This is probably the time to introduce you to the fifth member of our travelling party. Her name is "Mookie," and she appears to be a small, stuffed cow with wings and a wand. Sort of a "Fairy God-cow." As a school project in a Chicago-area 4^th and 5^th grade class, each child attached a card to a toy and sent the toy off into the world (in the hands of some person who was travelling). The instructions were that the toy should be passed from traveler to traveler until April 15, when it was to be sent back to its original owner in Chicago. The toy should have a chronicle of where it traveled, so the class could use each one as a geography lesson.

Linda acquired Mookie before our Africa trip, and decided that not only would she detail Mookie's travels in text, she would also use small, disposable cameras to document Mookie's adventures on film! Thus, Mookie is sitting atop the Ngorongoro Conservation Area sign having her picture taken by Linda, who is out of the frame in the shot above. Below you will see a close-up of Mookie.

Mookie

Mookie had a number of adventures on our trip, including being held by some Masai tribe boys who were going through the rites of manhood. Later she was almost eaten by a Warthog! You'll see her again in a picture not far below.

The word "Ngorongoro" is a Masai word meaning "crater." So when I call it the "Ngorongoro crater" I am being redundant. Oh, well, so sue me!

As we drove further West, the land ahead became mountainous. We drove up a high ridge and realized we were on the rim of the crater! We stopped at a monument honoring those who had been instrumental in conserving this gorgeous area as an animal refuge, and took some panoramic pictures of the view ahead and below.

Below is an attempt to join three panoramic shots together. It gives some idea of the size of the entire area. This was actually a volcano caldera, and is supposed to be the largest in the world.

From here it looks like there are no animals down there. Boy was THAT wrong!

We had approached the crater from the East. We turned left and drove around the rim on the Southern side to get to the Serena Crater Lodge, where we were to spend the next 2 nights. Naturally, it was located on the WEST side of the rim.

On the way to the lodge, we took a slight detour to see a Masai school. Linda had brought several packages of pens, colored markers and crayons, and I had taken a box of a gross of pencils. (No, the pencils weren't gross. There were 144 of them!) We met several teachers and the headmaster (very British sounding!) who were delighted to get the supplies. The headmaster's "office" was a room the size of a closet with one small table in it. His "school records" consisted of one piece of paper on the wall in the form of a chart, recording the students and their progress.

They took us to a classroom and gathered several classes together for us to meet. The children sang several songs, one in praise of Tanzania, the other a traditional Masai song led by one boy and joined in by all the rest. Really good, natural singers!

The students had no paper or writing materials (hence the gifts of pens and pencils), and almost no textbooks. The walls were bare, except for a blackboard across the front of the room. This blackboard was totally covered with writing. The children are taught their native tribal Masai language, then Swahili, then English as a third language, as well as arithmetic, geography and civics and other courses. I attempted to tell them in Swahili that I was called "John" and that I was from Texas. ("Nina itwa 'John.' Natoka Texas.") The teachers smiled, but there wasn't much reaction from the students. Interestingly, the headmaster asked for our e-mail address! He indicated that occasionally someone might journey to a town where there was internet access, and e-mails were possible. He also made it abundantly clear that they were desperate for any help they could get in the form of chalk, books, writing materials, anything!

Schoolyard, with Masai donkeys.

We took several other pictures at the school, both inside and out. However, we learned an important lesson about our camera. Carol realized that the lens was not auto-focusing, and after checking all the settings including the "on" switch, we were about to conclude that our new camera had died on the fourth day of our trip! One of us twisted the lens slightly and heard a "click." Afterwards the focus and other functions performed perfectly. When we had last changed lenses, we had failed to "lock" it into position. Duh! This wasn't the last time, unfortunately, and the result was always poorly focused pictures like the one above or worse (mostly worse.)

We drove directly from the school to our lodge and checked in. There was just enough time for a quick trip into the crater before sunset, so we jumped back into the Land Cruiser and headed off. Mrosso told us there was ONE road into the crater, and ONE road out! And if you are not out by 6:00 PM, the gate would be shut and locked for the night! We made very sure to be on the road out of there by 5:30!

The road in was rutted and very bumpy. It's about a 600-800 foot drop from the rim down to the crater floor, so the road meanders down diagonally across the face of the rise. Once on the floor it was fairly flat. If you looked across at the far rim, it didn't look like it was 12 miles across. But if you looked outward slowly along the ground until your eyes stopped at the far wall, you realized how big the area was. Shortly after arriving on the floor we spotted an elephant with HUGE tusks.

Is this what is meant by being "long in the tooth?"

In the short time we were in the crater we saw elephants, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, cape buffalo, zebra, rhinos from a long distance, hippos far off in the water, flamingos, crowned cranes, vultures, lilac breasted roller, gray hornbill, African fish eagle and Vervet monkeys UP CLOSE!

 
Beautiful crowned crane. At right, a mother vervet monkey perches on our rear-view mirror to check us out!

At this point, Linda remembered, "Wait! Wait! I want to get Mookie in the picture!"

The result was so cute! This little guy just stared and stared at Mookie. Mookie was inside the car on the dash, and the monkey was on the hood. What a picture.

Baby vervet just can't figure out what Mookie is!