Day 9 - Arusha to Serengeti
Was picked up at 8 by the Bee Eater & Honey Safari company. Long day of driving although it is great not being on the truck. Arrived at the Ngorongora Crater around lunch time (albeit we're just passing through and will be spending time in the crater on the way back). What an absolutely spectacular view. It's literally a huge round plain surrounded by mountains. Difficult to explain, so if you haven't been there it's worth a google!
Lunch was a very different experience. We had a group of Kites (large birds) attempting an aerial assault of our lunch boxes. Quite scary as they ended up swooping in and pecking a few arms. Was strange being sitting prey of large birds.
Arrived in the Serengeti in the late afternoon. Rolling plains and quite simply spectacular. Loved the Kopjes. Quite corny, and don't want to have to point it out, but it really was so lion king. A little bit of Elton was unfortunately close to mind.
Came across a leopard and her two male cubs on our way to camp. They were right next to the car, and we were able to follow them for some distance before they ended up hanging from a tree. We were speechless in our attempts to describe how beautiful they were. They also camouflage unbelievably well in the long grass. If they weren't on the road I don't think we would have spotted them.
Arrived in camp to our tents already up and hot drinks and popcorn at an already set table. After roughing it and putting our tents up in constant rain for the last week, it was hard not to feel like royalty. Dinner was great, so even though we spent the day in the car we loved it.
Camping in the middle of the bush, our first night without our Masai guard sitting outside our tent, tents up, stunning dinner, beautiful animals, I decided to choose this night under the stars in the Serengeti to propose to Jenny. After months of meticulous planning designing a story book of our time together and with ring box and champagne in hand, I asked Jenny to be my wife whilst realising the ring box was empty. This led to a panic search through the tent thinking the ring had been stolen. Anyway, in packing my day pack I had taken the wrong box whilst trying to pack without Jenny noticing, but I did get a yes even without a ring!!!
An amazing end to an amazing day and we stayed up late chatting, laughing and listening to all the animal noises with our windows open in hope we would spot some uninvited guests. This was the first night there were no guards and our group were completely alone in the wild. We could hear hyenas all around and saw elephants and giraffes very close by.
Quite scary as the next morning we saw that a buffalo was killed by a pride of lions 100 metres from our tent.
Loved our lessons on what to do in the event of coming across wildlife outside our tent. Fortunately we had been training for the last month on toilet control as they was no way we were going to exit our tents that night.