Tanzania and the SERENGETI

For our night in Nairobi, we were scheduled to go to an African BBQ and show but plans were kiboshed when our transfers didn't arrive and it poured with rain. The night saw us at the campsite (home of a big Australian guy who specialised in steak pies!) with 30 pizzas and plenty of beer and G & Ts! Next morning (Grant and I having slept through our departure time and having to be woken up by our tour leader - shame...), we headed into Nairobi to pick up some of the new passengers and then across the border into Tanzania to Arusha. We stayed at Snake Park campsite for the night, which is, as the name somewhat suggests, a campsite with a whole lot of deadly snakes in glass cages, a few crocodiles and a baby hyena. From here, we were to begin our adventure into the Serengeti. Friday morning, we left the truck in Arusha and travelled in Landcruisers the couple of hours to the Serengeti. Once in the park boundries, the first thing we saw was a large family of elephants with three really young elephants wandering across the plains. They were very wary and a little curious about the landcruiser crossing the road just in front of us. The Serengeti is exactly how you visualise Africa - dry and deserty with plains stretching for miles and miles and random animals on the horizon and on the side of the dirt roads. We spent two days in the Serengeti and saw a huge number of lions and lionesses, a leopard, and a ton of the more popular African animals. We also saw part of the migration from the Serengeti to the Maasai Mara (zebra and wildebeast) which was amazing and definately one of the hightlights of our trip so far - you have to track it and we had already missed it in the Maasai because they were slow crossing the border between parks. Camp was, again, an unfenced campsite in the middle of the Serengeti with signs warning us not to leave the campsite area as we could be attacked. Comforting thought. Needless to say, there was no venturing any further than right outside our tent for bathroom stops. On the way out of the Serengeti, we spent a night at the Ngorongoro Crater, which is a massive 260sqkm crater that is thousands of years old and is home to a large number of animals existing within the crater's own eco-system. The crater even has its own migration within itself. Our campsite was at the top of the crater (very cold) but a gorgeous spot overlooking the crater and with large tusked elephants just hanging around eating the trees next to the campsite. The crater tour saw us almost seeing a kill by 6 lionesses - the buffalo only JUST got away and Grant got it all on handicam -, a very pregnant cheetah (which reminded us of Nae who is due very soon - yay!), and...wait for it, a BLACK Rhino - of which there are only around 60 in the whole of the Serengeti and far less in the crater.