Ngorongoro Crater

On Saturday I took a 8 hour, very bumpy very dusty,trip to Ngorongoro crater. The roads there reminded me of the lovely,but a rather exciting, coastal highway in California, sharp hairpin curves and steep cliff on the outside, only these roads were narrower than the one lane, dirt and bumpy and jeeps coming down the other side …. oh yeah and no guardrail…. yep, I closed my eyes a few times.

First a bit of history about this amazing place. Two to three million years ago, a mountain was there and was at least as tall as Kilimanjaro, the volcanic mountain erupted, leaving a caldera ( proper name for it instead of crater ) 2000 feet deep and covering 100 Square miles. It is the largest Caldera in the world!

So we arrived!

After we got cleared to enter the conservation area , we started by circling the rim. And, of course like all photos of amazing places the pictures do not do it justice.

Our driver, Abrahim, was so good and took us to areas off the main road to better veiw the animals

The first animals we saw along the way was a family group of elephants…. almost seemed “disney like” but they were truly real !

once we went down to the caldera floor we saw just and amazing number of animals and birds! Some we got so, so very close too,,,,, but dont’! get too close to HIppos and water buffalo, they are the most dangerous. Amazingly Hippos can run much faster that humans!

And lastly, just as we were going towards the ascent out of the caldera, we saw a beautiful, proud lioness.

I returned to my house spent but grateful to have seen this amazing place and its inhabitants.