Spectacular Serengeti and Ngreat Ngorogoro Safari

I have managed to circle and step on Kilimanjaro but not actually see it.  The cloud has been down, but still managed to avoid getting too wet since loosing both my coat and brolly in Uganda.
I continued my 3 day trek to the end of the Usambara Mountains, through many villages, to Mtea in order to see Kilimanjaro, but it was not to be the fog was down and it was much like any other lake district view point, as cold too.  I had a great time getting there and stumbled upon a traditional medicine ritual to expel ghosts from a young man, it consisted of him being dunked in a pool below the biggest waterfall of the mountains, being yelled at and sprayed with water, burnt herbs and the blood of a decapitated chicken.  It was then the turn of a 4 month old baby, although she was only dunked in the water and sprayed.  When I asked how the ghosts manifested themselves, it sounded like a description of stress or depression,  triedness, anger, agitation etc.   Perhaps we should try this instead of valium!

I decided to move onto Moshi in search of Kili and literally bumped into Susana who I had volunteered with and she works in Windermere, and so had a fun day catching up and going to Marangu base camp on Kili, but again, shrouded in mist and not to be seen.
She did persuade me that I needed to go on safari, this being the low, rainy season, it was easy to arrange but I was concerned that it would be wet and wouldn't see much. 

Sure enough it poured and the cloud was down all the way to the rim of Ngorogoro but as we descended the weather cleared and the view of the plain was spectacular.  It is so vast and the air so clear you can see for ever.  As we continued we came across the Masai and their herds of cattle, goat and donkeys interspersed with herds of zebra antelope, gazelle and the odd Giraffe, quite odd.  We eventually entered the Serengeti National park, in which there is no farming or herding and were priveledged to see the migrating herds of wildebeest with zebra; they apparently lead the migration with their superior sense of small and intellect to remember and find the right pastures;  accompanied by antelope gazelle and buffalo.  There were 100 of 1000's if not millions, as far as the eye can see, and that is a long way here.   

We saw cheetah, a lioness so close we could almost touch her, monkeys, fabulously plumaged birds.  Our camp for the night was visited by mongoose, hyena and baboon, who made off with one of my  companions food.  In the morning we visited a hippo pool, pre-dawn (which was stupendous all you would expect of an African dawn) as they were returning from their nights foraging, they are silent and solitary on land but social and noisy in water.  The smell of the pool was about 100 times worst than a slurry pit and looked it.  You would think they would relieve themselves before they returned but no they seemed to take great pride in doing so as they got back, spraying the community in the process by spinning their tails like a fan.  They seemed to be having fun laughing a lot very noisily.
We also managed to see a leopard in a tree with her kill of a gazelle, apparently she had lost her cub, during the hunt to a hyena and so was still scanning the savannah for it.

We moved on to Ngorogoro, which magically appeared just as we began our ascent to camp at the rim, here we were joined by water buffalo which are very big and can be very aggressive, it does wonders for your nocturnal bladder control.   The crater was amazing, teeming with wildlife, although it is the rainy season, much of it appeared quite dry.  We saw a lion with his kill and again he walked right by us so we could see his bloody mouth, I also managed to see flamingos, which I had missed at Lake Mbeya;  And then we actually managed to complete the big 5 by spotting 2 white rhino, quite far away but still so big.  I am glad I was persuaded to go and I think even better in the low season as there were few others around only about 4 or 5 other vehicles where as in high season it is just a constant stream of 4x4's on the routes.

As we left our driver persuaded us to visit another museum, which we were rather reluctant to do as we were more interested in the animals, but when we got there it was where the Leakeys had done their work on the early hominids, it was really interesting, we just hadn't appreciated how close we were to the site.

So finally back to Arusha and onto Niarobi for my twoweeks volunteering with the Masia.  I am really excited now I have seem some of their culture on the trip through the Serengeti.  They are obviously a powerfully strong cultural group as they maintain their traditional tribal villages and dress.  They are stand out on the plains for miles and really stride out and cover great distance even as I watched them.
It is sad to leave Tanzania.  I have met somwe truly wonderful people and the country is so varied and dramatic, again it is hard to leave.