Joseph and I had a lucky day on safari in Ngorongoro National Park. We had a beautiful day, and we got to see the common animals and even the rare ones too.
We saw giraffe, gazelle, wildebeest, water buffalo, warthog, zebra, ostrich, flamingo, blue heron, kori bustard and various other birds (including some big ugly thing that looked like a cross between a pelican, a heron, and a dinosaur and was trying to snatch people’s lunches), jackal, wild dogs, serval (a wildcat), hippos in and out of the water, an elephant, rhinos, and lions.
The lions were sleeping in the grass maybe a few hundred yards away from a big herd of wildebeest moving slowly across the plain. It was as if the lions were like, “No biggie. We can eat you whenever.”
We spent the day inside Ngorongoro Crater. It was created some two million years ago, maybe 2.5, when a volcano the size of Mount Kilimanjaro erupted, then collapsed. You guys—Kilimanjaro is huge! The tallest mountain in Africa at nearly 20,000 feet or almost 4 MILES. That, but exploding.
In the crater, sits Lake Magadi and some of the choicest grasses. It’s so dense with animals because once they enter, they never leave, because they have everything they need.
Maasi people gave the Ngorongoro it’s name, which is onomatopoeia for the ringing bells Maasi put on their lead cattle. For generations until recently, Maasi cattle and zebra grazed here together. In fact, we passed a Maasi village on the way into the crater.
Now, images of our safari.
The rhinos were too far away for my cell phone camera, but Joseph got photos. I saw them through the binoculars. the safari guides communicate via radio. So when the rhino were spotted, land cruisers came running.
This isn’t embedding properly, but the above is a video of zebra and wildebeest grazing together. Our guide said zebras have good memories for routes and wildebeest are good at finding water, so they help each other out. Not quite Isaiah’s vision of lion and lamb resting together but still cool.
