Ngorogoro Crater

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We drove through the serengeti on the way to Ngorogoro crater and dropped off at the Oldupai Gorge. This is the spot where the earth has split opened revealing several levels, right down to the lava level. It was there that they discovered human footprints from 3.6 million years ago. The oldest known existance of man. They casted the footprints and created two casted replicas then preserved the orig. by covering them by rocks. The footprints were captured because the people were walking on lava which hardened and was covered over by ash and soil. They dug for the next couple of years in an effort to find human remains from this time period but had no luck. In Etheopia the bones of, Lucy, a 1 metre high woman were found in the great rift valley, dating back to the same time period. After spending some time exploring the site Crista says "hey, I remember reading about this site in school but forgot all about it until now". I am embarrased to say that I didn't know that it was there.

The Ngorongo crater was beautiful. It is an inactive (extinct) volcano where the crater floor has a small salt water lake, a small forest and many, many animals. The crater is 265 square meters big and you need to drive down a very, very, very steep road (without guard rails) down 600 metres to the crater floor. Down there we say another black rhino (we are so lucky) and felt sorry for him as the safari vehicles crowded beside him. We asked our driver to back off so that the poor rhino could have some space. We aslo spent a half hour watching a pride of 17 lions.
After spending 5 hours exploring the crater floor it was time to drive back up to the rim. I don't recall ever being so scared in my life. The 600 metres up may have well been a million. The roads were steep, hair pin turns and zig zaged up without any railings. To make matters more interesting it started to rain half way up (I can thank Crista for that). Not sure how long we were holding our breath for but we were so relieved when we got to the top. Driving along the crater rim we asked the driver if anyone had an accident and fell off the road. He said "oh yes, many many times". Yikes - I was hoping he would say no.

The hotel at Ngorogoro was beautiful and was perched on the rim overlooking the crater. It was a wonderful experience but I think I will only visit the crater floor again after they put in a landing strip so that we can fly in.

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