I am honored….and a bit intimidated, after all we have all been enjoying the witty, comical and informative blogs of Mike and Nancy for the past year! Mike asked me to share some of my stories from our Safari; I agreed to try! Oh this is Mary. So here goes …..

There are so many amazing things that happened on this trip, every day we thought “today can not measure up to yesterday” but every day seemed to be better than the day before. Going into the trip I wanted to see lions! We saw lions: eating, sleeping, playing, walking, and stalking their prey and (yes!) the kill!

So who would believe my favorite encounter would be with an elephant?? Well, when you factor in the fear factor (ok, and the exaggeration factor!) the elephants win hands down.

Maggie’s favorite animal is the elephant. Every day started out with Maggie asking Damas “Will I see any elephants today”. Damas would smile and tell her she would, and he was right, when they were not hiding (or disappearing) we saw elephants. However, they were never close enough for me. By the fourth day I joined Maggie with her morning question to Damas: “Would we see any elephants today?” He must have thought we were crazy since we had seen elephants every day, but he would just smile and say yes. Except the last day when he responded “Wow, you people really like elephants.” He then promised Maggie he would find her a baby elephant up close that day. (Mike will give you details about that later.)

We went to Lake Manyara to begin our Safari drive, it was unlike the other areas we had been in and appeared more like a jungle than what we had experienced so far. We had the roofs off and Nancy and I were sitting on top of the jeep for parts of the drive. We saw many animals (Mike will give you details!) and were driving along when Nancy screamed for Damas to stop the jeep. She said there was a “tribe” (yes, she said tribe!) of elephants back there just off the road. So, Damas backed up to where she indicated, shut off the jeep and we all crawled out onto the roof to watch. Yeaah she is good at spotting elephants. Can you see them?

Is this easier for you. Remember we were driving when she saw them.

We could not tell how many elephants were in the tribe because the trees were thick, but we could see them eating the branches and tearing down whole trees. I was thinking: “This is really cool, but I can’t really see the elephants and they’re not really that close.” A large elephant tore down the tree branches directly parallel to our jeep approximately ten feet from our jeep and began to walk towards our jeep as he made his way out of the trees and onto the road! Damas excitedly stated “get off the roof, get off the roof”; later he explained that the elephants trunk could have reached us and pulled us down quite quickly. Believe it or not – we listened to Damas and got off the roof. Ok, we didn’t exactly get in the jeep, but we did get off the roof! Maggie and Mike got into the jeep and watched from the window with Mike’s mouth pressed against Maggie’s ear ferverently whispering….don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound… Remember these are Maggie’s favorite animals. (FYI: it turns out they are quite skittish, do not like noise and were the only animals on safari who did not seem to want people around!) Nancy and I continued to stand on the seat with our cameras held out in front of us and snapped our pictures!

The matriarch came out of the trees and walked directly behind our jeep

That white at the bottom is the top of the jeep. Nancy I are directly behind the part you can see.

She stared at us.

Her ears were waving back and forth (sign of aggression); her trunk was swaying (not in a happy puppy dog way); and she took two steps forward two steps back. She looked like she was deciding as to whether she would charge or not.

OK- my heart was pounding. I do not know why she did not charge us; she looked like she wanted to. She stood in that stance for about ten minutes while approximately fifteen elephants came out of the trees and passed behind her. Then she switched positions with a smaller female who guarded as the babies made their way out and across. When everyone had crossed the street and reentered the trees on the other side the guard elephants left us and rejoined their group.

As soon as they were gone we all started talking a mile a minute! It was the scariest and most exciting part of the trip for me. Maggie was amazed and thrilled with all of the elephants. And I get to tell everyone that we were almost killed by elephants! How can this NOT be my favorite story!

I’ll let Mike finish the rest of the day, he adds at lot more detail that I want to remember!

