Scary safari!

Last weekend we set off on safari with 3 other volunteers. We all arrived together and have got to know each other really well over the past few months so were looking forwards to spending some time together before going our seperate ways.

Finally it was time for us and our many bags to be loaded into our battered car and begin the painfully long and dusty journey to the first of three game reserves we would be visiting. We had a brilliant game drive and stayed in quite a luxurious camp site that even had warm showers (quite a novelty for us!).
The the next morning we set off for the Serengeti. Unfortunately our car had a bit of a suspension problem - not great when you're travelling along miles of dirt raods - to compensate for the problem we drove even slower than normal so our journey seemed to take for ever! We finally got to the Serengeti and went for a game drive where we saw loads of lions before we arrived at our campsite. I'm not really sure if you can call it a campsite - it was literally a toilet and a lockable hut to eat in in the middle of the serengeti - no fence! We were quite nervous going to bed - especially as a few weeks ago some of our friends stayed at the same campsite and their tents got attacked by bushpigs! We heard loads of animal noises during the night but luckily all survived to tell the tale the next day!

After an early morning game drive we packed our tents up once more and headed to Ngorongoro Crater. We were camping at the Crater rim and so had amazing views across to the other side - some 20km away! We went to bed quite early as we had arranged another early morning game drive. We hadn't been in bed long when we heard a munching sound outside our tents. We carefully unzipped our tents only to see an enourmous buffalo literally feet from where we were camping. He didn't seem to like us all looking at him and stopped eating and just stood really still, staring right back at us! One of the girls we were with reminded us that we didn't have to worry as there was an armed ranger on the campsite and he would surely appear soon to chase the buffalo away. As the minutes ticked by we realised he wasn't coming and then Adam kindly reminded us that earlier our guide had told us that buffalos were most prone to attack when they are on their own and they feel threatened - great! We needn't have worried though - the buffalo wasn't interested in us and after a while carried on eating before slowly moving away!

We had a fabulous, if sometimes slightly scary, few days!