We have just returned from an excellent six-day walking safari in the Crater Highlands in nothern Tanzania. We started the trip by driving to Ngorogoro Crater and doing a game drive there. Ngorogoro Crater is a completely enclosed 20km diameter savannah crater, encircled by a tropical forest crater rim. The only way in and out is via tortuously steep 4WD tracks. Within the crater there's a mass of wildlife. We saw a pride of lions eating ribs for dinner, large herds of wildebeasts and zebras, a couple of elephants, and a few black rhinos barely visible above the grass. We camped on the rim of the crater in the mist with hundreds of other campers, but for the rest of our safari we saw no other tourists.
From Ngorogoro we spent three days walking through Maasai country to the village of Ngare Sero down on the desert-like plain below the Rift Valley wall. Along the way we hiked down into the Empakaai Crater, a mini-version of Ngorogoro with a lake filling most of the crater bottom. The shores of the lake were filled with pink flamingos.
We walked among the Maasai herding their cattle, donkeys and goats. The Maasai are very proud people, walking tall and thin wrapped in their brightly checked blankets and bedecked in beaded necklaces, bracelets, anklets and earings. Many were carrying 10-foot long spears.
The last day of this safari we climbed the classic cone-shaped volcano Ol Deinyo Lengai. We climbed for the first two hours by moonlight and arrived at the crater rim soon after sunrise. It was an extremely steep climb, but this made for a very fast descent as we could scree run down most of it. We were surprised that it was such an active volcano. We could hear loud booming sounds as we approached the rim and saw sprays of lava being ejected from the vents and flowing across the crater. This was all happening less than 100m away from us! We spent an hour wandering around the crater and marvelling at this amazing sight.
From Ngare Sero we returned to Moshi and on to Dar es Salaam, and caught a ferry this morning to Zanzibar where we plan to spend a few days relaxing on the beach, eating tasty seafood and soaking up the Arabic cultural atmosphere.
We were surprised to see ostriches in Ngorogoro Crater, as we thought they were only in southern Africa.
White bearded wildebeasts in Ngorogoro Crater.
Zebras in Ngorogoro Crater.
We hiked 300m down into the picturesque Empakaai Crater where there huge flocks of pink flamingos along the edge of the lake.
The Maasai village of Nayobi. The Maasai houses are circular mud huts with thatched roofs and adjoining corrals to keep their animals safe from predators overnight.
Chris at one of our campsites during our Crater Highlands trek, complete with the luxury of a table (covered with a Maasai blanket) and camp chairs.
View of Ol Deinyo Lengai crater from the summit of the volcano.
The crater of Ol Deinyo Lengai. The black in the centre is actually freshly flowing lava.
Zoe and Chris, both very dusty from our scree run down the volcano Ol Deinyo Lengai.
1 comment:
You write very well.
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