Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania – 2006. The Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed volcano and one of the largest calderas in the world. It is 20km wide with an unbroken rim that is 600m high. It contains a wide range of ecosystems including grasslands, a saltpan, swamps, a freshwater lake and forested areas. There are lots of animals and birds. We spent two nights at the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge and unfortunately, only one day on the crater floor.
This is a view of the crater from our room in the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge. Unfortunately there are clouds obscuring the opposite crater wall.
There are three roads in/out of the crater. This is the Seneto Decent road on the East wall of the Crater.
The Maasai have grazing rights in the crater and tend cattle and goats. They do not hunt the wildlife.
Wildebeest (Gnu)
Crowned Cranes
Hyena
Female lions
Young lion
The typical repose for a male lion.
Flamingos
Hyena
Black Rhino
Wildebeest (Gnu)
We counted 39 Hippos in this pool, including two babies. The water was fairly shallow so there was lots of movement (flicking tails, bouncing, rolling) so that…
These two hippos stayed apart from the rest of the herd and were much more active. From their size I suspect they were the rowdy “teenagers”.
As part of their effort to stay cool, several of the hippos rolled over on their backs and lay with their heads underwater and feet skyward like this one. It…
Grey Heron (background) and a Cattle Egret (flying)
Grey Heron
These zebra were very nervous when entering the water and just after I took this photo they were spooked by a bird and all of them were out of the water in a…
Zebra
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