Tanzania Day 5- Ngorongoro Crater, Oldupai Gorge and Serengeti

Today we left the Lodge near Ngorongoro Crater and drove to the crater, along the conservation area where the crater is located.   That entire area is populated by the Masai tribe. The government moved them there when it created the Serengeti as a national park, and they wanted the Masai in the conservation area because they are particularly good at living with wild animals.  They do not believe in eating wild animals, only the domesticated herds that they care for, mostly cows and goats.  So they live well alongside the wild animals.  As we drove through the Ngorongoro reserve there were many, many Masai villages and Masai people walking along the road, or out on the plain taking care of their animals.  We saw a couple of young warriors in training, with the white markings on their faces.  Driving through that area we saw many wildebeest, buffalo, giraffes and zebras, and a few warthogs.  We stopped at Oldupai Gorge, which is a famous archeological site where Mary Leakey and her husband, famous archeologists of the 20th century discovered a skull of a very early form of hominid, pre homosapiens by a lot, and they discovered footprints of hominids who lived 3.6 million years ago in this area.  That whole site is a gold mine of fossils and clues to the origins of our modern day humans.  They have a small museum there and every summer they get archeological research teams from all over the world coming in to study the fossils and to dig for more remains of pre-human history.  That was a fascinating visit.  

After the gorge we drove to the Serengeti national park.  It was a long, exceedingly hot and bumpy, not to mention incredibly dusty ride.  Two of our three Jeeps broke down.  One had a leak in a fuel tank and the other had a flat tire, so we were delayed by awhile for the tire to be changed and the hole in the fuel tank was temporarily plugged with a piece of wood until we got to the gate to the Serengeti where our guides had arranged for a new Jeep to come and be exchanged for that one.  Our lunch stop there was seemingly endless, as we had to change over the Jeeps, and the registration process took absolutely forever.  You can't enter national parks in this country without a lot of paperwork, and ours was delayed because the guide was paying by credit card and the internet went down and the card couldn't be processed so we had to wait.  We wound up being at that entrance area for nearly two hours.   One thing we are learning in Tanzania is that this is very much a culture of "hurry up and wait."  The bureaucracy here is unbelievable and there is no rushing anything.  Akuna matata is the order of the day here and you just have to give up expecting anything to happen on time.  When we finally left the entrance and headed into the Serengeti we spent about 2 1/2 hours on a game drive.  We saw hundreds of wildebeests on migration, lots of zebras, warthogs, hyenas, ostriches, gazelles and finally, at the very end of the day, as we were getting near our camp, we found three leopards each sleeping in a diffferent tree.  The number of Jeeps crowded around those trees was amazing.  The leopards seemed completely oblivious to the stir they were creating among the safari folks like us, and they just kept right on sleeping, ignoring us altogether.  We saw two males and a female.  I was surprised at how small they are.  It was hard to get photos of them because they were well hidden in the tree, probably on purpose!  After gazing at the leopards for quite awhile we then drove to our tented camp. This is true camping, not nearly so glamorous as the OAT camp in India.  We are right in the middle of the Serengeti plain, with animals and wildlife of all sorts all around us.  The tents are fine as far as tents go, but this is way more primitive than I've done before.  We each get one big bucket of hot water a day to shower, and all showers are done just before dinner.  We get another bucket of water to wash face and rinse out clothes, and bottled water for teeth brushing.  We can only charge phones, camera batteries etc. for a few hours in the evening while we are eating dinner.  And we're told that we will be given one lantern after dinner to provide very limited light in the tent for when we retire after dinner!  It's pretty clear that it will be early to bed here, since once it's dark there won't be much we can do!  We can't keep any snacks in the tent because they may attract animals, so we have to put them in a secure box in mess tent.  I can already tell that I will be more than ready to return to that gorgeous lodge we were at last night after 4 nights of this.  I just have to remind myself that seeing the animals is worth it and this is a once in a lifetime experience!