Day 26: 23 August 2002 5:00 pm
The group finish their excursion with a safari through the Ngorongoro Crater and freeze to death.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area covers 8300 sq. km and is meant to offer superb wildlife viewing due to the interrelated ecosystems. It is one of the most famous and visited areas in Tanzania and the crater is one of the largest calderas in the world. I much preferred the Serengeti, as the crater was heaving with that well-known species of lesser spotted Landrover and Landcruiser. This spoilt the setting and viewing of the wildlife as Landrovers raced to the same spot, vying for the prime positions to view game.
I can understand why the parks suffer serious environmental damage from irresponsible drivers veering off established tracks and harassing the wildlife in the process. We were told that a maximum of 250 vehicles are admitted into the crater per day. I think that this is at least 150 too many, but everyone wants to grab their share of the tourist dollars. Another gripe is incessant engine noise and babbling from the CB radio. This is a great distraction when viewing game.
We shivered in the cold as we saw a pride of lions devour a zebra, their fur coated in blood, a bull elephant chomping on the vegetation, flamingo wading in the soda crater lake, herds of wildebeest charging across the plains and hippo sheltering from the cold in a watering hole. I found that the cold dictated how long I viewed for and how often I would stay in the Landrover rather than pop my head out of the roof into the cold. I was relieved when we returned to Simba camp site for lunch even though the weather had not improved.
Back at Snake Park, I was determined to queue for the only women's tepid shower - I was not prepared to subject myself to the icy cold trickle that I'd endured before. Everyone was coated from head to toe in dust and it was a relief to be clean.
That evening, the camp site supplied dinner. The veggie option was woeful, but the meat from the lamb spit was a joke. A guy came up with a tray and Tom remarked that it must be the scraps from the spit roast for the animals. However, it turned out that all the skin and bones were meant to be the meat for our group. To make matters worse, Jason had spotted that the other groups had far superior meals to us.
I'm so worried about Tom's dramatic weight loss, but I'm making him eat dry food and drink flat coke while he has a stomach bug. The stomach bug has now spread to Amy, who has to keep sprinting to the toilet block. We had a classic moment on our Landcruiser on the first day of our safari, when Amy hopped in and the first thing she asked our guide was whether she could charge up her mobile phone using the cigarette lighter socket and whether you could get any kind of reception in the Serengeti; some things never change.
Positives: I'm glad we did the Serengeti and not just the Ngorongoro Crater as the latter is over-rated and uncomfortably cold.
Negatives: The stomach bug is spreading like wild fire - who will be next?