FUCK YEAH!!! Excuse the French you faint-hearted souls.
Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti that is!
FUCK, what a place.
Ngorongoro - a big extinct volcanic crater in the middle of Tanzania, the crater collapsed 6 million or so years ago. Before it did it was bigger than Kibo (which we didn't get to see due to Fuji-esque cloud - bugger).
A few facts - it is an micro world all unto its own. On the windward side of the crater floor there are rainforests which give way within a few hundred meters to fresh water lakes surrounded by thorn bush forests. Another couple of hundred meters leeward, the swamps begin which soon merge into salt lakes. the far leeward side of the crater is an arid and dusty plain stretching for the remaining few kilometers. All this in a crater only 15km across!
the animals there and in the Serengeti are suburb!a list of what we saw:
The big 5 (lions - Simba in Swahili, elephants, leopards -one hauling a Gazelle up a tree, buffalo and a black rhino - severely endangered)
White Rhino
Cheetahs
Giraffes
Cerval Cats
Truck loads of antelope - Gazelles, Redbuck, Impala, and the big bastard I can't recall the name of at the mo.
Flamingos
Hippos
Wilderbeast
Mongoose
Zebra
Warthogs (Not Pumba, that's just a name)
Birds of prey, birds of colour and birds of lunch eating capability
Most of these were bloody close to us so we got some cracking photos.