Ngorongoro Conservation Area

We had another early start this morning.  After breakfast, we headed out to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We first had to stop at the gate so our vehicles can get checked in. We were warned about aggressive baboons, but we didn’t see any. Inside they had an educational display about the crater and how it was formed by a volcano erupting and then collapsing in on itself. The dust and smoke from the volcano formed the plain of the Serengeti. There was also a gift shop inside that had Pringles – in different flavors!! We’re all a little tired of only getting original flavored at camp so we each got a different flavor. After having our vehicles checked in, we headed down to the conservation center and had a lecture about what makes Ngorongoro Conservation Area different from the national parks. People are allowed to use the resources in the area for livestock, but resources are always monitored to ensure they are not overused. We then headed to the beginning of the descent and got out to overlook the crater. At the top where we were driving it was cold, misty and very foggy, but looking into crater all you could see was a vast savannah. We then descended down into the crater, but our car got a flat tire on the way down so we had to get out. After the tire was changed, we went further into the crater. Right away our driver spotted an older male lion, so we followed him for a while. At one point he was right next to our car! There were so many animals in the crater! We saw thousands of wildebeest. We ate lunch at the hippo pool and there were a few hippos not far from shore. At one point, one of them started making a bunch of noise. After lunch, we continued our game drive. We saw a hyena just napping on the side of the road and he didn’t really care that we just pulled up along side him. We saw a few more lions, including one female who was stalking a warthog. We were hoping she was going to attack, but I guess they never came close enough. We then headed to the forest area close to the edge of the crater. We saw a small herd of elephants, including a mom and baby. A couple of them started making noise, which were the first elephant sounds we’d heard. We started the ascent up, and on our way up we spotted a jackal! He was chasing a butterfly, which he then killed and ate. Not the most exciting kill but it was entertaining. At the top, we got out again to take pictures of the overlook. It’s crazy how different the environment in the crater is from outside the crater. We stopped at the gate again to give everyone a chance to go to the bathroom and then we witnessed how aggressive the baboons are. Local buses also have to stop at the gate and a baboon had ripped open a bag on top of the bus, so the driver and some other men were trying to chase it away. It was a large male, so he wasn’t giving up easily and charged the men several times, but finally ran away. While we were paying attention to the drama happening with the bus, we failed to notice we had left our door open for too long to let the last two girls out of the vehicle. A female baboon climbed in the vehicle with the two girls and stole a Tupperware container from one of our backpacks! She quickly ran out of the car, but not before our Student Affairs Manager had started to freak out and ran towards the van. Luckily, no one was hurt but the girls in the car were a little surprised when a baboon jumped into the front seat! After all the excitement ended, we headed back to camp and celebrated another birthday. Ngorongoro was an amazing park, but I cannot wait to go to the Serengeti next week!