When we set out in the morning with Mushaka, we didn't realize that we'd start seeing AMAZING stuff IMMEDIATELY.
A structure just outside Pete's front gate.
Seriously, we were sitting there in the rover, trying to act cool. But my GOD every single thing we passed was an unbelievable photo opp but I was too embarrassed to start asking our new guide to stop every 10 feet for another photo before we had even left the Arusha area, which I'm sure he didn't even consider remotely insteresting. In fact that's one thing I loved about Mashuka. We could tell right form the start he had a kind of personal mission to get us in front of the best animals Tanzania had to offer, and nothing else mattered.
Eventually we made it to the Ngorongoro Crater itself. This isn't a crater in the normal sense. When I first heard about the "crater," being a sci-fi geek I obviously assumed it was made by some huge asteroid. Its real explanation isn't any less interesting: The crater was formed as a result of a gigantic volcano eruption. What's left is absolutely fascinating. An almost circular ring of a large mountain (which includes a rainforest) surrounds an immense plain, containing both salt water and fresh water lakes and a HUGE amount of animals.
The word "crater" also sort of suggests a big hole in the ground. That's not the case here. Since it's really an enormous hollowed-out-volcano, it's more like a circular mountain surrounding a HUGE flat plain with enough variety of sustenance to sustain a very large assortment of animals: Herbivores and the plants they eat, the carnivores who eat them, etc. All in a huge bowl in which you can drive around safely (as long as you don't get out of the vehicle).
Getting into the crater involves an incredibly dangerous-seeming drive up to the top of the ridge, during which we discovered that the outside of the rim is actually a literal rainforest. Bizarre. Sadly, I have no photos of that because I spent the whole time holding on as tightly as I could to anything resembling a handle inside the land rover. But it turns out that the trip up the rim was nothing compared to the perilous drive down the other side. The "road" we were on made the road to Pete's place seem like an interstate higway. It was during this descent into the crater when Brenda and I realized just how talented Mushaka was with a vehicle. He is the Michael Schumacher of you-will-die-if-you-fuck-up dirt road driving.
Once we got to the bottom we had the entire crater to explore, which we did. Mushaka popped the lid of the rover so we could stand up to take pics, and we went out in search of crater wildlife. We weren't disappointed. It also became very clear very quickly what a huge deal it was to have our own private vehicle/driver. We saw some other vehicles crammed with tourists, none of whom looked like the kind of people with whom we'd want to be crammed (this gets confirmed later in the day). And if we wanted to stop, we could stop. And we wanted to stop a lot. There was no potential for friction with the other passengers, since there were no others.
We spent the rest of the day driving all around at the bottom of the crater shooting all types of animals. There were billions of zebras. Billions of wildebeests.
Mashuka was able to find us some lions, one skulking cheetah, and all sorts of bizarre looking birds. Mushaka seemed very pleased to have been able to find us a Black Rhino to photograph even though it was EXTREMELY far....at the absolute limit of the longest lens I had with me. Brenda had to be satisfied with watching it through binoculars as it was far beyond the reach of any of her antique cameras. The Black Rhinos are extremely rare (there are only 20 left in the world). Unfortunately, the Rhinos are so interesting to people that it wasn't long before there were over a dozen safari vehicles muscling in trying to get close enough for a look. Funny thing is that the rhinos were very far out and most of the other safari vehicles were lousy with rich, snooty Europeans who weren't armed with anything more than regular point-and-shoot digital cameras. I imagine they were pretty disappointed when they got home to look at their rhino photos that turned out to be just tiny specs.
We watched the two graze for a bit, and after a while a brave wildebeest walked straight up to them and tried to stare down the big one, ultimately deciding the best thing to do would be to get the hell out of there. The rhino didn't have to do anything but stand there looking like a bad-ass, which he did very well. I think he can't help it in fact.
The whole time we were inside the crater there was a really strange sense of scale that's hard to communicate. We were never unaware of the fact that we were basically at the bottom of a gigantic natural bowl, but the bowl was so gigantic that not once did it seem like we were in a confined space. The fact that the backdrop to the incredible animal activity was a huge mountain no matter which direction we looked: 360 degrees of mountain backdrop is more bizarre than you can imagine.
We had lunch at a pool where hippos and crocodiles live, and there is huge tree there decorated with wildebeest skulls from the corpses of croc kills. Unfortunately the hippos weren't cooperating with us and not one of them was willing to come out, or even to have the decency to give us a yawn.
The lunch area was also filled with even more bizarre birds who wanted a free meal. Most of them were disgusting looking and very rude.
As we left the lunch area, Mushaka asked us how we felt about what we'd seen in the crater and we gushed about all the awesome animals and scenery, but admitted we were hoping to see an elephant. We'd heard there was a very old elephant in the crater with enormous tusks (my dad had told me about him). Mushaka explained to us that the problem was that the gate at the top of the ridge closed at 6pm and it was already 4, and we were a little more than 2 hours from the top. Not much we could say about that so we held on tight and let him drive furiously toward the road out of the crater. But then out of the blue, just before we started the climb back up to the ridge, the elephant we were talking about just kind of appeared before us. He was AWESOME. We knew we had to keep bookin' so we didn't say anything, but when Mushaka saw him he slammed on the brakes and told us to "go." We knew we had a chance to shoot so we didn't waste any time and shot like crazy.
Mushaka let us shoot the elephant for several minutes before patiently explaining that we really had to go NOW. We popped back down into our seats and held on tight again as he sprinted back up the most dangerous road I've ever been on about twice as fast as he'd driven down it. We passed a couple of other safari vehicles which reassured us that at least we wouldn't be the last out (one had blown it's clutch on the steep slopes). He made it to the gate by 5:58 and we all whooped and pumped our fists in triumph. Mushaka is a very humble guy but he couldn't help seeming secretly proud of what he'd pulled off. Seriously, he rules.
Once at the top, it was only a few minutes before we were at our lodge which was positioned right on the rim of the crater. We had dinner but only a couple drinks because we were so exhausted, partly from the day's activity, and partly from jet lag probably. We drifted off wondering what the next phase had in store for us....two long days of travel straight through the Serengeti proper.
