Ngorongoro Crater

This morning it was time to move on; our destination, Ngorongoro Crater. Flying in Africa is quite an experience, small planes, dirt runways, and flight service that consists of a pilot who leans out of the cockpit to tell you to buckle up, that there is a barf bag in the back of the seat and offers you some candy out of a bowl.

We arrived at the Kilimanjaro International airport in Tanzania mid-afternoon and changed planes to head towards Ngorongoro. As the plane took off we flew by Mt. Kilamanjaro. I know Ashlie and Mike plan on climbing that thing one day, good luck Big.

Ngorongoro Crater is the largest caldera in the world. A caldera is a volcano explodedthat has caved in on itself to make a huge crater. It covers an area of 8,288 km² (3,200 square miles) - about the size of Crete.

Our lodge is on the rim overlooking the crater at an altitude of 8000 feet. Our room is one of the most uniquely beautiful, we have ever stayed in, complete with chandeliers, fireplace, a beautiful tub in the middle of the bathroom, all with dark woods and silk curtains. Wow again!

We had another wonderful dinner to head out this morning to the bottom of the crater. We added a number of animals to our list serval cat and herds of wildebeest, along with huge herds of cape buffalo and zebra.

We were following a lioness that was on the prowl for a zebra. It looked like a sure thing, the lioness had it choice of juicy zebra, probably 50 of them passed within 20 yards of the lion. We kept waiting for her to pounce. What we didn't realize was that this lion was totally inept and let almost all the zebras had passed and then they saw the predator and the game was over. Oh well.

When we got back to our room, our favorite drinks were waiting for us along with a bath drawn in the huge tub with rose petals scattered around. Unbelieveable!