Ben in Tanzania

I was going to the car carrying a Fanta pineapple and two Kit-Kats and all of a sudden a big baboon (or a bachelor boy) grabbed my hip and shook me. I kicked it and swore at it and then a game ranger chased it away. The End. I was feeling that this baboon was pushing its luck. It was messing with a nine year old when it was probably only nine itself. When it grabbed me by the hip it didn’t squeeze, it shook me like a tree, thinking I might drop my Kit-Kat. I did not lose one atom of my food to that slimy scoundrel of a baboon! I was so shocked I kicked it like my life depended on it. After it was chased away, I walked back to the car with the taste of victory and maybe a bit of Fanta on my tongue. I stayed in the car and waited for dad to come and bring back Hugo – dad didn’t want Hugo getting hurt. Do you know why that is? Well, it seems that everywhere we’ve been, he’s been disliked by an animal. So far he’s been attacked by a black kite who stole his sandwich and gave him a cut on his finger; attacked by a ground hornbill; bitten by a swarm of angry red ants and growled at by a lion. So Dad didn’t want to risk him being eaten by a baboon.

One early morning, we were minding our own business, having breakfast in Ngorongoro crater rim, taking photo’s of an elephant in the distance when a big male elephant with huge tusks came storming over to our truck. We started taking photo’s thinking he was just passing by when we realised that he was heading straight towards our car. We ran up into the roof tent for safety – and the only one who didn’t was mum. But one of the windows in the roof tent was open so we saw what was happening from above. The elephant reached over into the back of the car – which was open because we were having breakfast – and he started eating our food. First he started with a light course. Some cornflakes, some muesli and 2 kg of Kilimanjaro coffee on the top! And then he got a bit of peri-peri sauce on some plain bread. And maybe, just maybe he could have cleaned up after himself! The only tip he left behind for us was whole load of slobber all over the leftover food. ( we got a video of what happened which we’ll put on the blog later).

A man with a huge Land Rover came towards the elephant with the windscreen wipers on, the lights on and he was revving the engine which made a lot of smoke – it was very loud. The elephant looked like it was going to sit on the Land rover and keep eating but it finally turned tail and ran off. We could finally get down from the roof tent. And we found that dad’s Kilimanjaro coffee had been devoured. It was quite funny.

The lions in the Ngorongoro crater were kind of tame. Because if you drove up to a lion in Addo or Kruger it would normally run off – but these lions were quite happy to sleep by the side of the road with all the car tyres passing. It was so close I could have put my hand out and stroked it – but of course that would result in my hand missing! We saw about 9 hyenas – big, fat, ugly beasts. They are so ugly it would make a person faint to look at their face!

The Maasai usually go down into the crater to give their cattle some water. They are not afraid of lions coming to eat them or elephants trampling on them. but the only animal they’re afraid of is the buffalo. They will not kill a lion unless it kills their cattle. We gave a lift to a Masai man, who said that he’d killed two lions because they killed his cows. The Masai think that their cows are money, or wealth. And I read a story about 2 people who travelled through Tanzania and the man was offered 20 cows for his wife.
I’m having fun, miss you guys but loving the trip.