I wake up to the good and the bad. My head is aching like a complete bastard, but I’m lying with my back pressed to Brian’s chest and his arm is wrapped around my waist. The sun has already risen and I’m grateful that our schedule has been reworked a little to make things easier for everyone.

I’m contemplating just lying here for another hour, but my bladder has other ideas and I really need to take some painkillers. I slowly extricate myself from Brian’s grip and pad off to the bathroom. A quick glance in the mirror tells me that the lump on the side of my head is going down a bit, but it looks bruised and angry. My eye hasn’t closed up very much, but it is as black as I imagined it could get.

There’s a new bottle of water by the sink and it only takes me a moment to rummage through my toiletries bag and find some paracetamol. I know they won’t work straight away, but they will have some affect by the time we get back on the road.

Back in the room, Brian is now awake and lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. I move round to the side of the bed so I can bend down and kiss him softly, but he has other ideas and drags me down onto the bed beside him to kiss me more thoroughly. Much though I’d like to go further, I think we both know that’s not a particularly good idea right now.

“Your lump is going down,” Brian tells me with a smile.

“Yeah, I think so too. Just a bit of a headache, but no other bad side-effects. Don’t know how I’ve managed to escape a concussion. I must have a hard skull.”

“Well, as long as you’re on the mend.”

“Yes. I’ll be fine. I’m a little more concerned about you, honestly. Are you okay?”

Brian is silent for a long time, but eventually he shakes his head a little and attempts a rueful smile.

“Do you want to talk?”

“Not really, but I will if you want me to.”

“It’s only that I think it might help.”

Again, he is quiet for a long time, probably more than a minute. I just feel that he needs the time to get some thoughts in order.

“I thought I was away from the front-line stuff, that’s all. I know I still work in security, but it’s more of an administrative and training role now. It’s been a while and it always was hard.”

“You never forget any of your training,” he tells me after another moment. “I still know exactly what to do. When to react and when to stay still. I wasn’t sure how far they would go. Didn’t even know if they actually had bullets in the guns. Not that it would have made much difference either way – for them.”

“From Ian’s description last night, that doesn’t sound like normal army training, does it?”

“No, not exactly. I told you that I was a marksman, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. When I asked about your wound.”

“Well, I also had the chance to do some special forces training. Just one level up from my usual role, not the SAS or anything. As a marksman, I was trained in counter-terrorist scenarios, in case I was needed in a hostage situation or something.”

“The trouble is, I didn’t pass all the psychological evaluations. I’m a little too concerned for the bad guys, apparently.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask incredulously.

“Just that I over think sometimes and can’t deal well with the aftermath. I’ve no problem in the heat of the moment, as you luckily didn’t see yesterday. It was just assessed that I might freeze under certain conditions or question a direct order.”

“Okay, so not quite as mindlessly detached as the brass wanted?”

“Not exactly how it was explained to me, but, well, yes. I think too much about the situation most of the time. I was sent back to my unit, posted back to Afghanistan and then managed to get myself shot.”

“And yesterday?”

“I was only thinking about you and your safety. Sure, the others as well, but mostly you.”

“I’m flattered,” I manage to tell him with a genuine smile. “Just don’t make a habit of killing people for me, okay?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Good. So, how are you feeling today?”

“Tired. I’m still coming down from the adrenaline high. It always worries me afterwards that I get too deep into my own head. After any action, I mean. I feel a little as if I lost my control and it’s a struggle to get it back. I used to hit the booze to numb it all out. This is much harder.”

“Well,” I tell him with another soft kiss. “Now I feel as if it’s my fault. Let’s go and have a shower then some breakfast. We have a great safari to finish.”

“I’d assumed you were going to stay to the end. There was some talk about cutting the trip short yesterday. Peter had warned everyone that we might just call it quits.”

