More cow bell! A day in the life of the Ngorongoro crater.

Early to rise on our next day of the African safari because the animals don’t have A/C and they do their moving, eating, playing, killing, etc. early in the morning and late into the night. Every day our tour director had fun stuff for us to read at our tables and every day as we took advantage of the yummy buffets in these magnificent hotels, we read animal fables, jokes, and histories of where we were going and what we were going to see.

Today was a long game drive, down into the Ngorongoro Crater. From what I’ve read, the Masai named it after the sound their cows’ bells make. (Seriously, this country needs some brand marketing expertise.) This vast dining table for many of Africa’s animals and birds is the largest un-flooded continuous caldera in the world. It spans 12 miles and hosts 30 thousand animals who come to feed and drink and hang out in the lush grassy plain that millions of years ago was the inside of an active volcano. The volcano imploded and I’m pretty sure left its ejected remnants back on that road we took getting up there. Looking around at how big this thing was, I was left in awe of how big that volcano must have been.

The drive down was fun and beautiful trees and flowers dotted the side of the “road.” As we went, we could see across to the other side of the rim, the sun starting to peek through the clouds. One of our first sightings was the warthog. Yes, the warthog—remember Pumbaa from Lion King? This thing looks like a little pig with huge tusks. Actually, it is a pig with big tusks. It’s a funny little thing that leans down on his front wrists when feeding and is so stupid that it will start running at the sound of a predator, then a minute later stop running because it forgot why it was running and consequently will get eaten. But, I will say they made me giggle because they are just so funny looking when the run and hey, how can you not be entertained by a warthog?

Along the road we also saw lots and lots of gazelles (in fact they were pretty much everywhere we went). I surmised they were in such abundance mainly due to the fact that they were dinner for many a predator. There were two kinds, Thompson and Grant gazelles. A difference being in a bit of color here or there. We also saw lots of varieties of the antelope family. One prevalent species was the Impala. You could tell it was an Impala by the “M” on its behind. There were two black stripes that ran down on either side of a black tail forming an “M.” I also told my dad he could look at their eyebrows—the females don’t have horns but do have a uni-brow. (I had to explain that one to him after a few dubious looks.)

The gazelles had lots of grazing buddies and had no problems hanging out with the Cape Breton buffaloes (big huge animals with heads and horns that looked like the kind of hats the Spanish matadors wear). Anyway, they looked like dumb cows to me. In addition, we saw a bunch of flamingos swimming in the big lake in the middle of the crater and a few other birds such as the Crowned crane, quite a beautiful bird, especially when in flight. Another pretty big bird we eyed was the Kori Bustard. The driver guides who were telling us what everything was called had thick accents, so my ongoing joke for the remainder of the trip was, “there’s another bastard at 2 o’clock.”

Also grazing were wildebeests, who were everywhere in various stages of the migration. Wildebeests look like a combination of animals. Our guide today, Steve, told us the story of how they came about. Side note: I asked “Steve” where he got his name and he said it was short for Stephen which then made sense. The Germans had a stake in the area before they got kicked out after losing the war. Now back to the story at hand…When all His creating was done, God realized there were parts left over from all the animals he made. Not one to let something go to waste, He used some stripes from the zebra, a head from a warthog, a neck from a buffalo, the body (or legs at least) of an antelope, and some mane from a lion to create one last animal—the wildebeest. Millions of them migrate throughout Tanzania and Kenya each year and move where the food is.

The big predator in the crater was not the lion, (we did see a few in the far off distance) but the hyena. The hyena is a funny fellow who makes little nesting places (shallow burrows it looked like) and tries to scavenge food when possible. They do in fact attack prey in groups but can be shooed away by larger beasts if alone. We saw a few hanging out by a waterhole and being watched intently by the nearby herds.

Of course the treat for me in this place was seeing the zebras. I’m not quite sure their real purpose on this planet since they can’t be used like horses and donkeys (backs aren’t strong enough) and they don’t seem to be a major source of food for predators (although they are on the diet of crocodiles, big cats, etc. when they get caught off guard), and I’m not sure that they eat anything that needs to be eaten. They are pretty to look at though. And they are pretty smart. They stand in unique positions when grazing so that predators can’t quite tell how many of them are in a group. They like to confuse others with their stripes and stand head to tail to keep watch (and I think to help bat away flies with the tails). They are known to lead the wildebeests to the big rivers to cross, then back off and let them go first (to get eaten by the crocs). The young ones are brownish and each zebra’s stripes are unique (like snowflakes). Now that’s God’s artistic work—especially when you see herds of them all over the place. Beautiful creatures, yes.

The drive continues as we spot a group of jeeps in one area—always a sign of something cool to see. So we ride on over to where the hippos are all hanging out. This was my first close-up view of them in the water and I loved it! Ladies and gentlemen, here is an animal who hangs out most of the day just floating in water. It doesn’t intentionally hurt people or animals, it just keeps to itself, letting birds hang out on their backs, rolling around in the muck…ah the life. Now if you mess with one of them or get between them and where they want to be, then watch out, because they can turn into mean S.O.B.s in a hot second. There are more humans killed by hippos in Africa than by any other animal. I still like them. When I win the lottery and build my personal lazy river, I’m going to install hippo art along the river as a reminder of my new friends.

So now off to lunch. But where to have lunch in a place like a crater filled with wild animals? Eric the tour director teased us beforehand by “ordering” lame sandwiches for a quick and dirty lunch when in fact they actually put out quite a first-rate picnic for us in the bush. Table cloths and real silverware with tasty barbecued chicken and rice went well with our African beer and wine. We dined under some yellow acacia trees—called yellow fever trees. When early pioneers came to Africa, they camped out under these trees (which grow near swamps filled with mosquitoes) and contracted yellow fever. They blamed the trees at first (brilliant), so hence the name.

After lunch we drove through the other side of the crater seeing more herds moving about and some colorful birds. Up and up through the beautiful acacias onto a hellishly bumpy road, we circled back around the rim to paradise—our hotel at the top of Ngorongoro. We ended the night with a nice reception and dinner with our fellow Tauck traveling family. And to put a nice touch on the end of a day of adventure, the hotel put hot water bottles in our beds at turn down. After a minor freak out at what was lurking in my sheets, I sank into happiness and bliss. Next stop—the Serengeti!

The beautiful zebra, each with its own unique pattern.

“…I will survive, I got all my life to live, I got all my love to give, I’ll survive, I will survive, hey hey….”

Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep that hippo rollin…weeeee!

Kori Bustard (there’s goes another bastard) bird

The female ostrich blends into the daylight scenery for camouflage when nesting. Males are dark for blending in when they guard the nest at night.

A herd of wildebeest roaming the plains of the Ngorongoro Crater. Just some of the millions that migrate each year.

“I’ve…almost…got..it. Man this things been stuck in my ear since the Mara.”

“We see you hyena dudes. Keep walking, that’s it, just keep walking…”

A Crater grazers committee meeting roll call: “Okay, um, wildebeests?” “Present.” “Gazelles?” “Here!” “Hippos?” “We’re over here!” “Flamingos?” “Yup, present.” “Zebras? Hey, where are the zebras and who’s watching the hyenas?”