I do need to throw one more picture in (because it’s sooo cute!) Maggie and I were fortunate in that our vacation continued when we left Tanzania, we still had Egypt to explore. Maggie had been excited to see the pyramids and absolutely loved the Sphinx.



Egypt was completely different than I expected. I told Mike and Nancy I had a romanticized vision of Egypt from history and stories of the Nile. So I wasn’t quite prepared for the reality of Egypt. The people were nice and very helpful. The shops and the merchandise were amazing. The Khan al-Khalili was amazing; it was like a treasure hunt. There was alley after alley with every imaginable ware you can think of, thousands of people and great deals! You can see ancient Egypt throughout these streets and the architecture is awesome.

The Mosques are beautiful, as are the government buildings and the Citadel is incredible; the overall city is dirty and lacking in technology and modern standards (ie. automobile regulations, laws, emissions etc.) Maggie and I were treated like celebrities because of our blonde hair – Maggie loved having her picture taken (by Egyptians) surrounded by Egyptians! We definitely felt welcome!

Without a doubt this was the best vacation I have ever dreamed of and would highly recommended it too anyone with the slightest interest in going. (Not to mention you get to hang out with Mike and Nancy!!!!) Thanks for showing us Cairo and introducing us to your adventures!

Safari - Day Five

Wow, are we on day five already?? My how time flies...

Like baby eaglets, we awoke the next morning to the rising sun, perched on the very rim of the crater wall looking down upon the wonderful scene spread out below us that is the Ngorongoro Crater. Also like baby eaglets we were wondering what was for breakfast, so after a few quick showers (quicker than the night before..oh I didn't tell you about the shower?)

Let me digress a moment. Dusty, tired, muddy and well, just plain filthy, we checked in the night before and the first thing Mary wanted was a nice hot shower. Since we had a suite we actually had two showers and Mary went in, then a few minutes later appeared with one of the hotels soft comfy looking robes on saying there was no water in the shower. Nancy went in to rescue the situation and appeared shortly after equally perplexed and a little miffed that here we are in a nice place, tired and dirty and there's no water. Well, being a guy and somewhat of a handyman (not) I decided to give them the wisdom of my experience and offered to help. I tried the taps, I banged on the wall, I even looked in the shower nozzle figuring if the water was going to come out it would come out then. Nothing worked. So rather than dismantle the whole shower to find out what was wrong and not having packed Duct Tape (the handyman's favorite tool) to fix it once I did find the problem, we called the front desk to report our dilemma. To their credit, they responded immediately by sending the plumber right up. He went in and, turned the taps, then turned them some more, then turned them a little more and like magic, the water began to flow. How sheepish did we feel? Nobody told us you had to turn the taps a dozen or so times to turn the water on.

OK now where was I.. oh yes, so like freshly scrubbed and clean baby eaglets we went in search of this mornings breakfast. Checking out of the lodge we awaited Dumas, who appeared shortly thereafter with a shiny clean jeep to start out the day, and were off along the crater rim to the entrance to the steep windy road that descends into the crater. Dumas informed us that almost every animal in the northern Tanzanian area is represented inside the crater so it's a great place to see everything in a very short period of time. Most people spend a day here and it's easy to see why. The animal we wouldn't see here, he told us, is the giraffe. We had seen so many unexpected things so far on our trip though that we told him he shouldn't be so sure. He chuckled and once again concentrated on his driving and navigating the narrow, winding road that snaked down the edge of the crater wall. He told us that the trail we followed had been discovered by elephants before it became a road for tourists. Thinking about elephants navigating this slope was almost incomprehensible.

Then we saw this Bateleur Eagle, sunning itself along the crater rim. If someone were into birds, Tanzania would be a great place to see them. I found myself more and more interested in the variety of birds as we continued our trip, hence all the pictures of birds.

Arriving at the crater floor we stopped in a turn out and were told that this is one of the few areas in the crater that we were allowed out of the jeep. This is where I took the picture of everyone standing up in the jeep that I posted on Day 1.

