On the final day of our Safari, we were scheduled to have a morning game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater. In April, we had seen the "Big Five" (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino) two days in a row in our 2 game drives in the Crater. Rob and I were hoping for a recurrence, and we were anxious to get the family into this most famous safari destination. When we discussed our itinerary with our guides, however, we discovered that we were actually scheduled for only one drive in the Crater on the final morning of the safari, and that we were staying in a Lodge that was around 80 Kilometers from the entrance. In April, we had stayed in a lodge right on the rim of the Crater, but they fill up early and didn't have room for a party our size. All the information I had about the Ndutu Safari Lodge made it sound fantastic, though, so other than the drive, we were looking forward to the stay. Early in the safari, however, we had discussed with our guides the possibility of a Crater game drive on the evening of the day we left the Serengeti for Ndutu, and had decided that this was the preferred course of action. We were so sure that the Crater would be the perfect climax of the safari.
As I mentioned previously, when you enter a game park, you have to get a permit that is per car, per guide, per person, per day. At the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, you have to get an additional permit per entrance to the Crater. As we had discussed our plan to do two Crater drives early in our safari and agreed to pay the additional fee for the second trip into the Crater, we assumed that the appropriate permits had been purchased by our guides when we first entered the Conservation Area. There is only one road that leads from Arusha to the Serengeti, and it is also the only road that you can take to Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. These parks are nearly contiguous, so you have to go through one to get to the next. There is no other road back to Arusha, so you have to go back through the same parks to get home. This is the dusty track that made the "bad" car so attractive to us. The Ndutu Safari Lodge is approximately 28 Kilometers off this track at about the point where the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area meet. There isn't really even a road, there is just a sort of hint of a track in the dust running off into the plain. As we drove past the gate where the parks meet, we saw the sign for Ndutu. That was approximately the time when Rob and I felt that maybe we'd been too anxious for the Crater. We drove on past the Olduvai Gorge, past the Masaai steppes and finally into the Crater Highlands. It was a long drive.
The Ngorongoro Crater is located in the highlands just at the escarpment of the Rift Valley. Millions of years ago, this was the edge of the fault line, and the movement of the land produced a line of volcanoes which include what is now the crater highlands and Mounts Meru and Kilimanjaro. As you can see, I'm not a geologist either. I bought a book, though, so armed with the real science, I'll tell you what I understand. The Ngorongoro Crater is actually a Caldera, which means that it was once a volcanic peak which sort of imploded and resulted in a sunken area surrounded by walls which once were the sides of the mountain. Tanzania has always advertised the Ngorongoro Crater as the largest Caldera in the world. A Japanese geologist disputed this, however, and listed 5 Calderas (4 of them in Japan and 1 in the Philippines) as larger, but they are either filled with water or have significant breaks in their rims. The Tanzanians have acknowledged that there are some Calderas that are larger, but the Ngorongoro Crater remains the largest unflooded, unbroken Caldera in the world. It is 19 Km long by 16 Km across, and has a land area of 320 square kilometers. All of this information is found by page 10 of my little 50 page book. There's probably a lot more that is interesting in this book, but that's as far as I got.
The Ngorongoro Crater is famous for having the tremendous variety of wildlife that you can see in Tanzania, except giraffe, all resident in one place. The wildebeest and zebra don't migrate, the salt lake supports flamingoes, the forests harbor elephant and baboons, the rhinos graze the plains, and the big cats rule the hills. There are no giraffes because there are no tall acacia trees. In other words, if you have only 1day for a safari, you'll get your money's worth in the Crater - no problem. Plus, this is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It would be worth a trip even if there were no animals in it at all - but there are, and a few of them are rhinos!
Finally, after the long ride on that dusty track, we arrived at the descent road into the crater. It was mid-afternoon and the view from the top was fantastic. The Masaai are allowed to graze their cattle in the crater, but must leave for the night. As we arrived, they were beginning their departure. Their cattle, some with bells, were walking single file up a trail at the edge of the wall adding to the uniqueness of the view. We could see safari vehicles and make out small bunches of animals in the Crater floor, but couldn't quite figure out what they were. The decent roads are steep, rocky, unpaved tracks built right on the edge. They are only about 1 car wide, so there are other roads for the ascent. For once, the "bad" car was better than the "good" car, although in a kind of hair-raising rush downhill sort of way. Once we were safely down to the bottom, we began our game drive. We were looking for rhinos. We had seen 4 of the Big Five by day 2, and then repeated all but the Leopard in subsequent sightings. This was our only chance to see rhinos, as they are nearly extinct and the ones in the Serengeti are hidden by the Rhino Project and guarded heavily against poachers. Even the rhinos in the Crater have armed guards to protect them. Unfortunately, there had been no rhino sightings that day, or the day before, so even the guide to guide chatter couldn't help us in our search. Everyone, including the Rhino Project must leave the Crater by 6 PM, so sometimes in the night, the rhinos move and it takes a day or two to find them again. Bummer, we'd come so far and been so successful, we needed those rhinos to make our safari a perfect success!
