Safari – Going to Ngora Gora – Tuesday 1 May

We packed up our tents and loaded them into the truck. The drive to Ngora Gora crater was fairly peaceful, on the way the truck slowed down next to some little Maasi kids and Solo handed them a huge bag of coleslaw. It’d been leftovers from our dinner last night. Alex said they always give the leftovers to the kids. We were stoked to know that the kids got a treat (even if it was icky coleslaw).

We were one of the first groups to get to the crater. We set up our tents (the girls were trying to be in the middle so that the wild pigs had to go through us to get to them!) We were just fiddling about getting organised when we saw a big busload of people arrive.

At this stage we’d been a few days without a shower and the Ngora Gora crater had hot showers. We were so excited. We were talking about it all the way there. We were really lucky, because we got there first we jumped in the showers first so didn’t have to wait in line with all the other people. It was funny, Flick and I were in shower cubicles next to each other and we were saying how good the shower was, how nice it was to have clean hair. You’d think it’d been 3 weeks without showers the way we were carrying on, but it was lovely :)

There were loads of people at the crater. A few groups smaller than us, and a few groups much larger. We were scattered all over the hill top. People were climbing up on top of the toilet block to take sunset photos of the crater. Aidan got some really nice ones.

Being first to the site had another advantage – Solo took over the kitchen area. He got in and set up in about 4 seconds flat. However, I think all the cooks pooled their resources because everyone seemed to have similar food. It was kind of a curry stew type arrangement. The difference was each group had different sides. Ours of course was delicious. Solo has made amazing meals every night. I’ve never had so many homemade soups that were all so delicious.

After dinner we started playing cards, but then we moved outside to sit around the campfire. Hungry Man had built a fire next to the truck. We were sitting there, just chatting generally and then Alex jumped up and walked to the edge of the clearing. Then he called us over and showed us an enormous buffalo – it was about 2 meters from camp and bigger than my car! I’ve never seen such an animal so close – nothing but air between us and its just staring at us.

This is why Alex was so adamant about us not having food in the tents. In fact most of us just put our sleeping bags etc in the tents and left out big bags in the truck. Flick went to get something from the truck at one point and didn’t turn the truck light on (coz her bag was near the door) and she’d only been in there about 4 seconds when someone yelled HUNGRY and he jumped up running for the truck. Flick said, its ok, its ok and Hungry Man just smiled and went back to the fire.

We sat around the fire for a bit, we didn’t really go mingle with the other groups. We could have, but I don’t think any of us could be bothered! Sad isn’t it – we’re at the top of a crater in the middle of Tanzania with about 100 other foreigners and we just talked amongst ourselves. But in fairness to us, we were getting to the end of our trip and were all a little tired – although we were clean now thanks to the lovely showers.

I slept peacefully, as I have for the whole trip. Anyway, apparently during the night there was a scream. We found out later that one of the guys from the other groups had a packet of chips in his tent and the wild boars had come trying to get it. I’d have freaked right out had a wild boar come knocking on our tent! Alex took better care of us that the other guide did. He told no to even leave toothpaste and soap in the tents coz the smell attracts the animals – given how close the enormous buffalo was I didn’t want to try my luck.