Camping was ok, slept quite well. We all have our own individual camping mattresses which helps alot, they're all stacked up at the back of the truck. We were amazed at how quickly the sun set we literally watched it sink in minutes, it's true what they say- it is stunning! It cools down quite alot at night here however, we embraced the cold shower in the morning! Today we left at 6/6.30 am, packed up our tents and had some very nice French toast made by TJ one of our tour leaders, he mainly drives but is a trained chef which is nice! Francois is the leading guide keeps us in check, gives us all the info we need and is a good cook too, they're both great and enjoy a good laugh. It seems we've been very lucky with our tour buddies and guides.

Today was our journey to the Serengeti! Before we even got their we saw giraffes at the side of the road, they took a bit of interest in us then went back to their business of picking at the trees.

A group of us paid 15,000 TzS to visit a Maasai village on route to the Serengeti national park. This was an amazing experience, but also quite emotional and eye openning. There are lots of Maasai communities in east Africa and we had seen a lot walking to market or herding cattle while driving through the country but to visit a true village was like nothing else. It is a scheme set up by the Maasai families and the government to bring in money to help support the Maasai tribes, however the villages they offer guided tours of are true villages, not set up for tourism purposes. We were greeted by our guides who were brothers, sons of the leader of the village. The other members welcomed us with songs and traditional dancing and we met some of the families and children. They demonstrated their jumping traditions where men are judged on how high they can jump from 2 feet- this was very impressive!! The children were all so happy, they had nothing but had such gorgeous smiles. They were very interested in us and loved seeing their pictures on cameras. We were shown the school where children had walked 7km to get there each day, they were so well behaved!! They performed a quick song for us singing Hakuna mattata, and we had a short insight into their learning. They learn Swahili, their own language and a little English- mainly counting to 10. I felt a little emotional as a lot of the children had flies around their eyes and were dirty or covered in dust but there was no doubt they were happy and it was good to experience what their life is like while helping to support the tribes. They had moved to this particular village 2 years ago. We were shown into one family's house, it was a tiny tiny mud house made from sticks and dried mud. We squeezed in and sat on the bed made from dried leaves and sticks- I was scared to break it! Next to us a child was sleeping which I found quite weird, and our guide explained all about the hut. There was a log storage and a small fire in the centre but it was very difficult to navigate around the very small area supported by sticks. These tiny huts were home to a family of 4 or 5! Very hard to imagine a family that size living in here. I had no idea how they could all fit in. After leaving we had a similar experience with the families trying to sell us their jewellery they had hand made and again being very persistent! Getting used to this now.

Feeling very hot and sticky but a little in awe from the Village we set off for the Serengeti. We had to drive through Ngorongoro Crater which was incredible dusty and bumpy- that red dust gets everywhere! Plants and trees where completely covered in it. We drove right up to the crater rim and the view was stunning, Pictures will never do it justice. We would be back to camp and explore the crater home to over 25,000 animals the following day. There was a definite chill in the air up on the crater rim in a much higher altitude, a big climate change from a couple of hours ago!

The Serengeti was incredible. Serengeti means endless planes and very apt! We split into a group of 6, me, Amy, Amy, Angela, Steph and Jay had our own safari tour guide called Tom he was a nice guy and very knowledgable, he was great at getting us the best shots. We were in a convoy in the vast area with the other G Adventure groups mainly, so whenever anything of interest was spotted they'd radio through and we'd be off at speed to check it out too! Quite often our truck was there first though, and Jay turned out to be a natural wildlife spotter! We went off in search of the big 5- Lion, Elephant, Leopard, Buffalo and Rhino. Highlights were seeing a Simba for the first time sulking in the grass. Simba is the Swahili for lion. Also rafiki means friend and mufasa is a place, and assante sanna is thankyou very much. As a group we had a few conversations about the lion king. A lot of the Africans speaking Swahili use Hakuna mattata a lot! Loved it :). We also saw pride rock which was a large rock with white markings up high on the ledge that looked like a door. Drove past lots of Elephants, Giraffes and spotted a few lions in the distance.

One of the most spectacular things we saw was a lion/ Leopard encounter as the sun was setting. We had spotted a Leopard earlier chilling in a tree but as we were leaving Freddie, another tour guide radio'd through that the Leopard was down on the ground approaching the road. Tom stuck his foot down and we high tailed it back to the group of safari trucks. There was a mother with two young cubs. The younger ones walked right along the road next to us! The mother was in the longer grass and we realised she was carefully watching an approaching lioness! It stalked for a while and wasn't backing off the two young Leopard cubs ran and the mother tried to stand guard, in the end she retreated up the tree and the lioness got bored of the hunt, it was very exciting to watch though.

Another highlight was a family of elephants that were almost in touching distance on the road to the nights campsite, the little ones were raising their trunks to greet us. Didn't get many good pictures as by this point we were late following our leopard experience and Tom had to rush to get to the campsite before getting a fine from rangers.

We camped in the Serengeti, in the middle of nowhere! It was a campsite with facilities but it was just in the national park, no fences! Any animal could wander in including lions and elephants! We had strict instructions from Francois to move about in groups, not to leave our tents at night and before walking out doing a sweep with the torch, if it catches 2 central eyes glinting looking forwards the instructions were to retreat immediately as it is more than likely to be a big cat! Eyes on the side are fine- likely to be gazelle. We got stuck in the toilets before bed as there were actually 2 hyenas spotted outside the block!! Francois sticked around and walked us back to our tents. Trying to explain the dangers to the two Japanese girls was quite stressful as they didn't really understand they shouldn't be wondering around on their own intent on washing all their clothes in the sinks.

We settled down to the sounds of hyenas in the distance and apart from being woken by heavy rain had a good night sleep. Very impressed by the facilities and food so far! Better than I expected.