Ngorongoro Crater - Sunday, 9 August 2015
We drove with Ombeni today and left the serengeti. On the way out of the park we saw many familiar animals: ostrich, Thompson gazelle, great gazelle, impala, elephants. We stopped at the entrance station to pay the fee for Ngorongoro Crater. We climbed to the top of the kopje for a grand view.We drove back to the Ngorongoro overlook, but this time we took the road down to the bottom. It is a long, winding, one-way, dirt road. We needed to engage the 4-wheel drive to navigate the road safely.
As we reached the crater floor, visibility was poor because the clouds were still hugging the crater rim.
The gray-crowned crane posed and flew for us.
As the morning passed, visibility improved, until we could see the top of the crater rim. Lots of groups of animals: zebras, wildebeests, impala, cape buffalo and humans in safari vehicles.
We drove by a small lake and saw a group of hippos resting on each other. A calf was nursing.
Somehow, Ombeni spotted green snakes in green reeds.
We also saw sacred ibis, blacksmith plover, kori bustard, black egret and yellow-billed storks.
It was the middle of the day and the animals were resting.
We stopped for lunch at a rest area that had a lake with resident hippos. The view to the rim of the crater was still obscured this late in the day.
Rufous-tailed weavers and yellow-billed kites were buzzing the diners.
After lunch we saw a new born gazelle. Ombeni thought it had been born that day.
We saw some more lazy lions and a lazy hyena. As we were taking photos, Ombeni scanned a distant herd of wildebeest and saw a rhino.
We drove out of the crater, seeing beautiful panoramas on the ascent.
We drove back to the Ngorongoro Farm House, but this time we stayed at the sister lodge on the hill, Ngorongoro Valley Farm House.
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