Africa #11: Japanese Highway

Wildebeast, Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

OK, that was not good. Someone at reception got their 12s and 12As mixed up, phoning us at 6 am for a wake-up call we never requested. Fair enough, mistakes get made. Let’s order some coffee and watch the sun rise. Over an hour later and still no signs of the order actually showing up. Hmm. This is starting to feel like a pattern. And it goes without saying, of course, that the coffee finally did arrive just as we were heading out the door for breakfast. Bummer.

Today we head southeastwards out of the crater and towards our next stop, Lake Manyara. Do a brief run into the crater first to see what we might see before heading back for lunch and then setting off. The good news is that we see a rhino! Bad news is that it’s about half a mile away, asleep and hiding in the long grass. Still, we can legitimately claim this one as “Seen” and check the appropriate box on the big 5 list.

We did see some flamingoes on the lake but it was far from the carpeting that apparently it gets at certain times of the year like, shall we say, last week? Oh well, we came close! Turns out we also missed the real migration of the wildebeest too, that taking place further north than where we’ve been exploring in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Different rain patterns change both the migration route and timing, and this year we were out of synch with nature.

Heading out we stopped with another couple of vehicles to watch something off to the side of the road. Probably an ostrich, but hard to tell. S then won the game spotter of the day award by looking forwards instead of sideways to see a pride of seven lions strolling down the road towards us!

Lunch, and then time to hit the open road. And amazingly enough, an open road that’s been surfaced! Turns out that a (the?) Japanese princess visited Ngorongoro a few years back and spurned the idea of flying out after her tour, preferring instead to go by road. She was so appalled by the merciless pummeling this resulted in that when she got back she poked at the Japanese government and made them donate a road to the Tanzanians! Wonder if she’d accept an offer to try my driveway any time soon?

Africa #10: Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater Lodge

Time to move on. It took us something like three and a half hours to drive from the central Serengeti to the Ngorongoro crater. Our guide/driver said that he’d keep the top of the safari vehicle closed because this was a “main road”. As it turned out, our two world-views of what that meant didn’t really overlap much. What he actually should have said was “ a wider rock strewn path than we’ve used so far” rather than implying we’d be using something that had ever seen a layer of Mr. Macadam’s finest. Still, I like these long drives, and the bumps weren’t too bad except for one heavily wash-boarded section that they were in the process of resurfacing ... after a fashion, at least. Picture a couple of big earth-moving machines, each adorned with two rows of large metal claws and therefore looking like Iron Man’s garden rake, which basically drive along at 5 mph ploughing up the surface of the “road”. Fair enough, just the start of the process, right? Wrong. That’s about it. They move on, leaving piles of rock for passing vehicles to flatten back down all over again as the years click by. Not seen this tried on the M25 or US101, but given the state of the latter then they may just as well give it a go because it would still be an improvement on some sections around the Bay Area.

The Ngorogoro crater is a spectacular sight. You enter on a single-track dirt road curving down from the crater rim and looking out over the central lake. Unsurprisingly, time of year determines the size of the lake but for us here in July it was still a reasonable stretch of water and with the added bonus of being ringed by an edging of brilliant white salts. This is because the lake itself is very alkaline thanks to it being a captive body of water and hence continually absorbing dust from the volcanic explosion that caused it to come into being some half-million years ago. This alkalinity also causes certain algae to bloom on the surface of the lake that in turn attracts the flamingoes who like to feed on it; it also turns them pink, a lesson surely for all of us who eat too many Cheetos.

That night we stayed at the most expensive hotel we have ever stayed at: the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. All-in, close to $1,000 per night each! This better be good….

And it was … mostly. A quite remarkable room with spectacular views across the crater, complete with added foreground interest from their resident herd of zebras and a lone Cape buffalo. Dinner was included, as were drinks, and we also made sure to avail ourselves of the services of the butler assigned to cater for our every whim. However, having said all that, the food, whilst being very good, was not on a par with the price, and overall the service was a bit, err, variable shall we say. More on this tomorrow.