Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Hello again,

First off, no I haven't taken leave of my senses, and am not claiming that you will find Tigers or Bears in Africa. This actually refers to a running joke between my little sub-group for the Serengeti/Ngorongoro tour (Ian and Emma, Jon, Heetan and myself) and our Land Cruiser driver, Daniel. He asked us what we wanted to see when we drove out of Arusha (Meserani) that first morning, and Ian brightly informed him we wished to see "everything". Before cheekily adding that he was particularly looking forward to seeing a Tiger. When Daniel said this was not possible, we asked about bears (polar or otherwise), kangaroos and various other creatures not particularly famous for their associations with East Africa. Not exactly world-class wit, but it helps to pass the time.

Most of the first morning was spent trying to find a comfortable position to curl up in in the back of the Cruiser, as I attempted to top up the ludicrous 2.5 hours or so of sleep I had ended up with as a result of my over-exuberant celebrations earlier that morning. This was broken for a quick stop at a viewpoint overlooking Lake Naivasha ("the only place in Africa where lion rests in trees", as 1,000s of T-shirts proudly inform the visitor), notable for the great view and for having decent toilets. If travelling here in Africa has taught me one thing, it is that the comforts of a decent toilet should not be taken for granted - much of the continent uses the squat toilet, the "long-drop" or that tried old favourite, the hole in the ground, so a clean western style toilet (possibly even complete with toilet paper!) is something of a blessing.

Lunch was taken at the Simba campsite (Simba being the Swahili for "lion", for those not already familiar with just how unimaginative Disney can be), up at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, where we would be spending the following night. Unfortunately, at this point it was basically inside a cloud, which was only slowly burning off, so the views weren't great. We were also introduced to a slow food service from our guides (subcontracted again) that was to become depressingly familiar. But the food itself was okay, when it arrived, so we headed off that afternoon down into the plains of the Serengeti in high spirits.

Serengeti comes from the Swahili word siringit and roughly translates as "the place where the land goes on forever". Once you arrive there, you really do see what they mean. The savannah grasslands drift away into the distance, with only the occasional kopje (rocky outcrop) to break the unending vista. Across this lonely panorama wander hundreds of antelope of various types (impala, haartebeest, topi, elands, gazelles, wildebeest, etc), along with zebra, elephants, giraffes, a few rhino and the hordes of predators that prey on them all. Oh, and swarms of Land Rovers, Land Cruisers and the ever-present minivans (though luckily we aren't quite into the crazy season yet). It all makes for an interesting environment.

However, it was one through which we were forced to hurry, as we were headed furthr north than had originally been planned. This was, we were told, to allow us to get closer to the migration. Yes, for those of you familiar with the erengeti area, we're talking about that migration: the one involving around 2 million creatures, 40-odd% of which are Wildebeest, crossing between the Serengeti and Maasai Mara. The main movement tends to happen from around July, but our presence there in June coincided with the gathering of some of the herds. After a fun drive along the roads across the Park, during which we saw hippos, jackals, baboons and elephants as well as the myriad hoofed beasrs, not to mention another pair of cheetahs, we approahed the camp just after sunset travelling near enough through the middle of one of the herds. Oh. My. God. You can scarcely imagine it, being in the midst of hundreds, maybe thousands, of bleeting wildebeest, and they're only the ones you can see through the underbrush that remains, and there are thousands more zebra all around them. It's the kind of thing that tends to stick in your mind.

And then we arrived at the campsite. Which was unfenced, and about 2km down the road from the hordes we had passed through. Where we put up our tents, basically in the dark, and sat around to drink the inescapably warm refreshments we had brought along, whilst sitting around a campfire and waiting for our dinner. And listened to the faint honking noises coming in on the wind from the gathering multitude of wildebeest. Unfortunately, though, this didn't totally appease a few of the lasses on the trip, who were still suffering from a more severe version of the anxiety I had about camping out in the middle of a National Park, with no fence, no guards, and all manner of unpleasant beasties alongside the cute ones. Intellectually, I knew that the presence of so much honking lion-fodder nearby rather precluded any likelihood of the neighbours popping by for an unscheduled visit. Emotionally, I was still dealing with the spectre of a lion hanging around outside my tent. And some of our group winding up our more sensitive fellow-travellers wasn't really the nicest thing to do in these circumstances.

A lion-free morning therefore came as a relief. Well, I say morning, it was actually still pretty much during the night when we woke up at 5:30am, as it was still dark and really quite chilly. And we did hear a hyena yelping some way outside our camp. It therefore wasn't that much of a surprise when one of the first creatures we saw on our dawn game-drive was a hyena. Very odd-looking beast, the hyena - like a dog crossed with a stoat or something, it has a very long neck, and a weird rocking gait when running. It sort of bobs up and down like a mobile, predatory nodding-dog. Following that, we also saw some jackals, then more hyenas, but that was unfortunately it on the predator front for the morning. Obviously, these were interspersed with frequent spottings of zebra, wildebeest and impala, but it was generally accepted by now in our Cruiser that these "didn't count". Unless they were being eaten, obviously (sorry Mum and Zaz!).

