Africa 3

Dar es salaam harbour acrostic
shadow1950

© Linda Hillier 11/03/2013

Dar harbour full of teeming life
A mass of colourful ships and boats
Radiant do your waters gleam

Each wave gently lapping the shore
Sails fluttering in the breeze

Slowly yet violently the yachts jib
As they sail and tack against the wind
Loud blast out the ships horns
As the tugs pilot them to sea or dock
And the gulls screech diving in their wakes
Many colourful dhows sail in to moor

Hot breezes on my face
As midday temperatures soar
Raising our sails we float
Bringing our bows into the wind
Out to sea we are headed
Under full sail we skim the waves
Ready for what ever adventures await

After being grounded from sailing for the rest of the summer. I wondered what to do. Luckily we were due to go to Ngorongoro Crater so bored I would not be. This great reserve is in the rift valleys and our hotel was at the top of the very steep escarpment over looking the plains.
I will now digress a little to give you a few facts in Italics
so you can skip if you wish

people have occupied the crater for over 3 million years. The Mbulu settled there 2,000 years ago. Joined by the Dalooga in around 1700. Both groups were driven off by the Masai in the early 1800s .Masai honoured sacred massive fig trees that grow in the north west of the Leria Forest It is thought that Oscar Baumann was the first European to step foot in the crater in 1892. Originally part of the Serengeti national park there is a population of approx 25,000 large animals living in it

I am now in 1964 and 1965
Its one of the magical places on our world, wild life teems here
driving down the escarpment one morning we saw a wounded rhino who had a massive wound to his left shoulder, an irritable animal
at the best of times this wound had infuriated the poor beast.
S/He charged at us now we were around 6 feet or so below him/her as the road cut down the escarpment. we were lucky as in our canvas covered jeep we would have been flattened by it thankfully it landed about 4 foot behind us and as we were going down hill we were able to leave it far behind. We drove around the crater spotting all sorts of animals. A pride of Lions feasting on a kill cubs there with them (in 2001 there were 62 lions living in the crater) We drove to Lake Ndutu which was pink from the distance. Flamingos every where a splendid sight to see.
As dusk drew near we headed up the escarpment back to our hotel and as we went around a bend off to the side was a large bull elephant not happy to see us he started flapping his ears as we drove past and then trunk held high charged after us, trumpeting his rage we did make it, as you climb up every now and again the escarpment temporally flattnes and we were able to pick up enough speed to escape but it was another very close call. My father has a black and white photo of this incident. (these adventures that I narrate to you are true)
This is a good spot to stop I will write Africa 4 soon