Once again we got up in the dark and then waited half an hour at reception for Abdulah to arrive. We set off down into the crater. It's an interesting natural phenomenon. The floor down in the crater is completely flat, there's water for the animals all year round, it measures 20 x 60 km, and so plenty of animals don't join the migration after the rain and stay in the crater. Right after descending into the valley we passed a herd of buffalo and wildebeest and a bit further on, right by the road, about 3m from us, three male lions were peacefully snoring away – well I'll be damned. Judging by the dark colour of their manes they were already pretty old, but after the night's hunting they were snoring like babies. If one of them hadn't moved a little, I'd have been sure it was some plush attraction for white mugs :--).
BTW, I think the African equivalent of the Latin American gringo and the Asian barang is pagáty (that is, white tourist mug). Then we also saw hippos, elephants, giraffes, loads of beautiful birds, and in the end even a very rare rhino, a female with a calf. Oh, and also loads of giant ostriches. The female is grey-red, the male black and white, and a horny male has a bright red neck and legs :--). Then there was also one bird that, when it gets horny, puffs up its neck enormously like a balloon and then struts around leaning back like a town councillor in a bowler hat crossing the market square 🙂.
When we left the park gate and were already mentally tuned in to the 3-day journey home, the cook Josef suddenly started shouting from the back of the car. The driver stopped in a skid and to the left, on a little hill by the road, at the level of our eyes, about 3m away, lay a gorgeous lioness, asleep. The final cherry on the cake.
Then it was just three hours on a dusty road to Arusha, the last night in a hotel, 7 hours on a beaten-up but still somewhat better road to Nairobi in Kenya, a few hours in a hotel with Don snoring in the room, getting up at two in the morning. The minivan we'd arranged, the one that had driven us from Arusha, didn't show up, so we took a regular taxi (and saved $5), then a 5-hour flight to Cairo, 5 hours at the airport, another flight of 4.5 hours to Munich, 2.5 hours at the airport and hooray, home.
A frozen Prague buried in snow and a frozen car at the airport.
