Tuesday, December 26, 2000

We started out early on our game drive with plans to go back up on the opposite side of the crater for lunch at the Sopa Lodge. We saw many of the same animals today but it is a different experience each time. It is just fascinating to me to observe them and I could do it for hours. We stopped today at a beautiful hippo pool - paradise within a paradise. There was a lovely huge tree there that made precious shade!! Water birds abounded and their where toilets nearby!!! The one thing I haven’t seen that I’d like to is a hippo OUT of the water!!.. There were about eighteen hippos here and Ben thought one of the babies was just days old. There were about eight Black Kites here sunning themselves on the hill so they had their wings totally outstretched and looked like they were lying flat out in the sun.

In the crater it just amazed me that you could look through your binoculars and have a view of water buffalo, wildebeest, wart hog, gazelle, zebra and rhino in such close proximity to each other and to ME. Rus had a headache this am and was dozing when we spotted a black rhino coming toward us. I had to wake him up so he wouldn’t miss it and could film it. It is such fun to watch. Black Rhinos are browsers so they are selective about what they eat. (White rhinos are grazers but there are none of them here) We spotted elephants, and two lions with cubs, silver backed jackal, hares, lots of ostrich, and spotted hyenas.

New birds were Common Bee-eater Aqua Buzzard Sacred Ibis Yellow-billed Stork Black-bellied Bustard Kori Bustard Black Kites White Pelicans Grey Heron

My favorite of these was the Kori Bustard. They are big birds to start with but they fluff up their neck until it is huge and then they raise their tail and just strut!! This one we watched was dusting himself in the dirt…over and over and over… then he’d just pop straight up which looked strange with his long legs.

The manager of the Sopa Lodge saw me standing in the lobby and asked if I had just arrived. I guess he thought I was a new quest. I told him I was with a group for lunch. He knew right away we were a group of eight. They weren’t quite ready for service yet so he offered to give us a tour of one of the rooms. They each have a view of the crater with a glass extension off the front of the room. I think they have the best view of the sunrise … from our lodge it’s not quite the same spectacular view. He told us again how different the crater looked three months ago. He said they lost about 600 wildebeest from the lack of water. There used to be 100’s of rhino in this crater and word is now there are about twelve. Poachers have long time been a problem and they are making such an effort now to prevent more of that. Rooms here are about $260 a night so you know it is beautiful!! The Christmas decorations for the bare wood tree were food products and natural items. They were lovely.

After lunch we went to a Maasai village. I think they often have visitors as a way for their village to make money. They were dressed in the typical Maasai wraps and sang and danced for us. Then we were invited in to see one of their homes. It was so small and so dark and so smoky. It took a little bit to adjust to the lack of light inside. There are only two little openings for light to come in or smoke to go out other than the doorway, which wrapped around the circle. The first area inside the boma is for the battle cattle and goats. The stockade is in the middle of the village and the barrier is made of sticks or thistles. The women had their wares hung on the stockade…. necklaces, bracelets, swords, etc… One woman was in charge of the bartering… Rusty bought a sword here that had killed 11 simbas!!! . At least that’s what she told him. We laughed about that the rest of the trip…. We had to tote it everywhere and it got more and more valuable!!… Especially later when we found one for $10 less… The children are what get to me. They are so precious. There were some young ones and they reached out to hold my hand when we made a few pictures. Fifty-seven people live in this particular village. I think there were about 8 bomas. The manager at lunch was telling us that they were having Maasai dancers for entertainment tonight. He had paid $300 to hire them. They were from a village of 50,000. I can’t quite get the picture of that many bomas.

We went back out on a game drive after lunch. It had rained all during lunch and we watched the lightning but it had cleared up by 2:00 o’clock and was perfect for us. It was a little cooler and the dust was settled but the roads were a little slick and muddy. I can only imagine these roads in the real rainy season.

