We're getting nearer to the coast!

We're nearing the end of the posts about the amazing trip to Africa...I promise!

From the crater we headed to Moshi and the trip gets blurry from here to be honest! The amount of alcohol units consumed increased as the need for concentrating on animals out of a bumpy truck window went away.

In Moshi we stayed in a lovely campsite but I can't tell you anything about the campsite facilities because we upgraded baby! That's more than enough camping for us thank you :)

We stayed at this hotel/campsite for two nights which meant I could unpack once again and see what that moneky had been doing in my bag, messing it all up again. tut tut. I could hang things up! I didn't hang anything up but I could have if I wanted to.

Anyway, we had the choice of either trekking up Mt. Kili or going on a coffee plantation tour. I just didn't fancy a nine hour trek as I still tell myself that I'm going to climb the whole mountain one day, so I chose the plantation tour and it was probably one of the highlights of the trip! We made our own batch of coffee from start to finish, even from picking the beans from the tree:

It was a great experience, but I was buzzing from the amount of caffeine they gave us to sample!

The rest of the day was spent lazing by the pool in the hotel/campsite - bliss. Then I really felt like I was on holiday, beers were consumed, food was eaten, more alcohol, drinking games, dancing, dancing on the bar, someone (not me guv) suggesting jumping in the pool, staff members firmly saying no to jumping in the pool, 1am bedtime and a horrible 5am rise ready for an 11hr truck journey to the capital, Dar es Salaam.

I think, if ever there was a bad ideas list of mine, drinking a whiskey shot and a glass of port that night would top the list. I was awful on that truck journey the next day, I'm quite surprised I still have friends after my mood swings that day. I'd go from laughing about the night's events to crying about how awful I felt and howling at them to stop the truck I want to get off...I never wanted to drink again...

So we get to the next campsite and go straight to the bar for a hair of the dog and a game of pool.

We have a romantic banda on the beach which is so cute!

Wicked hey? Yours for a mere £12 per night! Amazing!

That night we celebrated Naomi's birthday with a cake! Beach, beer and cake, what's not to love?

Tomorrow we're off to ZANZIBAR!!!!

Sawa! Sawa!

Once we'd been bumped along from the Serengeti to the Ngorogoro Crater, we pitched our tent right next to a pile of elephant dung - great!

As darkness fell we were enjoying a beer around the campfire and Sammy one of the tour leaders asked us if we wanted to meet his friend, we said yes. We followed Sammy around the truck and right there stood a fully grown elephant! GAH! I've never been so scared and excited at the same time - it was literally in front of us! The reason I loved this moment so much is because it was dark and a flash on a camera would have caused chaos and a probable stampede, no one could take a photo, we just stood and watched this elephant right there chomping away.

That was probably my wildlife highlight of this trip, there was so many highlights, but they all fall in to different categories as it was such a varied trip!

So the next day was Crater Day (I've given it capitals as I was so excited about this!) I was excited about it for so many reasons:

1. We were leaving the truck behind for the morning and piling into jeeps where the roof popped up so we could hang out the top!
2. The itinerary described us 'descending in to the crater in our jeeps' which sounds very exciting
3. We were going in to a crater baby! A crater!

Well that's enough reason surely? First impression of the crater...amazing.

Photos don't really do it justice, but heck I'll post them anyway!

I'm getting good at this jumping lark! Anyway, it was FREEZING at the crater; I had so many layers on it was crazy! Who knew a woolly hat would be necessary in Tanzania?? I think it was warmer in the UK that day :) but who cares WE were at the crater hanging out the top of a jeep looking at a cheetah!

We saw:

Cheetah, warthog, zebra, hyena, wildebeest, buffalo, hippo, birds :), impalaaaaa, elephant skull (huge!) flamingo, ostrich, elephant, brown kite birds stealing other people's lunches and........LIONS!!!!!!

Amazing!

The crater was the end of the wildlife element of our trip, which is why we probably gave the jeep driver such a bad impression of us...every time he slowed the jeep down for a bird or an antelope we'd yell "sawa!" which means ok! Or in our case, "We're not bothered if it doesn't eat another animal! Only stop the jeep if it's a predator!" But do remember that we'd been to a few different national parks by now, gazelles were akin to pigeons for us now! We meant business in the crater and Samson, our driver sensed that we were in no mood to look at wildebeest, we wanted lions.

Samson even called himself the Lion Man, so we were confident that we were with the right guy. Although he kept stopping to wait for the other group members and their jeeps to catch up with us, but we yelled something about snoozing and losing at him, and he put the pedal to the metal.

We saw three different male lion sightings that day and they were all incredible, but Lion Man, I mean Samson, saved the best until last for sure. Just as we were about the take the road up and out of the crater, our jeep pulled up and there sat at the roadside was the lion in the last photo above - incredible. We just sat there watching him, he sat there watching us - although he was probably sat there thinking 'why on earth is that mazungu wearing a pink wollen hat in Tanzania...it's supposed to be hot here'

I would highly recommend the crater to anyone for wildlife watching and in general if you want to experience a crater!

Safari...so goody!

Ha ha ing at my own titles of these posts...tee hee.
I don't even think we're halfway through this trip yet dear reader...sorry. I'll try to whittle it down a little but I'm not sure I'll be successful.

So, we're heading to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, did I mention that we're camping there for the night? No? Did I also mention that there's no fence or protection from any kind of wild animal there? You betcha I was reaching for the whiskey that night; here's the campsite and me standing in front guarding my tent:

The princesses were terrified...signs like these above did NOT help morale...

Darkness fell...animal noises could be heard and we were told 'if you need a number one in the night, get out of your tent, do your business and get straight back in...if you need a number two...make a plan' gulp.

Suffice to say, that night I popped some sleeping pills and put my ear plugs in, and I'm happy to say I slept straight through the night! Didn't hear a thing, didn't need a wee! Katie - 2 African Wildlife - 0!

Next morning we got up early for a game drive and were lucky enough to see three leopards, sorry three ELUSIVE leopards...not so elusive though were you? huh? Us along with twenty other safari vehicles anyway...

We saw pretty much the entire Big 5 that day - so happy!

On our way out of the Serengeti, we had a chance to stretch our legs and check out a viewpoint. After a few days on the truck we knew better than to turn down any toilet breaks and leg stretching opps so out we climbed out and posed for a few pics:

The next part of the journey was one that I've just about banished to the back of my memory. We drove from the Serengeti to the Ngorogoro Crater along the bumpiest road for a few hours, it was awful! You couldn't read as the book would be bouncing around in front of your face, the truck was so loud that playing your music would be pointless too!

The only respite came from looking out for giraffes and Masai tribesman out in the bush in their distinctive red clothes. We stopped off at a Masai village for a tour and an opportunity to buy hand crafted, hideously overpriced souvenirs...

The tour was interesting and I'd never been in to a tribal village before, Nayani was almost welcomed in to the tribe which was too funny.

Onwards from here to spend the night at the edge of the Ngorogoro crater...what will we have seen there I wonder???