Sadly the view down into the crater was not crystal clear ...
We arrived from the Paris-Dakar Mlambo road absolutely filthy and in desperate need of showers - despite the absolute fortune it costs to get into the crater, $200 for your vehicle alone, there were no hot showers, not even solar heating!!! We all managed to brave the water with stinging headaches and then struggled in the icy wind to make tea, popcorn and pasta .. finally we ate (cold food) and went to bed by 7pm, but not before an ele passed through camp ....
It took an hour to warm up and when we were finally warm the ranger woke Mary and I to say we had to load everything into the car ... the elephant like to play football with gas cylinders and the warthog eat saucepans!!!! Never had we had a problem in any other camp!
The following morning we headed down into the crater .. and here is a short list of what we saw ...
We stopped for lunch in a lovely spot where we ate to the calls of a lone hyena and I rode the tree practicing for the Calgary Stampede ..
This clan of hyenas below had cubs and we were pretty sure they had just feasted on the poor warthog`s baby (top right) as she was circling ever nearer until she ran away and began again. Very upset over something. The hyena cubs meanwhile were playing on a piece of meat ...
The excitement of big cats dulled when all the lions did was sleep ...
A serval was a very special sighting indeed ...
After we exited the crater we went and had cocktails at the Serena Lodge, out of the cold wind and by a roaring fire. For dinner we headed to teh drivers and rangers village and had the best Nyama Choma and chillieélemon sauce possible .... Thank you Zainab for the mayonaise smuggled out of the Serena kitchen in preparation for those amazing chips!!
No comments:
Post a Comment