Tanzania - Ngorogoro Crater

After doing a game drive in Ndutu and riding 2.5 hours, we were excited for a nice, relaxing night in a hotel.  Unfortunately, the hotel we thought we were staying at (Serena Lodge) misplaced our reservation and wanted to move us to a hotel a good 45 minutes away.  Um, NO!  Malisa immediately contacted Tillya who was able to sort the whole mess out.  We ended up at the Ngorogoro Wildlife Lodge which was only a 10 minute drive and were guaranteed a room at the Serena for the following night.  We were actually supposed to be at the Wildlife Lodge the following night, so it ended up we just switched nights for the hotel.

We arrived at the Wildlife Lodge a little before sunset, so had some time to unpack and chill before meeting for a drink and watching the sunset.  The Wildlife Lodge is set right on the rim of the crater and has a big patio so we had an uninhibited view of the crater and the sunset, which made us huge fans of this lodge!  The sunset looked like a painting.  It really felt like if you put your hand over the side of the patio, you'd touch canvas.  Simply breathtaking.

View from our hotel room

The morning came early since we wanted to get to the crater for sunrise - so we were on the road (with a boxed breakfast and boxed lunch in the Land Cruiser) by 6:15am.  We made it to the gate to the crater for sunrise, which was amazing.  When we got to the crater, Malisa immediately spotted three elephants.  We figured that was a good sign for the rest of the day!

The crater (which we learned is actually caldera, a collapsed volcano) is an amazing place.  There are so many animals is a small-ish place.  We saw, in no particular order, wildebeests, zebras, buffaloes, flamingos, ostriches, hippos, hyenas, elephants, lions, a rhino (from a distance), warthogs, elands, and multiple types of birds.  A highlight was getting pretty close to a hippo pool.  We discovered that hippos are pretty disgusting animals - we saw a lot of bubbles coming up from the hippos back ends and, when they were out of the water, they fan their tails when pooping and look like living manure spreaders.

On our way to lunch, we saw some grassland with some elephants in it.  Malisa told us that the area was basically an elephant graveyard.  As elephants age, their teeth get older and the elephant can't chew tough items, so they move to areas with softer food.  Since the grass is soft, elephants there are quite old.

Lunch was at a picnic area with a pond.  The pond had hippos in it (of course).  We were told to eat in the Land Cruiser otherwise birds would go after our food.  We witnessed this first-hand when another group decided to eat outside and birds started to dive bomb them!

After having such an early start, we decided to start our trip back to the hotel at 2pm.  It was an hour and half drive to the hotel because we exited the crater at the complete opposite side and then had to drive along the crater.  We checked into the Serena Lodge and had a great evening of relaxation - including drinks with Malisa, some acrobatic entertainment provided by the lodge, and a good dinner.

We slept in a bit the next morning and left around 9am to head to Lake Manyara.