When it was time to go that evening, we still hadn't seen any rhinos. Bill had picked out a rare Serval cat, which my boys also saw - tick off another critter in the old book, but we otherwise, it was a quiet day in the Crater. We saw the odd cheetah and a couple of lions, hippos, lots of birds, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, etc. Just another boring day on Safari. We headed out of the Crater, and back to that dusty track to the Ndutu Lodge. Rob and I thought that we needed more time in the Crater, we should start out really early on the last day of the safari so that we could maximize our time to hunt rhinos. With the help of our guide, we were hatching a plan.
The Ndutu Lodge is a beautiful place. It lies on the edge of the Ndutu lake, which was completely dry. We drove over the unmarked track in the dark, watching African Hares and Jackals and the odd gazelle dart out of our headlights. When we finally arrived, the Lodge was a very welcome sight. It is literally in the middle of nowhere! There are no signs of civilization anywhere. It is a fantastically beautiful place. The accommodations are in stone bandas, and the electricity was provided by a generator. We showered and plugged in our cameras to recharge the batteries for the final game drive the next day. There is absolutely no other light, other than from the stars and the moon. On the night we stayed at Ndutu, there was a rainstorm with lightning somewhere over the northern part of the Serengeti Plain. We saw the lightning from so far away, that we had to ask if that was really what we were seeing.
The plan, if we all agreed, was to get up early the next morning and take our breakfast with us in a box. We could then have the entire morning in the Crater, and then have lunch at a place called Gibbs Farm (which is somehow related to the Ndutu Safari Lodge) on our way back to Arusha. The permits that you purchase are good for a 24 hour period, and way back when we had originally purchased our permits for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, it had been 1 in the afternoon. We had until 1 PM to get back out of the Conservation Area the next day. Great Plan!
Glitch number 1, there were some late sleepers who had been on safari for 5 days now, who were tired and wanted to sleep late.
Glitch number 2, the electricity was by generator, which was supposed to be turned on at 5:30 AM.
Glitch number 3, the permits.
Dinner was fantastic at Ndutu! The food was all organically grown and prepared to perfection. With the exception of a fly in Karen's wine, it was flawless. We even had the benefit of checking off yet another new sighting when our dinner was observed from the rafters by a beautiful Large-Spotted Genet, a cat like creature, who was obviously quite at home at Ndutu. After a spirited debate about the merits of sleeping in vs. the benefits of an early start, we settled on a dual departure, with the slower "bad" car leaving at 6, and the quicker "good" car departing at 6:15. Pretty good, except for the fact that the electricity, which was promised at 5:30 didn't actually come on until 10 minutes to 6. Not to be deterred, I packed up by flashlight, and was ready to go, with Rob, the boys, and Karen filling out the "early" car, by 6:05 AM. The "late" car would follow, and would, it turns out, have to make a quick stop at the ranger station to purchase the permit to allow us our second descent into the Crater - remember, we had assumed this had been done days ago when we got the original permits. OK, so what is it that is often said of the best laid plans? Unfortunately, the ranger station in Ndutu needed the copy of the original permit, which was in the previously departed "bad" car, so the "bad" car ended up passing the descent road in favor of a side trip to another ranger station to purchase the permit and then backtracking to meet up with the "good" car, which at that point had long since reached the descent point. So much for the benefit of an early start! Finally, at about 9, we began our descent and were headed for the picnic area in the bottom of the Crater for our long delayed breakfast.
The bad news: the picnic area was packed! The good news: they were all looking at the RHINOS! There they were, at the crest of a hill just behind the picnic areas - two perfect specimens. They were lying at the top of a little rise about 200 yards behind the toilets. Thank goodness, all that anxiety about whether it had been a good idea or a bad idea to push for the early departure was erased when we saw the rhinos. One rhino even stood up in perfect profile so we could photograph him. The perfect safari - we had bagged the perfect safari! Now we could go, there was absolutely no pressure. We had seen everything we'd set out to see! (With the exception of the Kudu - but that's for the Tanzania Nooters' next adventure, sometime when we can afford to do it again!)
We piddled around in the Crater until noon, and then headed up the ascent. The drive to Gibbs Farm for lunch was uneventful. We had a great lunch and a little shop at Gibbs Farm and then headed for Arusha. Six days and 5 nights of safari in the most amazing parks in the world! I'd do it all again in a minute!
Mount Kilimanjaro was next on our list of things to do, but I'll have to tell you about that some other time.
Hope your summer vacations were as perfect!
Take care,
Barb
