The Real Africa

Well, it's been a fantastic couple of days. We took off to the Ngorongoro Crater a few days ago and I have to say it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It is so impressive. We went for an afternoon game drive where we saw a ton of Zebra, Buffalo, lions, even 3 rhinos (although far away). I finally got my warthog picture. Apparently there warthogs aren't scared of people. We then set up for our coldest camp of the entire trip on the rim of the crater. It was very cool looking accross to the crater, but it also meant some interesting visitors through the night, like the buffalo who walked right past the loo as I was in there (ahh!!!). But it was pretty unreal. The morning was miserable and I was quite dreading the rest of the day, but as soon as we got off the crater rim, it was beautiful and we all started stripping layers. We then headed to one of the most important sites for human kind - the Olduvai Gorge, which is actually supposed to be the Oldupai Gorge, but suffers from years of mispronunciation. It was cool to see where so much of human history is found. Beyond what has been found there archeology wise, it is quite an impressive site on its own. From there we made our way to the Serengetti and went on another game drive. At some level, I am getting tired of game drives which seems absolutely retarded, but ah well. We saw a cheetah, a leopard and an astonishing number of wildabeast, as we caught the end of the migration. Siobhan and I couldn't help but sing some more Lion King, much to the annoyance of some of our truck mates. Anyways, that night camping was also crazy. We were out in the wild amongst the wildabeast and zebra, which means one thing - lions. Luckly I had a good nights sleep with no incidents. Another game drive in the morning, and a long drive back to Arusha. Last night was a bit of a party as it was our last night as a group. We had a lot of fun. This morning was pretty tough for me as I had to say good bye to all but one of my group. There were a few tears shed. I am now in Moshi, where I start the trek up Kili tomorrow. Wish me luck. Hopefully next post will read "I made it!"