Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater was definitely the trip highlight! I know I said that about other places, but seriously, I'm happier knowing that the crater is still out there, with all it's wildlife going on about it's business inside.

The day started with a long drive of the worst African Massage type. We left the Serengeti early, looking at wildlife on the way out. For most of the morning drive, though, it was just hot, bumpy, and not very fun. At one point I really had to pee, and there wasn't a single bit of brush, plus there was the possibility of lions. So, I had to go behind the bus. Just after I finished a couple of jeeps appeared. I have to say, I have good peeing luck - it seems like I frequently just finish and someone appears.

Anyhow, we got to the crater and I looked down thinking "well that's not really so exciting." For the trip we went in a 4x4 instead of our bus, so we switched vehicles and drove on down. The first thing we saw was a huge elephant with the most enormous tusks! I can't imagine how an animal walks around with those growing from its face. Once we got to the bottom, our guide was off like a shot. I didn't really understand at first, he was speeding past everything - zebras, buffalo, warthogs, gazelles, birds.... But then it turned out that there was a rhino in the distance that he wanted us to see!  I could kind of make it out clearly through the binoculars, though it was pretty far away. That completed the Big 5 for us. After we could slow down and enjoy more.

We went to a picnic area and were able to get out of the car. The picnic area pond was full of hippos (as so often happens). Most were just hanging out, but there were a few swimming. One of the swimmers tried to join the hangers, and there was a bit of a hippo fight. Cool! Poor swimming hippo lost and swam off.

We drove around admiring the animals - more ostriches, some elephants, giraffes, all kinds of grazing animals. And then there was another traffic jam, lions!  The lion scene was amazing. At first we saw just this male lion lying next to a buffalo carcus, pretty much in the same way that I lie around after Thanksgiving dinner. That lion was stuffed. All around him were the scavengers waiting for their turn, 4 jackles and 2 vultures. At one point one of the jackles tried to muscle in on the lions food, and the lion got up, walked right over to the carcus, and collapsed right next to it. It was kind of hilarious.
Our guide noticed another male lion right by the road, which was a bit surprising because males don't hang out together, and because males are so lazy - killing a buffalo is a lot of work. We drove closer to the other male. When we finally got really close to it, we saw that there was a female there too, she was napping in the middle of the road, with that same Thanksgiving overeating exhaustion. Everyone had to drive around her, but she didn't care at all. Eventually she got up, walked a bit, and collapsed again. Our guides were like "lets wait a few minutes and see what they do." Sure enough, the second male and the female put on quite the show for us! As they finished, they both roared :)  Then the female came right over to our jeep and sat down next to the back tire. Having a lion curled up next to your car sounds cool, but actually isn't the safest thing apparently, so the driver tried to move, which lead to the lion giving out another roar. She could roar, that's for sure!

As we drove up the crater I took a bunch of pictures because it seemed so much cooler and more amazing than on the way down.

After the crater, we changed into our biking gear for a short 15 km bike ride to our camping destination in Karatu. The ride was "undulating" which meant "hilly." But it was only 15 km, and not too bad. I was excited when we got to the campground because I wasn't that far behind everyone else, and it was a pretty easy ride. Plus, there was a nice fence and no hyenas!