My Personal Blog - Sarada Ramani

 Day 12 – September 15: Arusha City  Having stayed a night near Ngorongoro crater, it was time to start to our final destination city in the East African Tour. What a scenic and fantastic drive it was through well laid out roads ( for once). On the way did some shopping of Tanzanite ear rings. 'Tanzanite' is the blue and violet variety of the mineral zoisite, caused by small amounts of vanadium. Tanzanite belongs to the epidote mineral group. Tanzanite is only found in Simanjiro District of Manyara Region in Tanzania, in a very small mining area approximately 7 km long and 2 km wide near the Mererani Hills. We passed through the Lake Manyara.  It is a shallow, alkaline lake in the Natron-Manyara-Balangida branch of the East African Rift.   The northwest quadrant of the lake (about 200 sq, km.)  is included within Lake Manyara National Park and it is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, established in 1981 by UNESCO as part of its Man and the Biosphere Programme. Our van

 Got up at 3.00 am to be ready at 4.20am to go out for Hot air Ballon safari in Serengeti National Reserve park.  On the way to the take off point we were lucky to see a lions drinking water and crossing the mud road.  A little distance further it was a chance to see a pack of hyenas.  These are apart from lots of wilder beests and zebras gazelles crossing in front of our vehicles.   But the Ballon didn't raise up despite the captain trying his level best.  We were  dragging for around 700mts before it had to be aborted.  But after a sumptuous breakfast provided by the hot Air Ballon group we left on a long drive through muddy rough road with so much  mud around that by the end of the day everything  from our head to toe, mobile phones, our baggage everything was covered   with fine dust.   Reached Ngorongoro crater with much difficulty and out of 8 vans there were constant vehicle breakdowns.   We drove down into the crater while is volcanic and all the big five and numerous other