“Not a fucking chance. I’ve paid to go to the Serengeti and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

 

“Okay everyone, let’s get going and get back to wildlife,” Peter tells us all as we gather at the vehicles after a good breakfast. “Slightly later than scheduled, but we can stay in the crater until sundown. Our lodge has a private exit road.”

“Watch out for Great Blue Turacos on the way up to the crater rim,” Tim tells me as we start to get into our trucks. “Big as a turkey, bright blue with a crest.”

“Thanks, Tim. Check list this evening?”

“You bet. Should see plenty today.”

The gate to the conservation area isn’t all that far and we’re soon making our way up the wide dirt track through the dense forest on the side of the crater wall. I knew from my talk with Ian that it was actually a quite busy highway to the west, but I wasn’t expecting to see so many big trucks moving so slowly. The very steep road was clearly taking a toll on them and we come across a few that are broken down or overheated.

“Okay, this climb will take a few minutes,” Ian tells us as we all stare into the forest. “We’re going right up to the rim lookout at more than 2,000 metres. We’ll stop when we get there before having to drive about a third of the way around the rim to get to the entrance.”

The drive up the hill seems relentless. There are gently winding curves to left and right, but the forest seems to be unchanging and impossibly dense. Jungle.

Up ahead, the middle truck has come to a stop and the top is being popped hurriedly open. Tim and Geoff appear, gesturing to a large tree off to the right.

“I think they found a turaco,” Ian tells us over his shoulder. “We’re nearly at the top, so open the lid if you like.

Brian and I need no second invitation. We’re seasoned veterans of opening the top now and can do it in just a few seconds. Bringing my camera up, I swing it round to get a good look where Geoff and Tim are pointing.

The fruits in the truly huge tree are hanging like curtains and, there on the branch and right in the open, is one of the strangest and most wonderful birds I’ve ever seen. Tim wasn’t exaggerating. It’s as big as a turkey or perhaps a peacock. It’s a deep bright blue on top and fading to bluish-green beneath and sports a huge mohawk-style black crest along the top of its head with a bright yellow and red beak. Magnificent.

It's one of those things that just seems to scream ‘tropics’ at you in a raucous, high-pitched voice. If a first thought of Africa is to think of lions or elephants, then my second or third will now be these huge and impressive brightly-coloured birds. When it turns and flies away over the tree-tops, the flash of colour is even more magnificent and memorable.

Just a few hundred metres higher up, the sky appears blue ahead of us and the road opens up at a junction like no other on Earth. The main road continues west and, from the east there is a smaller road from our lodge that is on the eastern rim. To the north is a space big enough for perhaps a dozen vehicles and the uninterrupted view.

So, this is Ngorongoro Crater. I’m really not sure what I expected. You can read books about this place, see endless documentaries on the television and talk to people who have been here, but you really need to see it for yourself. We’re high up and the air is clear beneath a mostly cloudless sky. Beneath us stretches infinity.

About two million years ago, there was a volcano here that rivalled or even exceeded Kilimanjaro in size and height. In a cataclysmic eruption, likely witnessed by early human ancestors, it exploded and collapsed. This crater is all that remains. More than 3,000 metres of volcanic mountain simple ceased to exist.

I’m from a little island that’s barely more than twice this size. The central hills of the Isle of Man, that seem so massive and imposing to me, would sit in here with room to spare and not show over the edge. The crater is almost twenty kilometres from rim to rim and more than 600 metres deep. It’s on a scale that simply beggars the imagination and confounds the senses. It’s almost too big to be real and the mind, quite rightly, rejects it as such. Far below us the flat plain of the floor of the crater shows signs of life and the sky reflects off the smooth waters of the lake.

“It’s more than we should be allowed to witness,” I tell Brian as I feel his hand on my shoulder once more. “It’s too much for the human mind to comprehend and should be kept hidden away from us all.”

It takes us more than half an hour to drive along the rim to the entrance gate. The morning rush is over and we’re the only vehicle still wanting to get in. Numbers are limited by price of entry, but still more than 1,000 people visit every day. It’s a good job it’s so vast a space.