Blogs from Ngorongoro Conservation Area, North, Tanzania, Africa

Drove down into the Ngorongoro Crater today and had some cool sights. Watched a cheetah stalking prey. Saw a rhino and hippo. Watched a jackel jump and nearly catch a bird. Watched a 2 lion cubs feeding from mother from about 30 ft. Mother came up to the Land Rover and was within 10 ft. Wait until you see the pictures. No wireless here. Can't download pictures. We will be heading into the Ngorongoro Conservation area tomorrow and will not have any internet connection from our tents. Everone is having a great time. Our guide very impressed by the cheetah today as he had never seen one in Ngorongoro Crater.... read more

Our first night in the N'dutu wilderness camp was a slightly more wild experience. Although the canvas tents were more luxurious than we expected, including beds and porta-potties, we still felt a tad unsure of their safety rating should we be swarmed by animals in the night. The manager of the camp assured Morgan (with a totally straight face) that the canvas and plastic venting were completely "lion proof." Yeah. Right. This was why we were always escorted to our tents with a Maasai gaurd armed with a spear and also why we were not allowed to leave our tents until daylight. We headed out that afternoon on an evening game drive, with the hopes of coming across the wildebeests migrating. We were met with no success and were just a tad curious where you could ... read more

Accommodation: Ngorongoro Crater Lodge Game Viewing: Lions, Elephants, Hippos, Buffalo, Cheetah, Zebra, Wildebeest, Hyenas, & Birds Game drives: 6:30am to 2:00pm – normally only one game drive a day as the park closed at 6:00pm. However I did manage two (2) drives in a day to try and maximize the game viewing. Guide: Killian – very good The Ngorongoro Crater is located in Northern Tanzania, once a volcano, is the largest intact caldera in the world. It is an extensive highland area with a 600 metre (1,900 ft) deep Crater which is the focal point that shelters one of the most beautiful wildlife havens on earth. The views are spectacular and because the animals (except wildebeest & zebra) are not migratory, it is arguable one of the world’s natural wonders. From Zanzibar we flew to Aru ... read more

Transfer day from Serengeti NP to Ngorongoro Crater. Stopped at Olduvpai Gorge, not Olduvai Gorge, on the way to the Crater. Some German guy was in the process of naming a butterfly found in the area and thought the natives said Olduvai instead of the proper Olduvpai. Every since the world has known it has Olduvai instead on Oldupai. Not much to look at--just a gorge. However, has a good museum and visitor’s center. Learned a team last week may have made an important find in the 1.75 to 2 million year layer. The items are off to the lab to verify the date. Arrived at the Crater at 12:40 p.m. Is kinda of impressive from a landscape point of view. Not impressive from a wildlife point of view once you have been in the Northern ... read more

After a lovely breakfast (with some really excellent coffee!) we took a 20-minute Cessna Caravan charter from Arusha to Manyara, then got in our jeeps and were transported to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We spent the day driving around the crater floor, and we saw cape buffalo, zebra, baboons, warthogs, wildebeest, lions, cranes, ostrich, gazelle, eland and hyena. The highlight of the day was finding a wildebeest in a watering hole who was surrounded by hyena. There were over thirty of them and they just kept coming. We hoped for the best but knew the big guy didn’t stand a chance. And he didn’t. It was horrifying to watch, but that’s life on the savanna, all day every day. For our own lunch we were surprised with a catered affair in the floor of the ... read more

Oh my goodness, we're not in Kansas anymore. After a 600am wake-up, early breakfast buffet and briefing, we were assigned our cars and bid farewell to Arusha. We drove through town on our way out. Saw the clock tower that is the midway point between the Cape of Good Hope and Cairo, the center of town, carts laden with fruits and vegetables, women with huge stacks of bananas. The market was going on in one town but I am not sure whether my photos will turn out. The towns could be in Mexico, except for all the Africans. Out in the countryside the Masai live in bomas, round huts made of elephant dung, with thatched roofs. Its really incredible.how they still live the way they lived thousands of years ago. We entered Lake Manyara Park and ... read more

The Ngorongoro Crater National Park is a dormant volcano with 240 square km of a flat treeless bottom that is an ideal grazing ground. Because of the ready availability of water, the animals here don't migrate. The only large animal that is absent is the giraffe. Either the steep crater sides or the lack of trees at the bottom probably explains why this is the case. The area west of the crater and east of the Serengeti is now a National Conservation Area. There are large herds of gnu, zebra, Tommies mixed in with Masai cattle, goats and camels in that in-between area. This is also the location of Olduvai Gorge, where the Paleoanthropologists / Wunderkind Leakey family uncovered the Lucy skull. So, in effect, this is the birth place of homo-sapiens. Well, from here up ... read more