle. Most of the people around had probably not seen a plane that large. We arrived at the safari office, sent some emails, and headed to our lodge. We stayed at the Arusha lodge before going on our safari and booked an additional night there to stay through Friday.