Oct 07: The Beginning and the End.

I know we missed out yesterday, but today we forgive the guide.  We were leaving the Serengeti today so didn't expect to see much more, but it turned out that we transversed a huge section of the plains again on the way out, so the first part of our journey was in fact another safari.  

We got very close to several herds of wildebeest AND zebra.  Fabulous experience to see these huge herds just plod, plod, plodding along.  What surprised us all was just how quiet they are ... Not the thunderous sound of beating hooves.  Those TV documentaries dramatise it so much.  It seems that the migration is not one great heaving mass of animals, but many, many large herds miles apart.  And on the whole it's a long slow boring plod.  It wasn't noisy at all.

So that was the boring routine for so much of life here, but we also saw the start of new life: a male and female lion going through mating rituals, AND another couple actually mating.   And more gruesomely, the end of life: a load of vultures devouring an antelope: burying their heads deep into the animal's cavity, smothering themselves in blood as they ripped out its innards ... Yucky!

It was a very dusty drive out of the Serengeti, but we arrived in time for a late lunch and leisurely afternoon at another Serena chain Lodge which rests on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater.  It's a good one, all rooms literally sit on the rim and have crater views.  No empty space here, the place is packed with people from all over the world.  Terrific atmosphere in the bar and restaurant with live entertainment in the form of dancing and singing from the local Masai villagers.

The Lodge is built from local stone blending into the hillside.

It's a lot cooler: we need jumpers, have central heating AND hot water bottles provided.  (That was a bit of an overkill, it's not THAT cold!).  Because it's so much cooler there's no mosquito netting and no threat of tsetse flies or snakes.