A Somewhat Belated Continuation

I'm back at home in Tennessee now, where I've been for six days. I'm sitting on my bed with an Appletini a la Mom, I'm over the jetlag, and I've had ice cream almost every day since I returned: in other words, life is good and I have no excuse not to finish these posts. Furthermore, since I'm shipping out to Hawaii in only slightly over 24 hours, it might well be now or never.

So where was I? Ngorongoro. It was cold. Okay, the water in my bottle didn't freeze, so it couldn't have been below 32, but I'd be surprised if the nighttime temperature were any higher than 35...and that's cold when you're in a moth-eaten cotton tent from 1982. I wore pretty much all the clothes I brought to Africa with me, or at least all the ones that I could fit on top of each other on my body at the same time--three t-shirts, two long-sleeved shirts (one, luckily, had a thin hood, which helped), three pairs of pants, and three pairs of socks. Even with all that I couldn't feel my toes at all for 18 straight hours, despite the boots into which I bundled them.

The crater was really beautiful, though. Our lush campsite on the rim was completely ensconced in fog all morning, giving our breakfast (huddled, wrapped in blankets, over steaming cups of Milo) a dreamy quality. Soon after daybreak we drove down the steep, switchbacked road into the crater. It was bloody cold down there too, keeping some animals away, but we still saw quite a profusion. Most notable were the wildebeest, traveling around the grassy parts of the crater floor in their great herds, with their long bodies, spindly legs, and oddly thin faces. The wildebeest were often accompanied by groups of zebras--a symbiotic relationship, our driver, William, explained, as one species likes to munch on tall grass while the other prefers short. We saw wildebeest first thing upon reaching the crater's bottom; a large herd of them was running--nay, frolicking--across the road. The way they leaped and bucked their shaggy heads was pretty amusing. We also saw cape buffalo, lions, flamingos, a cheetah, and many more DLTs ("deer-like things;" Gretchen's term.) We didn't find the elusive and highly endangered black rhinoceros for which the crater is famous, but the lubberly love of the two mating hippos we encountered was perhaps treat enough.

We drove up and out of the crater that afternoon, and I stood with my upper body out the top of the Land Cruiser the entire way, like a dog out a window; there's something innately pleasing about the wind and the smells and the whooshing sensation, and even the black film of dirt that I wiped off my face afterward was a satisfying testament to both the speed and the intimacy with which I had encountered the land we'd traversed. After striking camp (I went with such a budget company that we not only slept in tents, but we also got no offers of help from the driver when it came to putting them up or taking them down), we headed out to Lake Manyara National Park. We arrived in the mid-afternoon, and unfortunately weren't able to do much with the rest of the day; something about park entry fees prevented us from entering before the next morning. Our campsite was very nice, though, with a beautiful overlook and a nice little open-sided hut serving as a mess hall.

That night, as we waited for dinner from Pius, the slowest imaginable cook (four hours to boil pasta?), an entire troupe of acrobats bounded into the mess hall unannounced. Dressed like actors from an ill-equipped community theater's valiant attempt at The Lion King, they all wore motley incarnations of animal print, except for their leader, who attired himself in a spandex wrestling suit and a skirt of feathers. They then proceeded to make me wince with their daring (and, as it turned out, nicely performed) stunts on the bare concrete floor, and then just disappeared back into the night after asking for some well-deserved tips. Bizarre spectres in an unlikely location.

The next morning we drove into Lake Manyara National Park, which was beautiful and very different-looking from the other parks; it had lush, thick, green forests that gave way to grassy plains and then finally to the lake itself, with its amazing contingent of flamingos. There were so many that, from a distance, the lake seemed completely pink along its shoreline and for quite a ways out. Giraffes grazed calmly near the lake, and we saw several elephants crashing through the brush. There were also many baboons, vervet monkeys, and blue monkeys, as well as a huge monitor lizard and a plethora of birds. The leopards and the famous, if rarely sighted, tree-climbing lions didn't make appearances. While Lake Manyara definitely offered the lowest number of animal sightings, it had arguably the best scenery--plenty of green; great baobab trees with their impossibly thick trunks and spindly, clawlike branches; bushes covered in butterflies; the scent of fragrant flowers wafting in through our pop-top. It was also our warmest destination, which helped. After lunch back at the campsite, we drove back to Arusha, and William, Pius, and my safarimates left me in front of the same hotel from which they'd retrieved me four days prior.

Ack, so much more to tell! I'll do my best to finish tomorrow.