August 20 - Ngorongoro Game Drive

This morning we met the rest of our group at 6:30 am so we could have a full day in the Ngorongoro crater. We made box lunches, and piled into the cars and made our way to the gate of the park. The Ngorongoro Conservation area is actually adjacent to the Serengeti, but don't let that fool you, both areas are HUGE. At the gate we learned that we learned that the crater was formed by what used to be a volcano. The volcano erupted, and lost so much mass from inside itself that it collapsed inward, making it technically a 'caldera'. Ngorongoro is the largest fully in-tact, not full of water, caldera in the world. This is t,he area (not the exact park), where the skeleton of Lucy was found, as well as many other very old ancestral human remains.

As we descended into the crater around 8:35 am the biggest thought that went through our heads was “If Jurrasic Park could exist anywhere, it would be here”. There were so many different types of areas to see and explore for animals. There were grass plains which were so thick that a cape buffalo could lie down and be hidden from view. There were jungle like twisted trees and vines along the edge of the crater, a lake inside the crater (with a fun view of some flamingos!). And many marshy areas filled with hippos.

By 8:50 we had seen our first new animal of the day, called a jackal. After lunch we saw a cheetah stalking a group of gazelles (or as Donald likes to call them “Cheetah Chow”). As the cheetah grew closer, the gazelles caught sight of him and all ran away. The cheetah didn't pursue because, according to our guide Ndasikoi he was already a little chubby from already having eatten. However the cheetah experience made us realize that safari's have a lot in common with deep sea fishing. The drivers (sea captains) call each other to let each other know when they have found a unique animal (a place with fish), and then all the drivers (sea captains) go there with their land cruisers (fishing boats) so that their passengers can take pictures (catch fish).

We soon found ourselves at a pool of water with many hippos in it escaping the heat of the day. There was a baby hippo, so tiny...well by that I mean roughly the size of Mom's dog Fea, who was trying to climb up on the momma hippo, it was impossibly cute!

By 4 o'clock we were beginning to be a little disappointed that we hadn't yet seen a rhinoceros. As we approached the rim of the crater our driver spotted one off in the distance. Our camera's couldn't quite take good pictures, but we were all able to see them with our binoculars! We were so excited, we have now seen four of the BIG FIVE. The reason that the lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhinoceros are called the big five, is because if you shoot one and don't kill it...it will kill you. So here is our picture of the rhinoceros, we hope you are able to find him ;).

Today was a great day, and was marked by seeing lions, lots of cape buffalo, herds of wildebeest, and more along with the animals mentioned above. We climbed out of the crater in the evening (I think Sean left permanent dents in the arm rest with his white knuckles) and headed back to our hotel for dinner.