Our highlight of the afternoon was a cheetah. I think one always feel lucky if they get to see a Cheetah. This one was stalking it looked like but there were vehicles that went up to it too closely. They don’t like zebra much so he was probably waiting for a gazelle. Once again we could see how easily they hide when they lay down. We spotted two rhino again and a few Hartebeest. We watched two hippos roll in the mud in a ditch right off the road. They are such massive animals. Periodically we’d find a dead tree that would have such an artistic look to it…. and then mornings and evenings we’d catch the vultures or storks coming in to roost and the tree would be full!

We had an option this afternoon to do another game drive or go back to the lodge for a nature hike and talk with a guide. It was a tough choice for me but I was glad we did the game drive. The animals are just always fascinating and you never know what you’d get to see or would have missed. There are baby beasts everywhere and they are so cute. Today we saw a warthog with four babies. The cheetah was great and I wished we could have stayed longer. We saw our oldest elephant so far. It had HUGE tusks. We saw a jackal pair with three pups. The little ones were playing with bugs and wandered off a good way from the sleeping mama. There are so many birds it’s just impossible to identify them all in the book! Some are small and dart away before you can get enough detail to be specific.

We got back to the lodge and had a little while to clean up and could do e-mail from the office before dinner. There was a $5 per person the email went to so we all wrote one paragraph in one email and sent it to Jacque with a request that she forward it on. We could only send… he called it “bush mail”. We couldn’t receive any mail. Dinner is always too much good. I’m about ready to skip some meals!! At 9:30 Maasai dancers were performing in the lounge area. It’s hard to stay “up and at ‘em” but we did. Again, ready to sleep!

Jane Wojecki

Tuesday, December 26, 2000

We all set aside dirty laundry for cleaning that day. It was the first chance we had to get some laundry done. It was not cheap to have laundry done. After breakfast we headed down into the crater and saw some more hippos up close. It takes about an hour to get from the lodge to the crater because of the roads. They were rolling over and over in some shallow muddy pools. We later came across two lions with cubs. One of the lions and her cubs came over and lied down under our land rover. There are not any trees in the middle of the park only along the edges. We continued our game drive and then headed over to the opposite of the crater and climbed out of the crater to have lunch at the Ngorongoro Sopa lodge for lunch. The manager showed us a room at the lodge. Each room also had a beautiful view of the crater, just like our lodge. The dinning area was in the shape of a hut with the ceiling being at least 50 feet high. It had a huge pole in the middle. There were glass windows along one side of the room that looked out onto the crater. We left there and went to a Masai village or Boma.

Masai village

The village inhabitants sang and danced for us. The men showed how high they could jump while they were dancing. The women had some neck and shoulder movements while dancing which made the necklaces move up and down that they were wearing. We went inside a hut. That was something else. It was pitch dark inside with a small fire going in the middle. There was only two small openings to let some air in and smoke out. The hut was made of mud and cow patties. Dick could barely fit in the opening to get inside the hut. The hut was filled with smoke and was very dark. Shirley had to hold Afata’s hand because it was so dark walking in. They put fresh dung on the roof each day. The village we were in had about 10 huts.

Boma (houses)

The chief had 8 wives and each son also had a hut. There was a room for the man to sleep and one for the wife and young children. There was also a room for young livestock to stay in the hut. On the stick fences were necklaces and bracelets hanging which we later did some bargaining and bought some for the girls. We did a little trading and then headed back to the crater. Rusty bought a spear that killed eleven lions. It had rained in the crater during our lunch so it was a little muddy when we returned. We saw more animals and another cheetah. Saw plenty of animals. The animals here do not migrate. In the crater is a large lake that is loaded with two different species of flamingos. There were other species of water birds in and around the lake. The lake was pretty with all the pink flamingos. We left the park and went to dinner. We are back to flushing toilets. There are all types of toilets along the way. Some times we even stop and go behind the cruiser or at some of the stops there is a bathroom with just an open hole you stand over. Before dinner we were able to do a group e-mail. Everyone typed in a paragraph and sent it out. Called it a day.

The Hazels