Ngorongoro Crater – Good-Bye to Africa

Ngorongoro Crater

After the Serengeti our safari was coming to a close but on our way back to Arusha we had one more stop to make, Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is a microcosm of the African wilderness, its 300 square kilometres provides a self contained environment to support elephants, rhinos, zebras, wildebeests, lions, hippos, and more. This was our last chance to see African wildlife and if lucky we maybe a lion in action.

Rhinoceros

Before descending the 400m into the crater we spent a cool night camping near the lip of the crater. (Even at the equator things can get cold when you are 2000 metres above sea level.) From our vantage point we could look down and make out herds of animals and at night when the campsite was quiet you could here lions roaring from the crater floor. But this was later drowned out by the sound of zebras grazing next to our tent.

Wildebeest with calf

The visit to the crater began early in the morning and was short just 5 hours but we were continuously seeing wildlife. It was a morning of stopping for lines of wildebeest as they headed to their watering hole, seeing our first rhinos, and watching a lioness as she finished off killing a wildebeest. It was another great day on safari and Ngorongoro was a fitting good bye to Africa. It gave us our chance to see once again all the animals that we had become so familiar with over the last 7 days. We were satisfied with what we had been able to see which was more than we had imagined.

With our safari crew

With my head out the top of the safari vehicle, looking over the crater, and recalling all that we had seen in the last seven days, I could feel myself grinning from ear to ear. It had been a wonderful experience. Any doubts about visiting Africa had long disappeared, our African safari had been the right thing to do.





For more of our pictures of Norongoro Crater, check out our web album.