VIEWS ON A MISTY DAY AT THE NGORONGORO CRATER

We enjoyed our evening dinner with our fellow safarist, a good night’s sleep and an early breakfast followed by loading up the Land Cruisers with our luggage to begin our day trek into the canyon crater. Ngorongoro crater is a wonder of the natural world – a wildlife haven to be viewed from the roads. The Land Cruisers now have to stick to the road in the crater and there are many more vehicles to notice. We were no longer alone.

Beautiful views across the caldera floor.

Little foxes on the right side cuddling to avoid the misty rain and a lion and his mate on the left side. What a mane on this big boy…however…

Incredible animal portraits on our way easing on down the road.

When we arrived at a dead end in a quarry, we met tons of other Land Cruisers. It was a different feeling being surrounded by other vehicles all jockeying to see these two lions. The lions were nonplussed. We were the last in and the last to leave which left us watching these lions begin to look for food for lunch.

For our lunch, we enjoyed a bloat of hippos in the water – they were on the left and the lone bull elephant and his white birds were enjoying the mud on the right.

What a mug and doesn’t that nap look like love? Thanks Larkin for the great photos!

Incredible families of wildebeests. Brand new babies with the placenta still hanging out of the mother and cute faced babies a few weeks or more old!

Warthog families going left and warthog families going right.

The grey-crowned crane is the national bird of Tanzania…quite stunning!

Birds birds and more birds. I was never a birder but loved seeing all these different birds. Gareth butchers, blacksmith lapwing, ostriches, flamingoes, yellow billed storks, white stork, egyptian goose, african spoonbill, kori bustard, spikes weaver, african sacred ibis and tawny eagles and more. Each designed uniquely to obtain food.

The animals and their birds…from cape buffalo to elephants to wildebeest or hippopotamus’ – it is easy to find big game with or near birds.

More zebras – moms and babies.

From the crater we had to climb back up to the rim and head down a muddy – on what seemed less than a two lane road but was quite a thoroughfare – toward the Plantation Lodge in Karatu. The cloudy, misty day continued on our drive.