Day Four - Travel to Ngorongo

Itinerary Day 4, 26^th Dec:        Following your morning game drive and lunch depart for Ngorongoro Crater with a game drive en route. You will have dinner and overnight at Ngorongoro Farm House. 


 Boxing Day. This morning, I woke up feeling fine. Hallelujah! I worked out that I had been awake 8 hours out of the preceding 32. That was quite a bug! 

This morning we were in the Land Cruiser by 6:30 to take in the Serengeti sunrise and the animals that prefer this time of day. What an experience! In fact every day was different and magical. After the first two days, I began to wonder if I had booked too long a safari. I mean once you've seen a few hundred elephants, giraffes and zebras, you've seen enough, no? Paige had the same thought. By day three, you're not bothering to take photos of creatures that astounded you the first day. But it wasn't like that at all. Every day contained several experiences that simply took our breath away. The first today was the sunrise itself. Voilà.

We drove around for a bit, viewing hartebeests and gazelles, watching richer people float away in balloons. All was peaceful. Then Tiger spotted the lions. We had seen others, as you know, but these were the first males, and there were four of them. Tiger tells us that male lions are normally solitary, and sometimes travel in pairs, but it is extremely rare that four male litter mates  survive, grow up together, and stay together. They are an indomitable force. We watched them cross the steppe in a straight line, one behind the other. They looked neither right nor left. They did not vary their regal pace, even when it started to rain. Our presence did not cause them to alter their course by a single degree. They were heading for the growing rocks to our left with calm purpose. They were kings and kings do not bend to circumstance.

First of four brothers

Brother Two

Three and four cross the steppe

Brother two scent marking

Brother number four

And in the hope that you are not lioned out, here is a video. I like it because I can share Tiger's voice (He talks about blood money for manes, not men. I didn't get that at the time.) and because one can so clearly see the rain.

Once all four brothers were safely ensconced in the caves of the growing rocks, we drove around the whole formation to continue our way out of the park. Looking up, I spotted the reason for the brothers' purposeful march across the savannah.

And this was only the beginning of the day! My fears that after day two it would all be repetition were being blown sky high!

On our way out of the Serengeti, I managed to take this shot of a rare two-headed giraffe.

No flies on me, but there may be a couple of birds!

I liked the movement implied in this shot of Grant's Gazelles, and the wildebeests on the horizon.

You can never have too many wildebeests.

In the late afternoon, we arrived at our final hotel, the Ngorgoro Farmhouse. Again, the name didn't offer much information, so we didn't know what to expect. It was stunning. Like the first place we stayed, each guest had their own cottage. Here, they were huge, and the grounds were gorgeous. One could easily spend several days here and never be bored. They not only produce the dairy products and fruits and vegetables for the dining room, they grow their own coffee!  

King bed dwarfed by room

Double bed off in a corner

Polished concrete bath

 

Our view

Sadly, we would not be able to stay to take advantage of the garden tours, Masai walks, or trekking. Tomorrow morning, we off for our final day on safari - to explore the Ngorogoro Crater. Before dinner however, there was time for Paige to have a cultural experience on the terrace after our customary anti-malarial gins and tonics. She believes the dance had largely to do with washing clothes and other household chores.