Does this look like a five year old that's been on Safari for Five days?

We took a few pictures then climbed back into the jeep and took off along the crater floor, it was still early and the sun was climbing into the sky across the crater from us. We could see the lake out in front of us and a dark line appeared to cut across the surface of the lake. "Elephant eyes" commented on this and I told her they were flamingos which she excepted suspiciously for the time being but I could tell she wasn't convinced. Once we got a little closer and the sun was shining on them they were easier to distinguish. It was about at this point when I ran out of memory space for my camera and panicked when I couldn't get my backup flashcard to work. Nancy got out the direction booklet and had it sorted out in no time though, I had to format it first. Doh!

Our next treat was something we had seen almost every day of our safari but never really close to us for a good picture. Today was our day for good pictures of these most interesting birds. Can you identify this bird?

Yup that's right! OSTRICH!

Of course we were also seeing loads of Zebra and Antelope now also, as well as Water Buffalo, a lone Eland, Thompson Gazelle, but since I've shown pictures of these previously I'll stick to the highlights. Some way off in the distance, "Eagle Eyes Nancy" spotted a tribe of elephants making their way across the horizon, it looked like we were heading in a direction that would intersect with them, but by the time we got to where we thought they should be they had disappeared. Amazed still, but not surprised, we didn't see any other elephants for the rest of the day as they mostly kept to the slopes and trees according to Dumas.

Speaking of highlights, our next one was the very reason I chose to include this park on our itinerary.

The Black Rhinoceros. We were lucky enough to see one relatively close to the road, normally they steer well clear of the tourists and can only be seen from quite some distance away. Toward the end of the day we understood this when we stopped to see what another jeep was looking at through their ganolucars. In the distance we could see a spot that was a rhino.

This little guy won on the cuteness factor. He stuck like glue to his mom so it wasn't easy to get a decent picture. Overall zebras are very striking animals.

Well we're into day 5 and what haven't we seen yet? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? That's right, Lions! I know what you're saying, oh, more lions, great. Well I know I've covered lions alot here but we're not done with them just yet. We were still waiting to see lions doing something dramatic like taking something down (gruesome eh? but there you have it) and we came upon these guys laying in the not-so-tallish grass maybe a hundred meters from the road.

We watched them, they watched us watching them. Then we noticed some distance behind them, maybe 100 meters, another lion laying almost motionless, and then another about the same distance away but slightly to the right of the other. All of a sudden the two young male lions became interested in something off to our left, they both lowered themselves slightly and turned in that direction. We immediately sensed something was going on and turned to our left to see what had caught their attention. A lone zebra, we'll call him Ted, was wandering in their direction, Ted was still several hundred meters off but he was coming closer with each step and all eyes were riveted on him.

Here's the lions looking at Ted.

I'm sure everyone in the jeeps was secretly willing Ted to come closer, come closer Ted, just a little bit closer...but I'm also sure nobody would want to admit it. Ok I'll admit it. And I know the lions were thinking it too. Although in their story Ted probably had a name like "breakfast", or "brunch" or possibly "tasty morsel." We watched as Ted came a little closer, then stopped. There was a herd of zebra just beyond where the lions were and I'm sure Ted was looking to join up with them. The herd just watched Ted coming as if to say, "are you stupid? There's lions just there, but hey, better you than me buddy." Everyone seemed to be clued in to what was going on, us, the lions, the herd of zebra nearby, everyone that is except Ted.

Here's Ted starting to get a clue.

We watched as Ted, feeling all the eyes upon him now, move slightly stage right, away from the two young males and toward the lioness, who were now very alert and poised.

Here's Ted walking on the left with the male lions in the foreground and the lead lioness poised on the right.

Ted, probably with stage fright, began to move off further to his left and the lionesses relaxed and lay back down. This was not to be the easy meal we all thought it was going to be and the lions were not the only ones disappointed. Three cheers for Ted though who made for a very suspenseful 15 minutes and lived to be eaten another day. Dumas commented that had the two male lions been females instead they would have gone after Ted, but male lions are lazy he said and didn't want to work that hard for their meal.