[Those of a sensitive disposition may want to skip the next paragraph]

What we did see, though, was the biggest accumulation of hippopotami I had ever witnessed. A big, stinking great pool full of hippos. And I mean stinking. Apart from jostling with each other for underwater space, they don't move much in their pool. So, when it comes to getting rid of some of the mountains of grass they consume each night, well, it just kind of all ends up in the pool. Where it gathers at the edge and festers somewhat. Possibly the most disgusting thing I've seen in Africa (even beating some of the vile excuses for toilets) was one of the hippos letting rip, while its tail performed windscreen-wiper actions, spraying all its neighbours. Totally grim. And they're noisy beasts, too - a kind of weird mixture of honking, mooing and oinking,which tends to start with one and then get repeated by various of the others in a budding cacophony. All in all, not necessarily the place you want to stop for half an hour or so on a hot sunny day, but them's the breaks you get. I at least went up and observed the filthy beasts from a viewpoint up on some rocks -we had some of the group almost lying down at "water"(I use the word advisedly here) level for extended periods, whilst photographing or filming. Yeeeurgh.

Anyways, soon after this we headed back to the camp for lunch, and to break camp. Unsurprisingly, the latter took much less time than the former, but after we eventually finshed we reorganised the vehicles somewhat, as some people wanted to visit Olduvai Gorge, and some didn't. Olduvai Gorge is one of the "cradles of humanity", a place where finds vital to the fossil record were found. Unfortunately, the prospect of a walk up a creek and a possible memorial was not really that much ofan incentive for me, so I elected to swap into one of the Land Rovers which was not planning to go there, jumping in with Glen, Kiri and Ginnie (contrary to previous entries in which I called her Jenny, I've just found out yesterday that one of our Kiwis is actually a Ginnie). And possibly the maddest driver of my time in Africa.

Before we get to the joys of his driving skills, though, we might as well cover the other drama of the afternoon for me, which revolved primarily around a flat tire. Now, I don't know about any of you, but I can certainly think of much better places to end up with a flat than in the midst of a park in which you are on a game drive, trying to find lions and the like. Still, that's life. So, in an effort to make my clothes even more dirty, I ended up helping change the tire of the Landie. We'd just finished this when one of our other vehicles pulled up, to inform us they'd just seen lions about 5 minutes' drive away, and reckoned the male might be in the kopje behind us. This obviously helped my mood. So, off we went, and in due course found said lions. Hurrah! Never mind that they were a fair way away across the plains, dozing under a tree, these were the proper Big Bad Puddie Tats. We were happy.

But we were running late. Our 24-hour access to the Park was drawing rapidly to a close, and our driver was determined not to miss the deadline (probably due to the incredible cost of park fees for kizungu in Tanzania - about 20 to 30times what they are for locals). So we sped. Just a little. The park speed limit is supposed to be about 50km/h. We were up to about 85 pretty quick, bouncing along dirt roads at one hell of a pace. At this point, the lack of seat-belts in the back of the landie began to seem less of a harmless anachronism, and more of a potential deathtrap. I'll skip over the irate encounter with a Ranger (checking paperwork),to the point where we skidded to a halt next to a roadside waterhole, to be confronted by a pride of lions. Not hiding in the long grass. Not miles away across the plains. Right there. Right in front of us. Lions. Cool! Except that we could only stop for about 3minutes before speeding off again, in our desperate attempt to outrun time on our way out of the Park. D'Oh!

It then turns out that this was just our driver warming up, as we ended up doing near enough 105 km/h (yes, that's about 60mph) on our way out to Ngorongoro, with our driver seemingly determined to do his best Colin McRae impersonation. Not far short of terrifying. And the evening just got better and better. We were, unsurprisingly, the first vehicle back to the camp, but this was of little use to me, since all my stuff was on my original vehicle. Which was the last in. And not just the last in. It got dark. They still weren't back. We sent out one of the landies to look for them. Clustered around the desultory campfire (our esteemed guides had not brought any firewood, and we weren't allowed to go gathering it, so we had to resort to the "grey market" to acquire some...), we looked up eagerly as any new set of headlights entered the camp, only for our hopes to be frustrated. Finally, they crept in, the Cruiser under tow - it had broken down (problems with axle bearings) on the road up to the crater rim, and they ended up being towed up the hill by a garbage truck. Relief. And a certain amount of guilt from me, as I was originally supposed to be on that vehicle...

Our guides also surpassed themselves by taking until 10pm or so to sort out dinner (nobody much to help the chef, as several of them were out looking for the little lost cruiser), which contributed to everyone's good cheer. And then, just to really make my night, we're sitting around the campfire when Jeff looks over my shoulder and says "Isn't that a pig...?". I turn around and there, about 6' behind me, is a bloody great bushpig. This, understandably, causes me some mild consternation (i.e. I jumped up, issuing profanities) and led to Ginnie and Jeff chasing the offending porcine interloper away, while Leonie (who has some kind of phobia of pigs...) informed us that she'd told us all so, and now we were going to get eaten by the pigs. To be honest, it was all just a little bit surreal!

The following morning saw us up at crack of dawn again, this time ready for the trip down into the Ngorongoro Crater. It's the world's largest intact volcanic caldera (remnants of a collapsed volcanic cone) and stuffed full of animals. But I will have to tell you of it another time, as our bus is almost ready to leave for the trip back to Stone Town. So I will leave stories of more lions, the road-trip from hell, fixing a truck window with gaffer tape, off-roading on Vespas, diving, beachlife and last night's (this morning's?) Full Moon Party until another time. Which hopefully won't be too far down the line.

That's all for the moment, folks.

Pat