About 5 minutes later we had one of the best sightings of our trip, a leopard sat right in the middle of road just in front the car and looking straight at us. We watched as he ran to one side of the car, stopped and looked at us for a few seconds before disappearing into the undergrowth. There was no time to take a photo, it was one of those times when you just have to savour the moment. Filex said this was only the second time he had seen a leopard in the crater.
Once we reached the crater floor we quickly saw hyaena, eland and more lions, as well as zebra, buffalo and wildebeest. The conditions were not the best for photography but we got a few reasonable shots.
The light and the weather conditions seemed to keep changing during the morning which meant we got some interesting photos of the crater itself.
Then at about 9am we spotted what we have been looking for............ a Rhino. Well to be honest, Filex spotted it, none of us had seen it until he told us where to look. It was walking along at a reasonable pace, moving closer to us as it went.
We sat and watched for about 20 minutes, as the Rhino walked among elephants, zebra and antelopes. Pete then commented that we had seen “The big 5” in a matter of a few hours this morning.
After that Filex drove us down to the lake where we saw some crowned cranes and flamingos and also a rainbow.
Some of the roads in the crater had actually closed this morning due to the heavy rain so Filex now had to change his intended route. However this meant we now saw a group of 7 or 8 hyaena walking towards the road, this was the largest group we had seen. Soon after that we then saw a hippo out of the water and an elephant near the road.
Some of us now needed a toilet break so we stopped at the picnic place. It was mid morning and Filex said he was concerned about our drive back to Moshi. He has heard from other guides that the road around the top of the crater was really bad so he decided that we should exit a bit earlier than planned so as to allow some extra time. The weather was still not great and we had already seen quite a lot, so we are all agreed that this was a good decision.
We arrived at the bottom of the ascent road (which was also being used as a descent road) to find out that the road around the top of the crater, between the Sopa Lodge and the roads to Arusha and the Serengeti was now completely closed. So all those cars were having to drive down into the crater, drive across and up the ascent road.
At this point we had to wait to get permission from the rangers to drive up the road along with about 4 other cars. Luckily we only met a couple of cars going down. We exited the crater ok and started to drive round the crater only to join the back of a long stationary queue of cars. Filex got out the car to investigate and returned saying that a large bus had collided with a safari car. Luckily it was not a bad accident and no-one had been hurt but everyone had to wait until the police arrived and moved the vehicles. While we waited we also got out the car and walked up the road to have a look. Luckily by this time the police had arrived.
In the end we were only delayed about 30 minutes but the people at the front had obviously been there considerably longer. It seemed that some people were going to miss flights in Arusha due to all these delays.
The rest of our journey as far as far as Arusha was uneventful. In Arusha Filex said we would stop for a hot lunch where we would be joined by Rose who works in the office at Swala Safaris (who arranged our safari). When we arrived at the restaurant we were actually met by Rose and Ester from the office as well as the guy who owns Swala (I can’t remember his name) who all joined us for lunch. We had a real feast of chicken, fish, beef, chips, salad and ugali. It was a very good lunch and really interesting to meet everyone.
After we had finished lunch we drove to Moshi. We stopped at Planet Lodge on the way to pick up a couple of bags we had left there. We arrived at TemboTamu B&B in the late afternoon. This was where we had to say goodbye to Filex. It had been a great safari and we had loved every minute.
That evening we settled into TemboTamu. We are in the permanent tent and the other 4 shared the guest house. TemboTamu would be our home for the rest of our holiday. Sandra and Frank own TemboTamu and live there with their 9 year old son. Peter and I have stayed there about 6 times before and love it. At present Sandra is not there but they have an intern called Charlotte who welcomed us all.
Once we had unpacked and settled in, we had some dinner with Charlotte and Tony and then headed for bed as it had been a long day.
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