This guy landed next to our jeep as we were all dealing with our disappointment over Ted. I have no idea what kind of butterfly it is, maybe a precis clelia, but he was begging to have his picture taken so I obliged.

Even though we could have stayed and watched these guys all day on the off-chance another of Ted's friends would wander by, Dumas suggested we continue on. And so we came upon what else, yet another lion! Were we worried we wouldn't see any lions on this safari?? This young male was lying right beside the road and when we arrived there were about 10 jeeps staring at him, jockeying for position.

He let out a might roar!

or maybe it was a big yawn...he was very nonchalant about being the center of everyone's attention. I mean, if he had really wanted a nap he would have found a better spot than right next to the road. This guy really wanted to have his picture taken and we were only too happy to accommodate, along with the 10 other jeeps and more arriving every minute.

He did try to sleep but the click of the cameras must have been too much for him so he got up and wandered out into the road right amongst the jeeps.

Apparently he liked the shade the jeep provided

This is him right behind our jeep! One leap and I could call myself Ted!

We were in the prime spot as he strolled by us and one of the other jeeps, jockeying for a better angle to see him actually bumped into our jeep! Hopefully Mary won't suffer any long term effects from the whiplash since we didn't get the driver's insurance card.

I have about 150 more pictures of this lion as he lay down on the other side of the road, cleaned his paws, rolled around like a big kitten, yawned a few more times then headed off down the middle of the road with about 20 jeeps in tow. We had to wait for a fork in the road and when he went right, we went left. It was nearing lunch time.

On our way we stopped to watch these guys wallowing in a mud pool

and finally we arrived near the lake where there were restrooms (loosely speaking of course) and we were told by Dumas to eat our lunch inside the truck because of the birds outside. There were probably 30 other jeeps at this spot, one of the few bathroom facilities inside the crater. Dumas said it was not legal to get out of the jeeps except in designated spots although when faced with a five year old's bladder (not to mention the 36 year olds), he pulled over on a few occasions. He did warn us that there was a camera with a big lens up on the crater rim that watched the goings on down below. The birds, Kites he called them, are a raptor bird and very fast, they would take food right out of your fingers and the fingers if you held too tightly onto your food. We ate inside the jeep.

Here's one circling, looking for it's next victim.

Later I watched as a couple in the jeep next to us chose to ignore the warnings of their guide (I heard him tell them) and start eating just behind their jeep. They must have felt safe. I was just getting my camera out because I knew an opportunity for a good picture when I saw one but before I could get it out, it happened. A Kite flew down between the two of them, like a streak, right behind the jeep and took her small sandwich right out of her hands. She screamed, a little more than shook up, and after they finished counting her fingers proceeded to finish their meal inside the jeep. Lesson. Listen to your guide. They usually know what they are talking about.

Now Maggie had been cooped up in a truck, bus, airplane for the better part of 7 days and so she was wreaking havoc on the local herd of guinea fowl that were foraging and begging for scraps from the tourists. We watched as she chased them three times around another jeep.

Isn't that a picture? Oh the joys of youth. I encourage you all to get out and chase some guinea fowl. Chickens or pigeons will work too. You're never too old to chase birds.

