Day 24 - SUN - 7/10/12 - Ngorongoro Crater : Arusha, Tanzania
Waking up it was our first animal sighting of the day while we were piling into the jeeps there was a big bull elephant 5m from the 4x4's.
In the crater we were game driving again with the hope of seeing rhino's! On entry to the crater there were many zebras and also zebra crossing ;) the road, wilderbeast, ostrich, warthog and a fox were all spotted. Then came the Big 5 completion spotting moment - 2 black rhinos!! We were told there is only 50 in the crater with rangers assigned to protect them.
We continued on and saw a lion and lioness languishing in the sun, then kept driving a little more and there were a pride of 8 lions with 5 lionesses and 3 18 month old lions who had started growing small manes. One of the lionesses wanted to escape the heat so sat under the shade of our 4WD and went to sleep with her face resting on her paws - very cute! She didn't even move when we started the car up to drive away - just looked at us with a forlorn face - as if to say, you took my shade :(.
We stopped for lunch and ate in a car at a waterhole kites swooping around us trying to get our lunch. We ate with the hippos popping their heads out of the water and lions were hunting on the otherside of the waterhole - amazing wildlife so close by!We had a great day animal spotting before heading back to the Snake Park campsite where Kearnsy and I looked at the rescue centre and saw snakes, crocodiles, a baboon, owls and a vulture - lots of animals today! Long driving day tomorrow to Dar es Salaam.
