One of the memories of our trip is definitely going to be camping on the Ngorongoro Crater rim. Once again, animals woke us up during the night, and they were quite funny: first of all, we had cape buffalo feeding right next to our tent at night, waking us up with their munching (Elizabeth could feel the ground moving from the eating!); then in the early morning I heard a big commotion, which turned out to be bush pigs raiding the cooking area.

It was a gorgeous sunrise to start the day, which was a whole day just inside the Ngorongoro Crater. We dropped down into the crater, which was a switchback along a very bumpy road. After about 30 minutes or so, we were in!

Today was a great day, two things really surprised me: how relatively small the crater is to drive around; and the amazing variety within such a small area. There was a big lake, marshlands, arid desert, mountains along the edge, forest, trees, and some grassy plains. This tiny panoramic doesn't do it justice, but you can visit the full photo gallery for a larger version:

I'd say we saw almost the whole range of wildlife inside the crater, except for giraffe, cheetah and leopard. I'll start with the bird photos.

Kori Bustard

Pelican, Egrets and Sacred Ibis flying

Vultures

Early on, we spent a while following a male lion who at first seemed calm with our jeeps, but then slowly meandered away. A bit later, a lioness was just lounging in the shade of a jeep on one of the dirt roads, then eventually got up and passed right behind our jeep, where I got a good closeup of her face.

As we were moving between locations, we had some brief rains for a few minutes, but other than having to stop to raise/lower/raise the roof, it wasn't a big deal. This year had much more rain this early on than usual, so inside the crater it was muddier than usual, meaning the drivers had to negotiate some pretty fun sections:

After a brief stop for lunch (which involved Elizabeth being dive-bombed by birds for the pasta on her plate), we were largely left on our own, since it seemed that the other tour groups had given up after the short rain. Either that, or our guides were more courageous than the others and were going to more remote areas. Regardless, we went to a great zebra area, where they seemed much more used to jeeps and didn't run away when we slowed down or stopped. This gave way to some fun zebra pics.

As the afternoon was wrapping up, we saw a few black rhino in the *far* distance, and then had our elephant experience. There was a group of about 4 bull elephants, and one was clearly curious about us. He slowly came our way, casually eating the grass as he went, and just came closer and closer while the others remained further back. But at one point we could count almost 30 elephants both up close and along the horizon. We were the only two jeeps out there, the engines were off, and we just experienced the presence of the gentle giant.

We rounded up the day by driving out through a small rainforest section, where we saw some more baboons (and the other jeep saw monkeys), then wound our way up a very steep and *very* bumpy road. Tried taking photos and video, but after being thrown around had to stop. Here's my last photo from the Ngorongoro Crater, looking back down onto the winding road.

Sad to say, that was the end of our Ngorongoro Crater animal experience - well almost...

When we got back to the campsite, I took advantage of a shower, then we had dinner and hung around a campfire, chatting with our guides and learning about their experiences and training. As we're doing this, we saw pairs of eyes looking at us from the edge of the campsite - hyenas! This was so cool that a few of us went out with our flashlights and slowly walked towards them. They are very wary and would just slink out of sight, beyond the range of a camera flash; but very cool nonetheless.

And so ended our Serengeti adventure. We saw a lot, took tons of photos and videos and could have taken even more. This has been my lifelong dream, just to be in the Serengeti and experience these amazing animals in their natural environment. I'm sure I'll have many more thoughts to add over time, especially as I review the photos; but in the meantime, tomorrow we leave, a straight drive to Moshi and the Kilimanjaro Marathon - www.kilimanjaro.cn or www.kilimanjaro.in

Cheers!
Bryan

03/02/07 by bryan+elizabeth
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