Our luck continues... (Dec. 24/08 - Simba Camp, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania)

A huge sky full of African stars greeted us this morning (Christmas Eve morning!) as we got organized for a morning game drive. At daylight, we set out with cameras ready for whatever the Serengeti would have in store for us. We started seeing hyenas all over the place, lurking around in the grass, and one was spotted gnawing on the remnant horns and backbone of what was once a buffalo. We spent over three hours scouting the landscape and came across lots of giraffes, a couple tiny little antelope called dikdiks (they weigh only 12lbs!), a family of rock hyraxes (chubby grey rodents that look like marmots but are actually an elephant's closest relative!), lots of zebras and various antelope, warthogs, vultures, a male kori bustard bird putting on his flamboyant mating display for a nearby female, hippos, and a huge herd of buffalo. At one point, an old bull elephant was spotted wandering toward the road, and we were able to get a nice close view of him as he picked a thorn tree right beside the road to munch on the branches, scratch up against the trunk, and eventually turn his rear end to us and take a giant dump right in front of us. Then he decided to flaunt his wares and drop his giant 5th leg, waving it around for all the suddenly inadequate-feeling men to see. As we carried on across the plains, we saw a cluster of six other trucks stopped at the edge of the grassland, gazing out into the grass with binoculars and cameras drawn. This has to be good! Sure enough, we raced over and scanned the horizon looking for anything that wasn't grass or antelope. Then we saw a small, furry head poking up, and looking straight at us - a cheetah! YES! Cheetah was literally the only animal we had hoped to see in Africa that we hadn't yet. Our luck continues! It was pretty far away, but through binoculars you could easily see his cute little spotted cat face. We returned to camp happy and with camera memory cards almost full.

After lunch, we tore down camp and headed back toward the park gate. Our driver was nice enough to take the scenic route back to the main road, which gave us a bit more time to spot wildlife in the semi-treed Seronera area. Right away we encountered a beautiful big giraffe munching on a tree about 15 feet from the road. We watched him for a while as he alternated between watching us and sticking out his tounge to grab thorny branches off the tree. These ones are Maasai giraffe, which have a distinctly different pattern than the other varieties we've seen elsewhere. The splotches were more like puzzle pieces than polygons, and the background colour was more beige than white-ish or yellow-ish. Very cute nonetheless - giraffes are some of our favourites.

We drove back toward the park gate and spotted more hyenas, giraffes, zebras, and antelope on the way. Big rain storms moved across the plains ahead, but we managed to dodge most of the storms. As we crossed back into the Ngorongoro reserve, Maasai herdsmen and their cattle started popping up on the plains again. We had the option of visiting a Maasai village on the way back, so most of us jumped at the chance to learn about these people we've seen wandering around for the last couple weeks. They are nomadic people, moving their villages as necessary a couple times a year so they are close to the green grasslands for their cattle. Each village has one chief, and he has twenty wives who each have two or three kids, so about twenty little huts are built in a small area, made of acacia tree branches and cow dung. The men, adorned in their red and purple robes, chanted and danced to welcome us into their village, then they took us inside. We got to go inside their houses, which are ironically very low-roofed (about 4.5 feet), considering that these people are so tall! Inside, one woman lives with her kids in a tiny but warm hut, with cow hides to sleep on and a small fire for cooking. They only eat beef, sheep, and goat meat and drink cow's milk mixed with cow's blood. Yum. We were enthralled by the outfits and jewellry they wore - especially the somen, who wore intricate beaded necklaces and dangling silver earrings. One of the customs they have is to cut out a hole in their ear lobes and insert hoops and decorations to weigh them down and stretch them. Most of them had such big, droopy, ripped ear lobes that it made you cringe to look. Something else that made us cringe was learning that they perform circumcisions on boys 15 years old as an initiation into manhood. Ouch! They took us into the little preschool hut where the kids were gathered, and were greeted by 25 adorable little Maasai kids singing and clapping. They were so cute! The adults explained how the school system works, that almost all kids go to school near the crater rim, and that some go to secondary school too. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into such an exotic culture and gain a bit of an understanding into the way people still live their lives on these famous plains as they have for centuries.

The green slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater were in stark contrast with the bare plains below, and we were welcomed to our campsite at the rim of the crater with a giant rainbow that spanned from one side to the other, touching the rim on both sides. The air was dramatically colder at the crater rim thanks to the wind and the elevation. Pasta and hot chocolate around the campfire overlooking the crater made for a strange but wonderful Christmas Eve. As everyone at home is getting ready for turkey and presents in the snow, we crawled into our tents listening to crickets and hoping that elephants wouldn't come too close overnight.