Ngorongoro Park, Tanzania

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July 12, 2008

Ngorongoro Park, Tanzania

We spent the night at the Kensington Camp near the Ngorongoro Crater. As this is at a fairly high altitude it was, to say the least, a little “fresh” in the tent and very cool in the morning. There are a lot of Masai that live here as they were moved from the Serengeti when the national Park was created 40 - 50 years ago. They seem to survive in their small mud huts and wearing only there traditional garb ( like a loin cloth with a blanket on top ).

The switch-backs, fog and mist on the road down into the crater made for an interesting start to our day. This is really an amazing place. A lot bigger than it looks from the rim.

There are most of the usual animals but no Leopards and no female Elephants. The big male Elephants travel in and out of the crater but the females do not. There are lots of Hippos, a few Black Rhinos, Hyenas, resident Wldebeest and Zebras and of course too many different Antelope, hundreds of Flamingos and other birds. No Impalas here as they are browsers and there is very little bush for feed. The crater floor is fed from underground springs and streams that created some pools for the Hippos and feeds some alkali lakes.

The Black Rhinos are very shy and we got a look at one from a distance out on the plains. In this park there is no off-roading so if the animals are not near the roads you can’t drive out to get a better look. We looked for the male Elephants that come into the crater but they were not around today. ( we did see one from a long distance ) These Elephants are known for there very big size and very long tusks.

This was a very interesting day that we finished with another cool night in the tented camp. We were surprised at the temperature as we expected “ Africa “ to be at least warm if not hot.

At the camp tonight we met a family from Belgium that were so fed up with the roads that they chartered a small plane to fly them back through the Serengeti and their guide followed in the Land Cruiser.

Tomorrow we travel a few hours to make our plane connections to Nairobi and on to Cape Town, South Africa via Johannesburg.

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