After rounding up all the guinea fowls, it was our turn to round up Maggie and start making our way across and out of the park. Well fed and watered we started out and although there were some patches of water and mud from the previous week of rain, most of the spots were easily avoided. Unfortunately, one spot that didn't look all that bad fooled Dumas and we didn't have the momentum to get us through it. Ugh. For the first time in 5 days, after successfully navigating some of the worst mud imaginable, we were stuck in a spot that even Dumas recognized as one he shouldn't have been stuck! I think he was a little embarrassed and he told us that it was the first time in his 2 years of guiding that he had gotten stuck. Yet another first we told him! He just grinned sheepishly. He tried to get us out but we were mired but good. Or as Dumas said "that's no joking!" by now our back wheels were buried almost to the tops. Dumas got out his jack and found a few rocks to place under the wheels to gain some traction and after we all climbed out of the jeep, he tried again. No luck! Fortunately another jeep pulled up and Dumas talked them into trying to pull us out. Dumas grabbed his steel tow cable from the back of the jeep, helped hook it up and with us all inside started to pull, Dumas was behind the wheel when all of a sudden the tow cable let go. I watched in horror from the back seat as it came flying back and slapped with a loud "THWAK" against the windshield almost as if it was in slow motion. Surprising the glass held without so much as a crack in it. Dumas got out to try again but the driver of the other jeep just shook his head and after a few words with Dumas took his jeep and left. We later found out that the british couple who were in the jeep didn't want to spend their time pulling another jeep out of the mud and so told the driver to stop helping us. So picture this, we're standing in the middle of the crater where they have told us it's not safe to be outside the vehicles not to mention against park law. We know there are lions and other cats around, we're watching the water buffalo at the top of the small rise gaining interest in the new comers, and we watching our jeep sink even further into the mud. While we're standing there we notice three zebra some 400-500 yards away from us running at full tilt. This is the first time we've seen zebras running like the devil himself was chasing them so we immediately are thinking, "What is chasing them, because something is..." All eyes scanned the horizen.

Before long two minivans full of Tanzanians on vacation stopped and all the men piled out to see how they could help. They collected more rocks to place under the wheels, helped jack up the truck, and basically made us feel like we weren't alone out here in the middle of nowhere with the water buffalo looking like they wanted to start a turf war. All of the women and children in the group wanted to meet Maggie and a few of them wanted her to come play with them. We introduced her around but we were very aware of the potential danger we were all in standing exposed as we were. One of the men from the vans came over once to admonish the children to get back into the vans due to the danger.

Here's Maggie with her new friend.

Soon another jeep showed up that was able to try to pull us free, but the jeep did not even budge. "That's no joking!" and so they hooked up a second jeep to the first so we had two jeeps pulling in tandem. Finally, after almost two hours, we were free again, although way behind schedule and with a long way to go still.

Back in the jeep again we joked with Dumas about his getting his jeep all dirty. He just chuckled and shook his head. As late as we were, Dumas still had one more attraction to show us, something he must have heard either at lunch or from the guys in the jeeps that pulled us free. Pretty soon we came to a spot along the road where a few other jeeps were sitting looking off to our left. It didn't take us long to spot what they were looking at, laying on a small rise just near the lake were a pair of the fastest cats on earth. Cheetahs! They were some distance away and they were mostly lounging, sometimes watching us watch them. A few times they got up to reposition themselves or just get more comfortable but either way we were able to see how fluidly they move and how sleek their bodies are. These guys looked fast just standing still, it would have been amazing to see one moving at full speed. I think we had found what had been chasing the zebras we saw earlier...

We couldn't stay and watch them as long as I would have liked because we were so late already and we needed to start making our way toward our next stop, Kirurumu tented lodge near Lake Manyara where we would be going for Day 6 of our trip. But still it was an amazing and exciting way to end our game drive on Day 5.

The ascent out of the crater was just as steep as the drive in as we snaked our way up toward the rim and onward out of the park and back toward Arusha and the Lake Manyara park.

We arrived at the lodge where we unloaded our gear, checked in and had the bellhops, er... porters? bring our bags to our rooms, er...tents. Of course our tents were the furthest away from the main building and restaurant. They had informed us when we checked in that they were experiencing some water difficulties but that it should be working shortly. We stowed our gear in our tents and headed to the lounge area to await dinner. Now when I say tent, I mean big safari style canvas tent. It was the size of a small cabin, situated on a raised wooden platform so it was quite comfortable and it had a bathroom and showers in the back. While it would be difficult to call this luxury, as far as tenting goes it was pretty decent. The lounge had a nice view overlooking the Lake Manyara area although darkness was already settling in and we could hear a storm rumbling it's way toward us across the sky. We watched the lightning flash and the rain come down as we relived a few of the days highlights. Dinner was excellent, probably the best so far, excepting the french fries of course.

