Tanzania 15: A "safari" through Ngorongoro Crater

After church, we did the "tourist thing" before beginning the mission trip the next day.... to a game drive through the nearby famous Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a huge crater that is referred as the "eighth wonder of the world". Volcanic eruptions millions of years ago formed this giant caldera, around 100 square miles and 2000 feet deep.

It is unique in Tanzania as it offers protection for not only the animals, but also allows the Maasai to live there and maintain their traditional lifestyle of herding their goats and cattle. (No wonder they need a fence around their villages!)

It is the most dense concentration of wildlife in Africa...20,000 - 30,000 animals at one time and include the "BIG FIVE": the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhinoceros, including the endangered black rhino. The term was actually coined by big game hunters, referring to the difficulty and danger in finding these animals and capturing (or killing) them. But besides these, there is almost every species of wildlife in East Africa, except the giraffe. We were thrilled to see all of the "big 5" except for the leopard.......

Besides the "big 5", we kept our eyes open for gazelles, ostrich, hyenas, wildebeests, zebras, and could barely make out the flocks of pink flamingos in the lake at the center of the crater...