I am not sure if time works different in Tanzania, but it feels like I have been up quite early each day. For today, I was up at 5:30am but there was a good reason—we are going into the Ngorongoro Crater. For some background, the Ngorongoro Crater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest volcanic caldera (collapsed volcano crater) in the world. I am very excited for our drive today, as I have been looking forward to seeing the wide variety of wildlife that the crater is known for.
Even though we were up quite early, with the travel time and entrance gate wait, we did not get down to the crater floor until around 10:30am. This allowed for some nice time to check out the scene at the entrance gate (pictured), as well as the immaculate views as we climbed up and down into the crater (pictured).
Ngorongoro Crater Entrance Gate (with a Black Rhino Cutout)
Foggy Abyss on the Climb Up the Crater Wall
View into the Ngorongoro Crater
Once we got down into the crater, the environment and wildlife truly were unmatched. We saw warthogs, flamingoes, Cape buffalo, elephants, hippos, lions, and many other animals (pictured). The Cape buffalo were especially interesting to see since we saw a group which all had cattle egrets on them showing a great example of a symbiotic relationship where the cattle egret would feed on flies that were around the buffaloes. Although not a natural wonder, we even saw an overturned Land Cruiser in the crater—it had an eerie similarity to the start of a Jurassic Park movie… (pictured).
Warthogs Roaming for Grass
Cape Buffalo and Cattle Egrets in Harmony
Lion Laying in the Grass
Overturned Land Cruiser (with a resemblance too eerily similar to the opening scene of Jurassic Park)
For my assigned taxon, the only group I observed today were warthogs. I was hoping to see Rhinos within the crater as they do live in these types of environment and there are some found in the crater. Unfortunately though, they are quite endangered and their population in the crater is very small so it is extremely rare to find them. As for mongeese, I was also hoping to find them but they are quite small and generally burrow so it would be harder to spot them.
After our day in the crater, we made our way to Olduvai Gorge where we are spending the remainder of the trip. We got to the Aguirre-Mturi Research Station in the Gorge right around sunset just in time to set up our tents. The views around the camp are spectacular (pictured) and I am very excited to see what life is like at the research station in the coming week!
The View from our Tents At Olduvai Gorge
-Milton
