Safari 2011: Ngorongoro Crater & Ndutu

Wednesday, January 19^th

Once again I’m sitting on a veranda before dinner, this time looking at a vista of umbrella acacias towards Lake Magadi from Ndutu Lodge, just outside the south-eastern border of the Serengeti National Park, serenaded by a splendid chorus of evening birdsong. We both feel an overwhelming sense of having come home today. Strange, since we only lived here for three years, a very long time ago, in the area which is the cradle of man, not far from Olduvai Gorge. Helmut always loved it here because the landscape as well as living in the bush reminded him of his childhood in the Chaco district of Paraguay. I don’t know why I did, since I dislike the hot climate and nothing in my experience prepared me for this life. But I do. I love the sounds and smells; the wide-open spaces and the freedom of living in a warm wild place.

We got up before dawn this morning and saw the full moon set before breakfast at 6. We’d have been on the road by 7, but this is Africa, and our first flat tire awaited us. It didn’t delay us for long, however, though it concerns us that we have only two tubeless spares so can’t repair them ourselves! They say they can repair it here at Ndutu, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed. The vehicle we have rented looked OK at first sight and will probably do the job, but it seems to be at the stage in a car’s life when one discovers it’s no longer worth selling so one may as well drive it until it dies. The engine is tired and the body shows evidence that it may have been rolled. Rubber bands, duct tape, worn gears & ill fitting doors are some of its features.

The Ngorongoro Crater was glorious. Absolutely worth the US $100 per person per entry on top of the US $50 a day per person fees just for being in the conservation area. A huge caldera about 16 km across, it’s like an island, with the mammalian wildlife mostly remaining in the crater for life, like a giant zoo. We saw most of the large African mammals at close quarters in the four hours or so we were there. Conspicuous by their absence were giraffes in the Lerai Forest! An animal that was abundant everywhere in Tanzania and Kenya when we lived here, outside as well as inside game parks, we didn’t see our first small family group until we were descending down to the Serengeti plains, and even here in the woodland they are few and far between, though it’s teaming with wildebeast, zebra and gazelles. We didn’t see a rhino either, though there are supposed to be some in the crater. There were of course elephants and lions, gazelles, dikdik, zebra, wildebeest, ostriches, flamingos, baboons and vervet monkeys, jackals, bat eared foxes, wart hogs and hyenas and gazillions of birds large and small. The hippos we saw only in the distance because they weren’t in their pool, but out on the grassland, grazing. The crater, indeed everywhere, is bright spring green after the short rains and the animals are spread out all over the grassland rather than concentrated near drainage lines and water holes.

View of the crater from the rim

Descent into the crater

Zebra and Wildebeast on the crater floor

Crown Cranes

Crater Elephant

Grant's Gazelle

Lilac Breasted Roller

Crater Lion

Wildebeast

More Zebra and Wildebeast

Waterbuck

We returned to Rhino Lodge to eat our lunch and pick up our bags, then set off down the other side of the crater to the Serengeti Plains. We turned left off the main road across the plains just at the border of the Serengeti National Park, towards Ndutu Lodge, where we spent a comfortable night. The old building has been replaced by a new dining room and reception/office area, but has retained some of the old character and atmosphere of the place. To our astonishment, a few descendants of the forty or so genets who made the roof and rafters of the lodge their home in the old days still come out every evening to play on the rafters and amuse the guests! The rooms, singles and pairs, are all in separate bandas spread out in a line facing the lake.

A giraffe at last on the road from Ngorongoro to the Serengeti plains!

A Masai Boma. Masai herd their animals on the slopes of Ngorongoro, where one sees herds of cows, goats and donkeys next to herds of wildebeast and zebra.

Mixed herds of cows, wildebeast and ostriches

Male Ostrich

Serengeti National Park boundary gate

Road to Ndutu

Ndutu Lodge

Lounge

Our banda

This chameleon was in the tree beside our room

Flamingos

In the morning we took a drive and game run to Lake Masek to see the flamingos before setting off in the afternoon for Dunia Camp, near Moru Kopjes in the Serengeti National Park.