Day 310 – Tanzania

August 11, 2010 – Ngorongoro Crater National Park to Arusha, Tanzania

Tour Day 5 – Ngorongoro Crater National Park

After breakfast, descend into the Ngorongoro Crater for game drive. Picnic lunch at the hippo pool, afternoon ascend to the crater rim and drive to Arusha.

I’m starting to feel a little repetitive with all the safari entries, so this time I’m going to let the photos do most of the “talking”…


It’s cold, it’s foggy and it’s early, but I’m still revved up & ready to go.

We descend into the crater just after the fog has risen up from the floor, so this is our first glimpse of this unique ecosystem.


What makes the Ngorongoro Crater one-of-a-kind is that it’s developed its own balanced ecosystem which provides the animals in it with everything they need, from food to water to shelter. And since it has such steep sides, once most animals arrive, they don’t leave. As a result the herd sizes can get quite large…


Thankfully, there’s a good selection of predators on site to keep the herds in check.


Between here and the Serengeti, Eric and I have now seen the entire lion family – lions, lionesses & cubs.

Andrew takes us up to a look-out point on a hill which is believed to be the peak of the mountain prior to it collapsing in and creating the crater… wild!


We continue to cruise around, though Eric and I aren’t really on the look-out for animals. It’s just so cool here that we’re really enjoying the landscape on its own… there’s everything from savannah to marsh to forests.

For lunch we stop at a hippo pool and although we can see them off in the distance, we’re more concerned with the flock of small birds our sandwiches have attracted.


I feel like they’re trying to figure out the best way to attack us and steal our lunch.

Eventually our food is eaten – by us – and the birds leave, so we continue cruising around.


This is the last safari for our trip and as we ride around, we both try and take as much of it in as we can.


Eventually Andrew lets us know it’s time to go …


… so with one final glimpse of the crater, we make our way back up to the camp to pick-up David, pack-up our site and head back to Arusha.

But not without snapping a “family photo”, of course.


Just me and the boys.

We arrive back in Arusha late afternoon and after saying our good-byes, Eric & I rush up to our room to have a long-awaited shower.

Recapping our safari, we both agree this is definitely one of the highlights of our whole trip.

Thank you Andrew, David & Masha from Sunny Safaris – you made our Serengeti experience amazing!