Gem and Stu’s World Tour

Warning: some photos may not be suitable for the squeamish (a buffalo being eaten!)

Surviving the night on the Crater rim with the not-so-friendly buffalo, day three of our Serengeti excursion started early again (6am) and straight after breakfast we descended through the mist into the crater itself, a massive caldera. David Attenborough could possibly tell you why but there is but there is an unbelievably amount of animals in the one location. Unlike the plains of the Serengeti, these animals do not migrate so there is always alot to see. The first thing we say as soon as we reached the bottom was this massive bull elephant:

Beerman, our driver got a bit cheeky and started driving a bit close to him and the elephant started flapping his ears at us! Beerman then thought it would be a good idea to try and overtake him…

After this start, we new we were going to see loads of animals today.

We had a distant view of a black Rhine, saw some Zebra giving themselves a sandbath and then spotted the aftermath of a lion kill. The Hyena were fighting over the carcass.

The Jackal gets the last bit - Cheeky bugger was lucky not to get his head bitten off.

The rest of the day we saw a lioness try (and fail) to kill a wildebeest, a pair of lions mating (every 15 mins for 2 weeks!!!), some more hippo and lots of strange birds.

I really like the crater and we saw loads of animals without having to try but for me, it did not have the same feel as the Serengeti. There was so much and so many other trucks in a relatively small area that it had the quality of a theme park - none of the animals seemed too bothered by our presence. Whereas, in the Serengeti plains, you had the feeling that you were alone in the wilderness (and often you were), so it felt that little bit more wild. Either way, it was all amazing!!!

And when we got back to the campsite in Arusha we met up with the truck and all the other passengers…