20.Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania - 29 October to 17 November 2009

Peponi Beach Resort south of Tanga on the Tanzanian coast was our next campsite after leaving Dar Es Salaam on Thursday 29 October. Our UK family - Dickie, Claire, Sonya and Natasha - also arrived, and Bob and Maria, whom we had met at Mikadi Beach the night we came back from Zanzibar, were already camped there. On Saturday night Bob and Maria invited us all over for a camp dinner. They had bought a huge fish from one of the local fishermen, and Bob cooked a great fish curry for us all to share. It was delicious and great fun. We are all planning to spend Christmas on the Kenyan coast and then travel north into Ethiopia together.

We stayed at Peponi for over a week. It was quite a perfect spot. Shade, cool sea breeze, right on the beach, good facilities and the neighbouring guest house sold fresh bread daily, espresso coffee and designed and sold clothes made from kikoi, which is the traditional cloth that the fishermen wrap around themselves. Amazing!!! From our campsite, we relaxed and watched the comings and goings of the locals from the fishing village nearby. We celebrated Brian's big birthday with a meal of Mangrove Crabs at the restaurant - it was very quiet but very enjoyable.

From Peponi we headed towards Arusha, camping on the way at Marangu Hotel at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro. Many climbers stay here before they set off on their big 6-day climb. We only managed a glimpse of the great mountain, as it was constantly shrouded in cloud.

Arusha is busy, bustling and choked with traffic most of the time, but we enjoyed it there, staying at Masai Camp on the edge of town, meeting up with Maria and Bob, Dickie, Claire and the girls again. We camped at Ilboru Lodge for two nights on the weekend as Masai Camp has a huge disco Friday and Saturday nights.

We've been told the clock tower roundabout in Arusha is the half way point between Cape Town and Cairo, so after we arrived we checked some of our trip stats: 131 days of travel; 89% of nights camping; 18 000 kms and 9 countries with 13 border crossings so far.

From Arusha we organised a 'safari' into the Serengeti NP and Ngorongoro Crater, having decided not to take our own vehicle. 'Safari Makers' were recommended to us at Peponi, so we set off with Abdul, our delightful, quiet and unassuming, knowledgeable guide. We enjoyed being driven for a change and enjoyed the journey through Masai country, with the men in their bright red shukas, or blankets, and their very poor cattle at the end of the dry season, and the women often draped in blue blankets with bright jewellery around their necks and dangling from their ears. We stopped at the Olduvai Gorge for lunch on the first day, where Mary and Louis Leakey found human footprints from about 3.2 million years ago.

We had 3 wonderful nights spoiling ourselves at Sopa Lodges, and 4 wonderful days seeing some of the best wildlife so far. Leopard, Cheetah and Lion all within close viewing on one day from our open-roofed Toyota Troopie, and we could sit and observe them endlessly as there were only the two of us and Abdul on this trip. It was great fun standing up as we drove along, looking like true safari tourists as we surveyed the wide, magnificent landscape. Due to the rain that fell just prior to our visit and on the first night, we saw the migration of the wildebeest as they made their way south from the Masai Mara in Kenya to feed on the new sweet grass, a little later than normal due to the lateness of the short rains. Fantastic sight!! Serengeti NP lived up to its huge reputation for us, and Ngorongoro Crater is just the most amazing landscape. We also enjoyed the camaraderie of all the tour guides as they chat to each other over their 2-ways in Swahili, sharing the locations of the best wildlife. At times there were up to 30 vehicles at one sighting, but it was still thrilling.

We spent a couple more nights in Arusha on our return, before we headed north to Kenya. Unfortunately, we didn't visit Gemma's School of St Judel as it was the weekend, but we drove up to the front gate to see where it was.