The Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater is the worlds largest intact volcanic caldera.  We choose to visited this location as we had seen documentaries on the wildlife that can be seen inside the caldera.  Many of the animals inside do not migrate so we felt we had the best chance of seeing many of Africa's best known wild animals.  No one is allowed to live inside the crater, although the Massai as allowed to come into the crater with their cattle to find food and water.  In order to keep the numbers of tourist down and not overwhelm the animal population no one is allowed to stay longer than 6 hours inside the park.

On the way into the park we saw a Camel!  Our guide told us a person tried to run a business of Camel rides into the crater

Visitor center of the Crater

The gate opened to the Crater

Baboons who are a little too used to tourist vehicles, this baboon is on our car, luckily all our windows where shut securely

All the cars lined up to get inside the crater

View of the Crater from the top

Massai Village on the outer rim of the crater

A picnic lunch in the crater at a rest stop.  Our guide told us that as long as he stayed with us the wild monkey would not bother us as they are afraid of the guides.  However since tourists often feed the animals the monkeys are very brazen in their approach to those picnickers.  We later saw evidence of this when I monkey stole a sandwich from a tourist who did not stay with their guide.  

Wildebeest

Rest stop near a watering hole.  Here we saw hippos and elephants nearby

Elephant skull

Gazelles.  This is an old and sick gazelle with only one horn, who probably will be taken down by a leopard in the near future.

I had camera lens envy while there as some of the animals were further away.  

Kori Bustard -- largest bird that can fly

assortment of wild animals

hyenas

wart hog, my husband's favorite animal

Black Rhino -- we were told later by the park rangers that this was the first time the Rhino had been seen in over a week -- Lucky us:)

Lions, this one had a wound on its back leg

Kids enjoying the ride

Crater from the rim

Traffic jam to see the animals.

Ostrich -- we actually saw a pair mating which we were told by our guide is very very rare.  The kids were disappointed they wanted to see an animal kill instead:)

zebra crossing

We left the crater and were able to claim that we saw 4 out of the big 5.  We saw Elephants, Rhinos, Cape Buffalos, and Lions.  The only animal missing is the Leopard.  We had a fantastic game drive and getting to see the animal in the wild was wonderful.  I am never be able to go to the zoo again:)!!!