Down Into Ngorongoro Crater
Saturday, September 3, 2005
I woke up in a cloud this morning. Water droplets swirled past my face as I peered through the thick fog, trying to find my way from my tent to the bathroom buildings.
It was dark still and it was cold too. We huddled over an early morning breakfast of porridge and coffee.
I learned that our camp had had some animal visitors as I slept unawares: Lizzie had come out of her tent last night and seen a hyena that was fortunately feeling too shy to confront a human. And someone else spotted a bush- pig rooting around near the toilets. Wayne said that one night on another camping trip a bush -pig had wandered into someone's tent and become panicked--the big left the tent in a hurry, ripping a new back door for the tent in the process.
Hired land-rover vehicles arrived to take us down to the bottom of the Ngorongoro Crater; it was a road that a big overland truck like George could not possibly navigate.
There were five or six passengers in each vehicle: in ours there were we four Canadians plus Phil (from Norfolk) and Simon, our local driver.
Simon proved to be the slowest and most cautious driver of the bunch for which I was glad:the road was pitted, narrow, and full of switch-back curves over high drops. It was about 600 metres (2000 feet) down to the crater floor. There was also very, very poor visibility this morning. The thick cloud layer followed us as we descended. At one point our jeep pulled up by another of the vehicles and our driver Simon had a brief but heated conversation with another driver as they gestured at the road and the weather
I wondered if they were discussing the other's insane driving habits.
It turns out that heavy fog is actually pretty typical in the mornings here. It was predicted that by afternoon it would be blazing hot, and I fervently hoped so as I huddled in my fleece.
The Ngorongoro Crater (named for the melodic sound of Masaii cow-bells tinkling) is a vast conservation area. The diameter of the volcanic crater is about twelve miles across and between twenty and thirty thousand animals populate the caldera floor. It is a conservation area and the animals are protected by law as long as they stay within the boundaries of the collapsed volcano.
I woke up in a cloud this morning. Water droplets swirled past my face as I peered through the thick fog, trying to find my way from my tent to the bathroom buildings.
It was dark still and it was cold too. We huddled over an early morning breakfast of porridge and coffee.
I learned that our camp had had some animal visitors as I slept unawares: Lizzie had come out of her tent last night and seen a hyena that was fortunately feeling too shy to confront a human. And someone else spotted a bush- pig rooting around near the toilets. Wayne said that one night on another camping trip a bush -pig had wandered into someone's tent and become panicked--the big left the tent in a hurry, ripping a new back door for the tent in the process.
Hired land-rover vehicles arrived to take us down to the bottom of the Ngorongoro Crater; it was a road that a big overland truck like George could not possibly navigate.
There were five or six passengers in each vehicle: in ours there were we four Canadians plus Phil (from Norfolk) and Simon, our local driver.
Simon proved to be the slowest and most cautious driver of the bunch for which I was glad:the road was pitted, narrow, and full of switch-back curves over high drops. It was about 600 metres (2000 feet) down to the crater floor. There was also very, very poor visibility this morning. The thick cloud layer followed us as we descended. At one point our jeep pulled up by another of the vehicles and our driver Simon had a brief but heated conversation with another driver as they gestured at the road and the weather
I wondered if they were discussing the other's insane driving habits.
It turns out that heavy fog is actually pretty typical in the mornings here. It was predicted that by afternoon it would be blazing hot, and I fervently hoped so as I huddled in my fleece.
The Ngorongoro Crater (named for the melodic sound of Masaii cow-bells tinkling) is a vast conservation area. The diameter of the volcanic crater is about twelve miles across and between twenty and thirty thousand animals populate the caldera floor. It is a conservation area and the animals are protected by law as long as they stay within the boundaries of the collapsed volcano.
posted by Spider Girl | 9:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home