After dinner we trodded back to our tents weary from our long day and looking forward to a good nights sleep. Here's a link to the lodges website if you want to see a few pics.
http://www.kirurumu.com/camps%20and%20lodges/kirurumu%20tented%20lodge.htm

Thus ends Day Five.

Animals seen today:Black Kite, Bateleur Eagle, Rhino, Crowned Crane, Zebra, baby Zebra, Elephants in the distance, Lions up close and personal, Warthogs, Water Buffalo, Hippos, Mongoose, Dragonflies passing our jeep, Butterfly, Golden Jackal, Flamingos (too many to count), Hyenas, Egyptian Geese, Eland, Thompson Gazelle, Antelope, Egrets, Monkeys, Babboons, Topi, Starlings, Ostrich (loads), Guinea Fowl, Cheetahs.

Pictures taken today: 742

First off I'd like to thank Mary for being a guest contributor to our blog! It's great to get other peoples perspectives on our travel and on Eygpt and I'm sure everyone reading the blog agrees. I only wish I had thought of it earlier when Emma visited us, I would love to have had her thoughts as well to share with you (so Emma if you're reading....)

Now on to....

Safari - Day Four

When we last left our small band of intrepid travelers they were settling in for a good nights sleep in solid stone cottages within the belly of Africa while wild animals prowled the moonlight silently, unseen. I woke before sunrise and slipped out onto the porch where I could watch as the light slowly illuminated the magnificent landscape in front of our cottage and beyond to Lake Ndutu. The miracle of sunrises will never cease to amaze, the quiet solitude, the gentle lightening, then the awakening, I could hear birds now, everywhere around me. You can feel the energy in a place like this.

Well accustomed to the drill by now, we packed, had breakfast and made our way to the jeep where Dumas was waiting. The windows had been cleaned of the mud and debris from our previous days romp, but the rest of the jeep was still coated. He explained they didn't have enough water currently to wash it and that all the water had to be brought in by truck and sure enough as we loaded the jeep a large water tank truck appeared coming down the drive bringing its first delivery of the day. We climbed into the jeep and headed out, the plan was a morning game drive followed by lunch back here at the lodge after which we were headed out to our next destination, Ngorogoro Crater.

No sooner had we pulled out of the entrance to the lodge when we came upon our first animals of the day. You guessed it! Giraffes!! Having a breakfast of their own from the high tops of some of the thorniest bushes we've ever seen. Then we ran into part of the wildebeest migration

These guys here seemed to be standing around talking about migrating...

and this guy here was all by himself, running around, jumping up and down, way too excited about migrating...someone should check his passport.

and this my friends is a Secretary Bird, they have long stick-like legs which oddly you can't see in this picture due to the high grass. To imagine it properly it looks sort of like an eagle on storks legs.

But make no mistake, this is a bird of prey. And a rather interesting one at that. You can read all about it on the Wiki sight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_Bird

Now for one of the more interesting parts of our trip. I know, how can it get more interesting you ask? Well, in a word? Mud. It's true. Mud just makes things fun and interesting, that's why boys like mud. Girls just bear with me here, it will be over in a minute. Now when I'm talking mud I'm talking up to the top of your tires, soft, gushy, squishy, splattery, brown mud. I'm also talking about the kind that sneaks up on you while you're driving with the top of the roof off and comes flying in the windows and the roof and all you can do is hang on because you can't close the roof, and you barely dare let go to close the windows but not until you're completely covered in gooey mud. Oh and you guessed it, it's the kind that you can't stop and turn around in, that you have to keep going or you'll be sitting there sinking all day kind. The kind where it's not unusual to be moving sideways, backwards, frontwards, the other sideways, basically 360 degree mud with some 180 degree mud thrown in for good measure. Oh and it's also the kind that as you keep going you ask yourself the question of whether there actually is "the other side" to this mud or whether you're just going further in toward the middle where nobody else even has a chance to help you if you do get mired but at least you'll have company mud. That's the kind of mud I'm talking about here. The fun kind.

