At night, we just came back to camp and relaxed until dinner. After dinner, we played “To hell and back” as a group and played ‘Bob the weasel’ which seems like a total cult game, because we chant but its really funny. There were so many tourists at the campsite–mostly Europeans and Americans– and they were mostly staring at us the whole time, some laughing. I sat outside my tent at night and wrote in my journal. It was beautiful. Black kites were calling in the night, wind blowing, and crickets all around. The moon was bright, not 100% full, but CLOSE. It was lighting the sky up. 

Monday was pretty good. We didn’t end up leaving camp until like 8:15. We made it back to Simba camp site by 9:30 AM. We ended up starting out transect around 11:45-12. The Cape Buffalo were in our transect and very vigilant. So, the Swaggin’ with Shem, Kiri, Peter (NCA naturalist), Fousta, and students Caroline and Julia waited until Harrison over with a ranger. Our friend, Romano and also the ranger spent the rest of the day with us. We met him before, but he spent most time with a separate group. We were surprised he was so cool. Very nice and speaks english very well! We got 1 1/2 grids done today. We start 64 tomorrow. This day was nice and short. Beautiful day though! I finally saw hartebeest while being here. There were 10 of them and they were so vigilant. When we got back to camp, we had a lovely, lovely visitor!! I didn’t even realize it. I was in my tent and heard other SFS’ers proclaim that they will “have to get a picture of that!” So, I knew right away that I needed to get out of my tent and go check it out! I ran out and there was a HUGE bull elephant drinking water from our water tank. He had his massive tusks resting on the side of the tank and had his trunk down in the water tank. It was sooooo cute! There were so many people and a lot of us were really close to him. I cannot believe he let people be that close to him. Elephants are also highly dangerous and have killed people. He is a big guy. I have a picture of him standing next to a land cruiser. It’s awesome. It then walking behind the dining hall and then behind the bathrooms, past the “DANGER, KEEP OUT” signage point. He went into the woods, then 5-10 minutes later, came back and walked right up to the back of our dining hall. One of the SFS’ers was within 2 feet of him with the wall/fence inbetween him and the giant elephant. He stared at him, and the elephant gently reached up and touched the side of the screen (in front of the SFS’er’s) face with his trunk and then put it down. He began walking again to the front of the building and across where everyone puts up their tents. There was a tarp laid down with a sleeping bag, suitcases, and a sleeping pad rolled up and sitting on it. The elephant began walking across the tarp. He gently reached his truck over and touched the sleeping bag and suitcases. Uninterested, he slowly and gently passed over the tarp, and even lifted his foot up to avoid stepping on the sleeping bag and even slipped past the tent he came within inches of walking into. It was an absolutely beautiful moment, and I’ve never seen anything like it before. He proceeded further, past Dr. Shem’s tent (who was at the time sitting outside his tent, shaving his face and paid no attention to the passing elephant). It was so funny. The elephant went down to a large tree and began pulling branches from the tree. After about 10 minutes, it continued on down past the large bathroom and into the bush. Absolutely beautiful. At night, we had a nice warm fire to sit by and even some passer-bys to enjoy watching –waterbuck. Spiders were all over the moist ground. If you had the right flashlight, you could see their eyes glow. It was creepy!

Tuesday was semi-slow. Romano went with us the full day.We saw an eland today at a distance and thought it was a lion, but there are some very serious differences between them all. Haha. Today was super hot, but ok for the most part. We climbed up the side of a hill, because that’s where our transect went. I got a nice panoramic view. Days in the field only seemed to get better, and being in the crater was truly an amazing experience everyday. I enjoyed it so much, even when I was cooking in the sun or losing my papers in the wind. It was beautiful!!

Wednesday was pretty awesome. We left around 9 AM to begin work in the crater for the day and left around 5 PM. We were within 70 meters from cape buffalos, which are also another scary group of animals! I found out that the single ones are normally the ones who are most dangerous. Romano said that! We were told by Romano that if we were charged by Cape Buffalo, that we were supposed to lay down, but SFS said we should run like hell. Romano however has been trained in this sort of thing and has lived in Tanzania all his life and I think it probably would make sense to lay down as long as they didn’t run you over! They are so vigilant and scary, yet so cute and funny to watch. They’ll run like 20 feet and stop. The leader will start running, they’ll follow. The leader will stop and then quickly turn around, and all the others turn around. It is so funny, yet so scary to watch. They’re awesome. I’ve completely gained a whole new respect for them, as all people should. They are so aware of their surroundings. We also saw an adorable warthog sitting right at the entrance of his hole on the side of the crater hill. We walked up the side of this large hill to begin our transect and on our way down, a different warthog ran out of his hole in front of us because he heard us coming. I’m glad he didn’t come out when we were down by his hole. They are so cool to watch too and funny. Early in the study, we saw a mama warthog with three tiny baby warthogs. I couldn’t believe how small and cute they were. They kept with their mom and hid behind her too. We even found a scorpion on this transect. Romano found it when he flipped over a rock. I think it might have been a three striped scorpion. He then decides to tell us to be careful and not turn over many rocks, meanwhile I’ve been in the lead the entire time, flipping a million rocks with my feet while walking, because it was an extremely rocky area and walking uphill was interesting through the bush. At night, I sat around the dining table with all the other SFS’ers while some played cards. I turned “Jump on It” on and a random younger guy walked through and he began singing and swinging his arms around his head. It was funny and entertaining. I didn’t sleep too well the last night. 

