Tour Day 11 - Discovering the Ngorongoro Crater

 

Pictures were added at a later date due to poor internet access at the time]

[Tuesday, August 7, 2023]

It is surprising how cold it is overnight in certain areas where we have stayed. This location is a good example as when we wake up, it is roughly about 15 degrees in our luxury tent. It sort of makes it hard to crawl out from under the warm covers. What made it even harder is that Laureen noted that there was no hot water this morning, so both of us had a cold shower. Let’s see, 15 degrees and breezy in the tent and water cold enough in the shower to kind of have you gasping a little. Suffice it to say that this morning’s shower was quite brief.

Adding to the morning challenge, last night when we arrived back in our room, one of our transformers (an adapter we use to convert our electric charging items to the local plug-in power) quit working. We were not sure what happened and through the trouble shooting process, we managed to damage our second one. It appears as the cheap and small power bar that I bought for this trip caused a short of some sort and it made a popping sound and then damaged our power converter. So, now we are down to one. That means someone’s CPAP machine has no power. Yes, that would be mine. So, cold, tired, and awake early. What a fantastic combination.

A quick omelette for breakfast and we had our suitcases out the door and into the back of the vehicle for today’s journey. We were warned by Renatus that it was going to be a long travel day, so we had to be ready to leave by 7:30 AM.

At the start of our journey for the day, we came across a lion feeding location where three days ago we saw a couple lions dining on a hippo. As we drove by each day, we thought the lion had left, but the lion was there every day. And today was no exception. I think it’s going to take these lions about a week to down the entire hippo. The vultures are hanging around waiting for their turn, but the lion keeps chasing them off each time they come closer. At some point, they will get their chance – just not yet.

We also came across a rather large hyena that was wandering a few Km's from the lodge. They are very interesting looking creatures.

At one of the pitstops we made today, we decided to do another selfie with our new guide Renatus (who has yet to be seen in our photos). 

A little further down the dusty roads on the way to the crater we came across three female ostrich having breakfast in a field.

The drive itself was not that long to the Ngorongoro Crater, and it was worth the wait. This long dormant volcano is now home to a very large lake and a variety of animals. On its edge, the crater is 2300 Meters above sea level and to get to the crater floor is a 610 Meter descent. One on the crater floor one can see how large this volcanic area must have been. The floor itself is 260 Square kilometers. The place is stunningly beautiful. We spent most of our afternoon here inside the crater on a game drive and in the middle of this we stopped and had our boxed lunch at the edge of the lake (not too close as there were hippos relaxing in the water nearby). There were lots of different kinds of animals inside the crater including lions, cape buffalo, wildebeest, flamingo, ostridge, elephant, zebra and hippo (just to name a few). 

We then made the trek back up to the top of the crater and towards our next place of lodging. This place was probably one of the nicest places that we have stayed in thus far. 

EXTRA NOTE: Today was probably the dirtiest day that we have had here in Africa. Given that it’s the dry season, just about anywhere you go that is not on a paved road (and it feels like about 75% of what we travelled on today was not paved) is…DUSTY. It was so bad a few of us put on N95 masks as we travelled. By the time we got to the lodging, the mask was covered in red dust on the outside. All our safari family was talking about how when they blew their nose, they were shocked at how much black/red dirt came out. The dust was somehow getting into the back of the vehicle as well and Laureen’s suitcase had dust in it through the zipper. You can imagine how impressed she was about that – especially on the clean clothes that we just had laundered the day before. The next morning, we noted this to our guide and had him turn the suitcase so that the zippers were on the inside. When we asked him about the dust, he just looked at us and in his very calm demeanour said, “This is Africa. There is no getting out of it”. 

Suffice it to say we were COVERED in red dirt/dust from head to toe. When we got to our room, we dropped out clothes on the floor beside out suitcases and went for a shower. It was just everywhere. 

Dinner was exceptional as this place appears to cater to high end clientele. They assign people to your room and to look after your table for all your meals. I booked a massage for this evening (9:00 – 10:00) to help get some of the kinks out after a long day in the bumpy vehicle. The massage bordered on a deep tissue massage, and there were a few times that I winced a little. But it felt pretty good when it was over.

9:00 Start tomorrow means that we can sleep in a little and given that we have the borrowed plugin it means that we both get to plug in our sleeping machines. Should be a good night.

We love to read your comments, so please do write us something. It helps us know that there is actually somebody reading this. ;-)

Also, the reason these are coming in sporadically is that our internet access has not been the greatest since we crossed into Tanzania. So, I write the blogs and then when we can actually get connected to the internet, I post. Pictures will eventually follow when the connectivity is a little more stable.

G’night all.

Curt & Laureen