The Garden of Eden in a "Bowl"

Africa » Tanzania » North » Ngorongoro Conservation Area
February 11th 2008

Published: February 19th 2008

Edit Blog Post

WW Wanderers

King of the Jungle

A short distance from the discovery of three million year old remains of "modern" humans (Olduvai Gorge), Ngorongoro Crater is a perfect site for the legendary 'garden of Eden'. In addition to being the home of approximately 25,000 large animals - wildebeest, buffalo, rhino, hippopotamus, lion, elephant, hyena, warthog, leopard and cheetah - Ngoronogoro is also the world's largest, unflooded, unbroken volcanic caldera.

Following our departure from the Serengeti, we camped on the crater's edge, which at a height of approximately 1,200 metres above sea level, was very, very cold. To make matters worse, my stomach had turned on me and at about 11pm I had to clamber out of the tent and make my way through the cold, dark night to what passes for toilet facilities at the campsite.

After successfully navigating my way through that experience, I was headed back to the tent when I heard a rustling in the nearby bushes - grabbing a flashlight from a fellow camper, I was shocked to discover an adult buffalo wandering around the edges of the camp!! Given that this animal is more than capable of delivering a swift death through either trampling or goring, we cautiously retreated and

Descending to the Crater Floor

let the buffalo continue it's wandering undisturbed (it was soon chased off by the local guides).

Once back at the tent, I settled into my sleeping bag (glad for the first time of it's "freezing" rating) and drifted off to sleep looking forward to the pre-dawn wake up call that would signal our departure for the crater floor the following day.

The next morning, we headed off in the 4x4 to descend 700 metres to the crater floor via a rough, rocky dirt track - also known as an "elephant path". As we approached the Crater's soda lake which is home to thousands and thousands of pink flamingos and several pods of hippos, I became very concerned when I realized that my camera's memory card was full and I had left my spares back in Arusha!! Here I was in arguably the best spot on earth for photographing wildlife and I had no spare space.....DOH!!

I then spent the next few minutes wildly reviewing and deleting photos from the previous day - luckily I had taken hundreds of lion shots the previous day and was quickly able to make more room on the card. Boy, am I

Spotted Hyena on the Prowl

glad I did - that day we saw more wildlife than in the rest of the trip through Africa put together. It was breathtaking - hyenas, hippos, flamingos, eagles, elephants, rhino, warthogs, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, a cheetah and the highlight - EIGHT (Yes, EIGHT), fully grown male Lions (including one that was mid-mate and four that were eating a Zebra)!!

After several hours of driving around with our mouths gaping at the abundant wildlife - we saw four of the Big Five that morning - we headed out of the crater with sadness, but very, very glad that the Crater had not disappointed. Even the drive back to the exit of the NCA was amazing - hundreds of wildebeest were running in single file across the plain until their leader got confused and they all scattered in different directions.

The only low point of the Serengeti / Ngorongoro excursion was that as we were leaving the Serengeti we came across a commuter bus (also known as a "chicken bus") that had overturned trying to negotate it's way around some dirt piles left in the middle of the dirt road (apparently to slow down traffic). It seemed like

Hippos and Flamingos

everyone had made it out ok, but we later learned that someone had been killed in an attempt to jump from the bus as it was crashing.

All in all, the trip into the Serengeti and Ngorongoro had been the highlight of our "Overland Adventure" and was right up there with the Bwindi Gorilla Tracking as top experience in Africa.

Arriving back at the Arusha campsite, we took a quick walk through the nearby Masai village (which was quite disappointing), packed our belongings, said our goodbyes and headed off to the four star New Arusha Hotel where we would spend one night (until 4am) in luxury before heading for Dubai enroute to Cairo.

P.S - we got to see the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro from the Kili Airport - apparently it is only visible several times a year!!

Additional photos below

Photos: 20, Displayed: 20