Now something must have happened in the night between Ireland and Tanzania. For the last decade and beyond Ireland has been the only country in the world whose citizens Tanzania welcomed through their borders without asking for the usual $US50 in return. However Ire-Tanzanian relations have obviously taken a major turn for the worse in the last few months as now the Irish are the only nationality (bar Americans - but they don't count, do they?) that have to pay $US100 in! Perhaps some sort of secret e-war? A first? I dunno but John being John was not on for this in the slightest, especially as we would only be spending 4 days there! So it was time for one of the many benefits of being from Northern Ireland to come into play - Dual Citizenship! Having read in depth about the pro's and con's of swapping passports while leaving and entering countries at land borders I decided to back myself, Despite hearing horror stories of people being not allowed to enter one country then get stranded in no-mans land, i went for it. With my best poker face I pulled it off! Crap wish there was a more exciting end to that one.

From the border town of Namanga (all these towns exist on each side of the border which I find quite amusing) down to Arusha which is Tanzania's second city, and famous as the launch pad for all Kilimanjaro summit attempts and more recently for the Rwandan Genocide War Crimes Tribunal. We spent just one night here before loading into two 4x4 trucks for our Serengeti and Ngorogoro safaris. 250kms beckoned on.......amazing road!!!! Out of left field, glorious, smooth, empty highways....well almost. Until the park began, but that is neither here nor there. I actually tried not to fall asleep purely to enjoy the by far most glassy, silky, seamless roads I had experienced in somwhere nearing 3000kms of driving!

Serengeti was great, empty, but great. With all the widebesst shooting the breeze up north in the Mara there wasnt much going on. Despite the assurance by our guides not to expect much we stumbled across a few lions almost immediately and then just as dusk was approaching a pair of Cheetah brothers surveying the landscape for an evenings feast, Regrettably we could not wait it out as we had to make it back to out fenceless (!!!) campground to pitch before darkness took hold.

We were warned too have absolutely no food in our tents as the animals - in particular the wild pig - would be on our doorstep, or more correctly in our tent seeking out whatever is int there. Having decided this would not be a great way to go, we abided by our instructions. I have no Dermo O'Loughlin stories of Hyenas outside while dying for a number 1, but there were zebra munching away outside all night and we were all greeted by a few Giraffe and Buffalo in the morning wondering what all the commotion was about. That morning Leopard Watch was in full force. It being our last remaining animal to witness and our second last day of Safari (another FYI means to go or to travel in Swahili) we were not hopeful. Even more so since our guide, Livingstone, that he hadn't seen one in over a month. So hours of hopefully hopping from rocky collections were they hang out resulted in no luck when all of a sudden our hopes were raised by meeting another safari 4x4. They had seen one not 30mins ago, so some instructions were passed (how do you guide someone to somewhere in this vast place I have no idea) but he did and there it was perched up a tree. See attached photo but it was just a site to behold. We were gazing at it for a good 10minutes before the other truck asked had we spotted its dinner. There above it a good 10 feet was a dead half eaten gazelle, Leopards are somewhat like Joey from friends - they do not share food. They can haul up to 4 times there own body weight vertically. Spectacular stuff.

That evening it was more of the same re camping advise and food, and the total proximity of the wildlife too our home for the evening was brought home in a big way when an enormous bull elephant crossed our path just as we entered the site! The site itself was right on the edge of the ngorogoro crater which was pretty amazing in itself never mind without our very large 4 legged friend wandering around. That night some expert fire building by one Simon Derby kept away some serious cold at over 2500m, at least until dinner was served and nonody could brave the pretty much close to gale force winds. Still those of us (i.e. me and a stubborn old aussie) who braved the wind and associated chill factor to eat our dinner around the aforementioned camp fire were rewarded as a few zebra trotted through camp for a bit of a nosey!

So that was the end of that, and it was up early the next morning for a morning game drive into an amazing crater, I think the 5th biggest in the world, and to be honest based on the size of it I would just love to see the other 4 that are bigger! at over 22km in diameter it is behemoth to say the least! Although the place was rather cool to be honest my mind was on other things, and moreover other places and other people (person) so despite getting within no joke 30 metres on the ground and 2 metres in a truck to a massive bull elephant (christened Travis) in my head i was already well on the road to Mombasa......