We were all laughing hysterically, or maybe we were just all hysterical, I'm not sure. But we did make it through to the other side, or at least a hard patch in the middle where we stopped, looked at each other covered in mud and evaluated the road ahead of us. It also gave us a chance to close the roof which was good, albeit a little too late. Dumas, in the drivers seat still, gave one of his little ominous chuckles and said, "Wow, this doesn't look good..." and proceeded to turn around with all of us asking "We're going back through that???????" He just chuckled again and took off. Aaaiieeee.....

Maggie gets the shot of the day here since she was the only one with enough composure to appreciate the value of this shot at the time. Way to go Maggie!

Oh and this is Kenya, Maggie's close companion, who I can only guess was mocking the rest of us as she's posing for a shot completely devoid of any mud. I can hear her now.."meow meow, meow-meow-meow."

After successfully re-navigating the mud bath I no longer had any doubts of Dumas' driving skills. We stopped another jeep and warned them off the way we had come when we noticed some birds in a tree with some jeeps nearby. Unfortunately they were across the field from us with the road we had just been on the only way to get there. Or so we thought. After a little discussion with the driver from the other jeep, Dumas turned our jeep sideways on the road pointing toward the tree across the field. "Sometimes you have to make your own road" I heard a voice in my head say. We watched as the other driver did the same, then we took off. Mind you, the last mud we went through was a road, this was something else entirely. We looked back and saw the other jeep just sitting there. He was waiting to see if we made it!! Well, after much bouncing and turning, we did finally make it to the spot but there was not much left to see of the previous night's kill. The other jeeps had left before we arrived. We looked back at the jeep that followed us across and noticed it was stuck. Since we were in no position to help we headed off following a lone pair of tracks through the grass, dodging limbs and trees. At one point we lost the track, which made Dumas obviously nervous, and we circled slowly outward until we picked it back up (Mike is the one that actually found the trail) and eventually came out on a road next to a riverbank to yet another unexpected sight!

LIONS! This time there were three large male lions lying on a dry bit of riverbed. Looking further up river we could see another bunch of lions, we had found a whole PRIDE!! We watched as this guy and his two companions got up and headed toward the rest of the pride. This one's right front paw was lame and we watched as he limped along wondering how he had become hurt.

We made our way back along the road to a spot where we thought we could get on the little spit of land in the middle of the river where the rest of the pride was resting. By now we could make out there were three lionesses and four cubs in addition to the three males.

We were not the first jeep on the scene and several more showed up shortly after us to witness these magnificent animals. Dumas positioned us between the lionesses with their cubs and the male lions still making their way across the river and we watched as they approached, within meters of the jeep.

They were so close we could hear them growl, which I assure you is much more awesome than just seeing them.

Having seen enough of the males and wanting to get a little closer to the females with their cubs I asked Dumas if we could move closer. He started up the jeep and we moved toward the lionesses, then by the lionesses, then across the river a long ways away from the lionesses. The ground was too soft to stop he said, and it wasn't worth getting stuck. He was right of course as we watched no fewer than four jeeps get stuck where we had just been and struggle to get free with the help of other jeeps.

This guy was helplessly stuck and they abandoned the vehicle. Glad we weren't them.

We waited and watched as the jeeps sorted themselves out then when everyone was set we headed back down the road along the river where we found this pair necking and acting a little frisky a little ways away from the rest of the herd. Apparently we had stumbled onto a giraffe romantic moment but since Dumas said the courtship and heavy leaning could continue for hours we continued on.

