Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

The Ngorongoro Crater is to the west of Arusha, on the way to the Serengeti. It's some 2500m high and the descent from the rim down to the crater's floor is 610m. It is a spectacular place and I'm really glad that we decided to (splurge) and go because even though we saw our fill of animals in Etosha Park in Namibia, the setting here is something that you don't soon forget. Mix that with the piece-of-shit Land Rover that we and our excellent guide were saddled with and you have an unforgettable day.

Stephen the guide picked us up early and we piled into the Rover for the 3 hour trip to the Crater. Way back when in Amsterdam, we had met a woman from Toronto who did some volunteer work in a town on the road to the park so we stopped in for a visit. That town, ominously called "Mosquito Town" in Kiswahili is in the Rift Valley, a magnificent ridged area that apparently stretches all the way to Turkey...


Road through Rift Valley.

After our visit, we climbed out of the valley and headed to the Crater Park on a wonderful tarmack road that, I learned later, had been paid for by the Japanese Govt. That night we stayed in a new lodge inside the park, the advantage of which was that it would take less time to get down to the crater floor in the morning, when the animals would be most active. Given that the lodge has no fence, however, meant that we had to be careful moving about and indeed, they provided a Masai escort back to our room after dinner... (apparently the night before there had been some lions prowling about...).



Back at the room after a nice meal, we were greeted by the sight of 3 huge buffalo (the dangerous, charge at humans kind) right outside our back window/porch. One was actually half under the porch and we got a nice and close look when we shone the flashlight on him.

Next morning we descended into the park and were amazed at the views... absolutely fantastic. And the animals! So many of them so close together! Hippos, lions, elephants, monkeys, the works and all within a couple hours' drive.

Ah yes, driving... our poor Land Rover was truly on its last legs and burned oil like it was going out of style. Oh and at one point the accelerator stuck and the cab filled with smoke and fumes, which had Helene literally jumping out of the truck for fear that we were on fire...

We used up all of our extra oil and barely made it up the slope when we left the crater around midday after our picnic... which deserves its own entry...