Out of Africa 2024: Ngorogoro crater

This morning, we awakened to misty skies at the rim of the caldera, but the sun was out. We began our trek down a cobblestone road into the caldera. It was built during COVID & took nearly 2 years to complete. Looks like it was a monumental effort to complete. Looking at the incline & precipitously steep descent, I can’t imagine being on this road in rainy or muddy weather.

The main feature of the Ngorogoro conservation Authority is the crater: the world‘s largest inactive, intact & unfilled volcanic caldera. The name of the crater has an onomatopoetic origin. It was named by the Maasai pastoralists after the sound produced by the cowbell (ngoro ngoro). The crater, which formed when a large volcano erupted & collapsed on itself 2 to 3 million years ago, is 610 meters or 2000 feet deep & its floor covers 260 km² or 100 mi.². The crater floor is 1800 m or 5900 feet above sea level.

Approximately 25,000 large animals, mostly ungulates live in the crater. Large mammals in the crater include the black rhinoceros, Cape Buffalo, & the hippopotamus. There are also Grant’s zebras, Eland, Grant’s & Thomson’s gazelles. Although thought of as a natural enclosure for a very wide variety of wildlife, 20% or more of the wildebeest & half the zebra populations, vacate the crater in the wet season while Cape Buffalo stay; their highest numbers are during the rainy season.

On the way in we saw Thomson’s gazelle. They differ in size from impala (who are not present in. the crater) & also have a distinguishing black stripe down their sides. The next animal encountered as we reached the caldera floor was a group of lionesses sleeping in the clover. Although ostensibly we entered for a game drive, the caldera is huge & stunningly beautiful in its own right. It is so large that you can have rain on one side & drive to the other side & be completely sunny.