26th February 2013
Not much sleep overnight, first it was very cold, we are up at 2400m (over 7000ft) on the crater rim and we have not brought any warm clothes, we were both wearing several tee shirts and woolies in our sleeping bag but it was still uncomfortable.
We got up at 5.30, had some coffee packed up the tent and were off by 6.30. we picked up our guide, a lad called Prospero, who turned out to be very good. We were in the Ngorogoro crater by 7am and saw a few birds and lots of antelope. We noticed a couple of cars watching something which turned out to be a pride of lions. Prospero knew exactly where they were heading and directed us to a spot where their path crossed the road.
Within a minute 5 lions came past us within a few feet. Right next to them were some buffalo so two big five before 8am!
The Ngorongoro crater is a wonderful setting and wherever you look there are animals. There were lots of wildebeest, antelope, zebra etc plus a good selection of birds. We only saw rhinos at a distance but we also saw two lots of hippos, a couple of elephants and two more prides of lions although not quite as close. We were out of the crater by 12.00 and took the long drive round the rim and then off to Naabi Hill checkpoint where chaos rules as everyone tries to pay their park fees.
That was the easy bit, we drove round for ages looking for our camp site. The co-ordinates in the map seemed wrong, we did find a site with the right number but a big tour party with some flash tents were already camped there. I was tired and getting wound up by this stage.
We called in at the ranger station who were also very stressed as their credit card machine was broken and he had a line of safari drivers wanting to pay. The manager Omaha eventually took pity on us and led us to a really nice spot where he said we could camp.