The next stop in our African National Park journey takes us to Ngorongoro. The Ngorongoro Conversation Area is a Unesco World Heritage Centre. This area includes the Olduvai Gorge (Oldupai is the actual name – the name was misspelled as Olduvai) – also known as the cradle of humanity. Excavations in this gorge unearthed the remains of Homo Habilis from 1.9 million years ago and helped us understand the kinds of tools we evolved to be able to use.
I didn’t take a good picture while I was there. This picture (source) of the gorge shows the various colors of the rocks from millions of years.
The small museum at the gorge features a beautiful exhibition showcasing our evolution from our chimp cousins to humans – featuring tools and skeletons unearthed at the gorge.
This area is known for the famous Ngorongoro crater. It is the world’s largest inactive, inactive, and unfilled volcanic caldera or cauldron. You descend via a steep one-way route and reach the covering roughly 100 square miles. This is half-way into the descent.
Once you get down, the crater is teeming with wildlife.
The setting is surreal. Over to a few pictures.
This is the elusive caracal – one of the smallest African cats.
The static water is alkaline – contributing to the pink colors of these Flamingos.
A gazelle close-up – the bigger ones are Grant gazelles and the smaller ones are Thompson gazelles.
The superb starling has stunning colors.
A hyena eating the remains of a buffalo. The Ngorongoro crater is home to one of the longest running hyena studies. As the crater is flat, hyena packs have, over the years, become so dominant that they’ve chased the Cheetahs out of the crater. The only cats that can keep their prey from them once they kill are lions.
Lions spend their days resting and hunt at night.
This was a family of lions with 3 eager youngsters who were getting a lesson in patience from their mother.
The Ngorongoro crater is typically the first stop on a route featuring two iconic National Parks – The Serengeti and The Maasai Mara. While it is only a day trip for most people enroute to the Serengeti, it makes for an awe-inspiring setting – a reminder of just how amazing our planet is.
(“Our World is Awesome” series: Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lauterbrunnen Valley, Tarangire NP)