Thursday 

We did two transects. One where I actually spooked up a close hyena who then watched us intently but ran away. I watched four warthogs run behind it, and it almost looked like they were chasing the sleepy hyena. The first transect we did went through a wet area with streams, which made the beginning a little difficult, but there was wildlife everywhere. Sacred ibis, Egyptian geese, zebras, a falcon, warthogs, shorebirds. It was beautiful. The last transect also had parts in a wet area (in the rainy season) and had beautiful short green grasses like sedge. We then went and found our starting point for grid 45, where we would start the next day. In this transect, we drove right past another nesting shorebird –Crowned plover?– and it had three eggs in its nest but was protecting it again. Its such an amazing thing to see!! We also saw an absolutely adorable baby hartebeest with its mom. The group was about 10 hartebeest and one wildebeest. It was actually really funny to see one wildebeest hanging out and feeding with this group of hartebeest. Later, we spooked up a tiny baby Thomson’s gazelle. They are so fast! But I felt really bad for scaring it away, and I hope its mom found it. We then went to Serena Crater Lodge where I had a few drinks –Serena sundown and something I can’t remember– and also some marble cake! The two other lodges in the area are the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge and the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge. The Maasai came in and did their dances. Three SFS’ers went and danced with them. They’re always great to watch. Maasai like to jump around and make these deep sounds that come from their throat. You have to hear it to understand. They are very interesting though. 

When we got to the crater, it was hot and it looked like there hadn’t been a single drop of rain there, and there was no fog. On the rim, we couldn’t see for more than 50 meters from the road normally. On our way in, we saw another plover protecting its nest from the car. But she had three eggs! The last day went well, but it was very sunny and pretty hot. I ended up getting pretty burnt, even sunburned my scalp and ears. We saw the group of hartebeest with the wildebeest again. The baby hartebeest was watching us too. So cute! We completed two grids, 45 and 28. 45 was mostly flat and 28, our very last one, was partially on a hill. 28 was the first grid that we worked in that actually had long grass, and also some bushes. Actually more difficult to navigate through, but I was glad to finally have a long grass transect. There was a large group of about 200 Cape Buffalo standing at the bottom of the hill about 400 meters from us while we were doing our last grid. When we were finished and Dr. Shem came to meet us. Because I have been wanting all along to go on a game drive, I asked Shem if we could go on a short game drive, especially since we finished a little early. Luckily, I got my way and we were able to stay until 4:30. At this time, we drove up on top of the table mountain (or hill) (mlima mesa). We ended up seeing 2 rhinos. One far out in the distance and a second on our way out, about 500 meters from the land cruiser. We saw Thomson’s gazelle, hartebeest, wildebeest, Grant’s gazelle, and even a hare hunkered down in the grass. I did end up seeing about 3 hares while working in the field though. Two ran out in front of me when I was making my way through taller grass and one when we were driving. We drove right past it, and it hunkered down very low to the ground with its ears back and its red eyes wide open. I unfortunately never got a great picture of a hare, but seeing them was pretty cool! We also saw a large pride of lions with females, cubs, and even an adult male!! The females were laying with some of the cubs on a small hill and most of the cubs were laying down below in a muddy spot next to a small stream that runs through the area. They were absolutely adorable! The male was laying on the road in the shade of the land cruisers. When that land cruiser left, the lion got up and walked further down the road, slightly away from the pride and laid in the shade of a separate car which drove up right next to the lion and basically continued to cut the lion off until in laid down. This actually really annoyed me. Why do people have to be such jackasses when wildlife is around? Anyways, the animals were beautiful, and I was very grateful to seen every single one of them, from the raging buffalo to the Thomson’s gazelles and even the small blue beetles that crawled around on the Sodam’s Apple plants and often on me.

At 4:30, we began making our way up the side of the crater road. I snapped some quick shots of sacred ibises and wildebeest on our way out. We stopped at the Ngorongoro gate on the way out and I bought a drink and talked to my rafiki running the register in the shop one more time. It was weird to be back at camp. We were only gone for 5 additional days, but camp seemed so different. We also weren’t use to being around so many people. 

Saturday, November 15 Non-program day. We went into Mto wa Mbu. On our way in we stopped at the African Galleria or what we call the ‘Tanzanite store’. I’d never been there but had also wanted to go. There were a lot of nice things including trinkets, jewelry with Tanzanite, paintings, and wood carvings. It was huge and expensive. I didn’t get anything. We went to Mto wa Mbu and went to a kitimoto (pig) place for grilled pork. It was served on a plate with veggies and chili sauce. We also had fried plantains. The food is all served on one plate and you share it as a table. It was really good! Afterwards, we went to the Maasai market. The market is fairly expensive. We ended up finding a place with cheap shukas on a side street. Then we walked to the wood carving place and than to Pizza Point. I bought a pomadoro pizza to go. Cheapest pizza on the menu. Has sauce and a little cheese, but it’s really good. Only 4,000 shillings ($2-3).