Ngorongoro Crater Fun

After a quick turnaround from Zanzibar, our group left early Monday morning en route to the very Northern part of Tanzania.  Our first stop was a snake and wildlife park right outside of second biggest city in Tanzania, Arusha. We saw all kinds of creepy crawlies including black mamba snakes, baboons, and crocodiles – oh my! You can even see yours truly holding one of the little non-venomous snakes. We drove by a town named Mosquito River (yep, definitely don’t want to live there) and then past Lake Manyara National Park. Our destination for night (after about 5 hours in the utility vehicles), was Highview Lodge, run by the daughter of our tour company’s owner. We have been spoiled by Zara Tours, as they do a great job.   

It was a rainy morning as we made our ascent towards Ngorongoro.  We were greeted by a troop of baboons that looked like they could do some damage and waited for about 40 minutes until we were admitted into the park. As we reached the highpoint, some 7800 feet above sea level, we still couldn’t see anything.  Luckily, it started clearing just as we were about to go into the crater and we got our first million dollar view.  We also saw zebra and wildebeest even before going down to the crater. We would see a ton of animals outside of the crater and Sergenti National Park because there is a conservation area surrounding all the national parks that give all the wild animals a bit of a buffer from the general population.  I think this is a wonderful idea as no sheep/cattle/goat herded wants a lion taking out their bread and butter. Nor do we want the poachers having free reign of the animals. 

As soon as we dropped down into the crater (about 2000 feet, now at around 5400 feet above  sea level), we started seeing all kinds of animals. The animal most likely to be seen on safari is the Thompson gazelle. A cute little guy that makes an excellent meal/snack for a variety of the predators here.  They reminded me of our overpopulation of deer back in the states. We also saw many more wildebeest, flamingos, topi antelope, and even a BLACK RHINO! We were all pretty stoked about this, as there are only 28 of them in the entire crater. P.S. the crater is about 10 miles long and 12 miles wide and was actually formed when a volcano erupted and imploded on itself. It’s actually a caldera, but much larger than Crater Lake in Oregon.

We stopped for lunch at the hippo pond but the hippos weren’t feeling incredibly social at first.  We fought a few birds while we ate our lunch and used the facilities. You are not allowed out of your vehicle in the crater as you could possibly get mauled by an animal or shot by one of the rangers for suspected poaching. They are very strict (as they should be) mainly because of the rhino who was poached almost to extinction. After we finished eating, a few of the hippos started coming closer and put on a bit of a show for us. And we saw our first elephant as we were leaving the hippo pond. There is definitely something majestic about seeing a creature that large out in the wild!

The coolest part of the day came just before we ascended back out of the crater. We came around a bend and saw a lioness drinking from a stream. We were five feet away from her.  Turns out lions can drink up to 25-35 liters of water in one setting, especially after a kill.  It looked like she had just eaten, as she was really thirsty! Then we saw all of her friends a half mile down the road. They were all cat napping. Must have been a successful hunt! Nearby were a few gazelles and a striped jackel. Man was that little guy cute. Looked sort of like a coyote and a fox combined. 

On our way to the wildlife lodge (our destination for the evening), we stopped and saw the crater from up high. What a beautiful scene.  We saw wildlife right up until we checked into the hotel as there were a few cape buffaloes about a mile from the hotel and a hyena maybe 100 yards out. Definitely glad to be indoors tonight, and at a super snazzy place to boot. All the rooms have a view of the crater and we got to sip on our safari beer while we watched the sun go down. All in a days work!