Ngorongoro 'The Garden of Eden'

Ngorongoro is the second largest caldera or crater in the world and at the Uldavai Gorge there is fossil evidence of hominoid life in this region for 3 million years. Man's oldest footsteps were discovered not far from here and our local guide described it as the original Garden of Eden.

 From the rim there is only one road up and one road down. When I asked how the many migrating herds of animals that dwell in the crater get in and out our guide said they 'have their ways'.  On the south east is the Great Rift Valley and volcanic mountains surround the area on the north. We pitched our tent on a slope overlooking the crater and hoped for a good nights sleep. This area is 

home to the Maasai who were moved out of the Serengeti to Ngongoro in recent years. Our campsite was very close to the small Maasai village that looked much like a frontier town in the old west. We would head down into the crater early in the morning for out game drive and then head back to Arusha. Our Maasai guards could be relied on to keep the animals out of camp tonight. 

The park ranger manning the road into the crater told me it was always very windy on the rim. We had cold wet wind for most of the night tugging at the tent. The temperature was cool despite the fact that we were only a few degrees from the equator. 

The next morning we headed down into the crater. At one end close to the entrance there is a forested area with lots of baboons, warthogs and zebra. The zebra in particular fearlessly cross back and forth across the dirt road. One zebra kept showing us his teeth (a sign of dominance). Baby warthogs and families of jackals were spotted, but the illusive black rhino was too far from the road to photograph. This is one of the few remaining areas with rhinos. We did see one among the buffalo and the wildebeest. 

The lions were plentiful in the crater where they had a constant food source. Here groups of males seem to lolly gag in the grass without a care in the world even though we were only a few feet away.