I've Never Seen So Many Sunrises!

  Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a sunrise kind of gal. My sister used to get up and out before 6 am to get to the gym, and I could hardly move until I had at least one cup of coffee.
 Here in Tanzania, the best time to start out is around 6 because the animals are easier to spot, there are fewer safari trucks on the roads, and by afternoon, it's too hot for both kinds of animals to be out there--us and them.
 So with leaving the camps or lodges at 0-dark-30 and returning at least 7 hours later, and twice 9-11 hours later, I've had little time or energy to write. We have had some wonderful experiences, but it's also been challenging. My insides still feel upside down after being jostled daily on dusty roads.
 We have now seen the Big 5! The black rhino was the last, which we saw before leaving the interior of the crater. My picture is but a dot, but Matthew got some good shots with his better zoom lens.
 We left the crater yesterday after exploring for several hours, then headed out of Ngorongoro for the Plantation Lodge. Getting out of the crater is something else. Well, actually getting into it is worse...feels like it's straight downhill on a very poor, recently washed out and sort of fixed, road. We came out a different road, one that's so small and windy, it's only used for ascent. Views are spectacular and you're driving through a forest.

Saw a lion with her fresh wildebeest kill, then her cub wandered over. Cool way to start our drive...seeing the cub.

  Lots of elephants live in the caldera, but they're mostly male. The females live elsewhere and their mates visit them by going up the ascending road to where they're located. They have no trouble finding them.

 This bird is everywhere and I have spent countless moments trying to capture it in flight. The outer wings are iridescent blue--it's a type of starling.

 On our way up to the Maasai village.

  We were welcomed by the chief's son (sounds impressive until you find out the chief has 16 wives and 73 children, so anyone who greeted us would have been related to the chief), dressed us in cloths and a necklace for me to borrow. Then a woman grabbed me by the hand and brought me over to the other women...and they all started singing and dancing, which I was expected to do as well. A large part of what we did was move our shoulders up and down to make the necklace dance. Then the woman on my right would tell me to "jump," and we'd jump a few times during that part of the song.
 See what I'm holding? That's a huge bag containing 10 hanks of beads--in 10 colors. Towards the end of the dance, they got very distracted realizing what I'd brought them. The lead woman came over and I presented them to her, then they all sat on the ground and separated each strand so that they'd be shared equally.

 Meanwhile, we were watching the men make fire using two types of wood.

  After the fire was built, we got to watch the women sort the beads and two males counted them out and made sure each woman got 10 strands, one of each color.

  They normally have to trade or buy beads at the market, so this will help them immensely. We bought a few things from them at the end, and unfortunately, we didn't negotiate well and they set their prices very high. Adam wasn't pleased when we told him later--he felt they took advantage of us.His company pays them out of what we pay, so he's told them to be fairly priced. I should have asked him if this was right before we paid. It's too bad the visit ended on a sour note because they were fun to visit till then. We saw one of their houses and also their kindergarten. The kids sang a song, and there's an obvious tip box sitting in the room.

  We have seen a couple types of jackals...and they're so cute!

 Haha...see the black rhino? Well, he's out there--that little black dot. Take my word for it.

  This old guy walked right across the street near our truck. He always has the right-of-way.

 And then there was these two who were walking along, stopped, sat, nuzzled each other, then proceeded to walk between the trucks in front of ours. Ah, shade, they said, and they laid down. One had a paw on the tire...we weren't going anywhere. We were surrounded by safari trucks with everyone taking pictures as we photo-bombed them by standing on the seats and hanging our heads over the edge to take pictures too.