Our next sighting was rather gory but we had a hard time telling what was being eaten through all the birds. There's a zebra under the diners. A lone hyena tried to make its way across the river here to the kill but there we too many birds by then an only one of him so he was chased off.

Watching all these birds feast was making us hungry as well so we made our way back to the lodge where we enjoyed a nice lunch for our first time not in a box!

After lunch we headed out of the Ndutu Lodge area and started making our way to Ngorogoro Crater and the long winding climb up to the rim. But first we had a few hours to travel through this absolutely stunning landscape.

And here's proof that Mary really is OUTSTANDING in her field! (hey, she took the picture not me!)

On the way out we came upon a couple of supply trucks in the road, one had overturned. Everyone was ok so we gave them our spare water and a few other supplies while they waited for help and we made our way back to the main road.

Sometime later we came upon a jeep pulled off on the left side of the road watching a peculiar sight. It was so peculiar that we too stopped to watch for a few minutes. A lone wildebeest was being harried by two Masai dogs. We asked Dumas if they'd take the wildebeest down but he said "no, they're just playing with him" and he went to talk to the other driver. We watched as the dogs nipped, barked, circled and generally harassed the poor wildebeest who just stood there fending them off as best he could. All of a sudden we heard Dumas say "Oh my god, they took him down!" as we watched the dogs hamstring the wildebeest! They didn't kill it but the poor thing was now down and as good as dead by nightfall when something with a stronger appetite than the dogs was sure to happened by.

We started looking around to see what else we might see coming in for the kill and Nancy finally got her highlight of the safari! More than lions, leopards, a kill or anything else, what Nancy most wanted to see during her safari was just outside our jeep!! We were speechless as we watched not one, but two Dung Beetles rolling a perfectly rounded piece of dung along beside the jeep. Not worried a bit about these fierce creatures, Nancy and I got out of the jeep for a closer look and a better picture. Maybe not the brightest thing to do with a wounded wildebeest lying not far away but Nancy couldn't contain her excitement! The people in the jeep in front of us were all quite amused and I'm sure we probably made their blog if they have one...

So here it is, Nancy's prize shot from our safari. Introducing, the Dung Beetle!

Now I'm not sure I should even go on. I mean, after that the rest is just down hill. Well, I've gotten this far so I may as well let you know how we endured the rest of our safari.

What sustained us was mostly the stunning scenery....

The large herds of Giraffe....

The small herds of giraffe with the stunning scenery in the background....

Oh and the stunning scenery...welcome to Ngorongoro Crater, home to the greatest show on earth!

We stopped at the edge of the rim to see the clouds and mist and rain had cleared out for our visit. What you're looking at is the world's largest unbroken volcanic caldera, 610 meters deep with a floor measuring 260 square kilometers. It even has it's own lake.

Virtually every animal can be found inside the crater, with the exception of giraffe, including the "Big Five" Lions, Leopards, Rhinos, Elephants, and Buffalo. But it was getting late now so our trip down into the crater would have to wait until tomorrow when we were scheduled to tour it for the whole day. For now we headed to the Serena Ngorongoro Crater lodge perched on the very rim of the caldera where we would spend our New Year's Eve!

When we arrived at the lodge a few minutes later we checked in and although they didn't say so I think the reservation was a bit messed up and may have only had one room available. Instead they asked us if a suite would be ok, it had two twins in one room and a queen bed in another with two bathrooms. We said sure! and were shown to the Kimba suite. Here's the view from one of the two balconies we had.

After cleaning up a little we headed to the lounge to wait for dinner which was a special affair tonight being New Year's eve. We enjoyed another show in the lounge of Maasai dancers before heading to dinner where we received our very own Maasai robes to wear during dinner. What a colorful bunch we were! Dinner was nice but we were exhausted and we had an early start in the morning so we returned to our suite for a good nights rest. Thus ending Day 4.

Animals seen today: Lots

Pictures taken today: Lots