Leaving Serengeti - 20.sept

Today got to do another early morning game drive leaving the camp at 6 after quick morning tea. Mornings are suppose to be the active time for animals so I was quite looking forward to it. Saw the beautiful sunrise and some hot air balloons starting their journey of looking at wildlife from up above. All this was quite scenic on its own. As for the animals, we saw some buffalo, giraffes, hippos, lots of birds and many antelope types. Happened to find few lions having breakfast, munching away on some antelope. But not that much was going on this morning. Back to the camp at 11, packing and off towards Ngorongoro we headed. There was some misunderstanding about another game drive to take place in the afternoon, but due to 24h licenses they issue for the parks the game drive was replaced by yet another fast drive on the bad roads with lots of dust.

The drive was long again. Got to see endless fields for hours again, local Maasai villages, local roadside villages, but otherwise not much was out there. Getting up yet another little hill our car suddenly stopped :) Engine would not start again :) For the first 5 minutes there was confusion as nobody understood what had happened, then all was made clear - no panic, we have simply ran out of gas :D How nice :) In the middle of nowhere :) All the cars carry canisters with them and naive us we thought it is filled with gas for occasions like this, but no, those are empty so that when the car does run out of gas they can go and get some from a gas station. Luckily we were not too far from town so our driver hitched a ride to the nearest gas station and was back in a bit less than an hour. Meanwhile we got to have a long photo session on the hill :)

Arrived to the next camp site above the crater right before dark so we barely managed to set the tents up in the dim light. View at the campsite is very beautiful! Tents are standing on a hillside, looking down at the crater. This campsite has some electricity not like the last one, there are cold showers and toilets like in all the previous ones. As the facilities have only a number of tables and as we were late with our arrival we had to wait quite a bit before we got to have dinner.

By now we are all quite annoyed with the tour operator and their poor planning skills. There is quite a bit of complaining going on and the phrase 'but this is Africa' does not cut it for us anymore. Had a chat about it with our guide as well that it is not acceptable to skip a whole afternoon of safari because of some permit that he did not purchase for longer period. Running out of gas in the middle of nowhere was a bit of a shocker as well. The only relief was that at least the car did not break down. I hope things get a bit better from now on :)

As it does get dark quick and there is not much to do at the campsites and we have to get up quite early every morning we also go to bed quite early, around 10 or even 9. This suits me well :) Tonight we got to share the darkness with a group a zebras who were doing their best at keeping the grass as short as possible. They did not seem to mind the tents too much, or all the people taking photos of them in the dark with the flash. I guess they are locals :)