Ol Mesera Safari Camp Ngorongoro Conservation Area

... were only further saddened by the abrupt getting up, expelled air and shake of heads and handshakes like we had fleas. <br><br>It really did upset both of us and for the next couple of days we asked who we could and frankly, it's just sad to say they really did try to rip us off and well... yeah, bitter end but we chose to forget it, and finally slept in a bed having had a shower of limitless perfect temperature water.<br><br>And so this was to be our last night on Mainland Tanzania :D<br>

... and get an even better view. When he lunged towards us we all fell backwards in shock. He easily could have jumped into the truck and we couldn&#8217;t believe he actually went for us, even if it was only to scare us.<br><br>We spent the rest of the morning in the Serengeti seeing beautiful elephants with their long trunks and monkeys who seem to always be up to mischief, warthogs, whom we all refer to as Pumba and ...

... into the remaining trucks and then waiting for a replacement. Unfortunately it meant that our wonderful guide for the two days wouldn't be with us as he had to remain with his truck but we did catch up with him quickly when we got back to camp. <br>The Crater is massive, an old volcano that blew its top and became a caldera and now is home to animals like flamingos, wildebeest (heaps of them), zebra, black rhino, lions and many other type of wildlife ...

... by the water teaming with wildlife - beautiful.<br> Right that's enough of that. To carry on where Kirsty left off, after the mobile clinic we spent the week back at the clinic base in Karatu. As they'd told us before we arrived they've got the place pretty well staffed with Tanzanian doctors and don't have a massive patient load yet so there weren't a huge number of cases for us to see. As i'd said to them i liked orthopaedics, i was considered an ...

... Quite a surprise to have such an elegant set-up in the bush.<br><br>10. Following lunch we found two elephants &#8230; one who was coming out of the wetlands, tossing dust and dirt on himself with his trunk, to dry off and keep the bugs away. Another was an elder whom we were told was retired by his herd.<br><br>11. We then ran across herds of wildebeests and zebra, cohabitating in the open grasslands. The ...

... the crater, so the view is spectacular. The beds are not &#8211; they are harder than the crater floor. Stephanie Foote, a fellow traveler, opened her curtains to find four Cape buffalo outside her deck. Yikes.<br><br>Before dinner, we did a little unpacking. Patrick found a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, brought along to treat the bugs that are NOT contained by mosquito netting, had leaked out of the bottle, through the Ziploc bag it was packed in ...

... that we have already seen. Some may say &#8220;ho hum, same old, same old&#8221;, but to us it is still exciting and exhilarating to see the animals up close and in person.<br><br> We travel for about ¾ of an hour and the landscape changes. The many trees that we are used to seeing are gone and it becomes a vast grassland without a tree in sight for an hour and a half. This truly portrays its namesake, the Serengeti, as &#8220;endless plains&#8221;. The ...

... Area was $50 per day. We had planned to spend three nights in Ema&#8217;s village and this would be an additional $150 each. I knew I was able and willing to pay for this once in a lifetime experience, but suspected my housemates were not. I hesitantly approached the group. A tourist at the park had shared the news of Michael Jackson&#8217;s death and they were discussing the unexpected news from the outside world. &#8220;Don&#8217;t shoot the messenger,&#8221; I began ...

... these two cheetahs. At one point they were only a couple of metres away from the car. It was fantastic. So we went to a different hotel and there was a buffet. Everyone over ate ... there was so much and we've all been living really basically for the past few months so we all got a little over excited. Then, I don't know whether it was something I ate or just a bug but I was ill all evening. Not good. Highlight of the third day was deffinately seeing the leopards ...

... Crater hippos pool. There must have been fifty hippos in there, just sleeping on top of each other and occasionally flicking their tail to throw water on them from behind. Occasionally one would do the huge hippo yawn and I was able to snap a photo of one in the act. These guys were hilarious - they just grunted, slept, repositioned and rolloed completely over when the got bored. I laughed and laughed and ...