Ngorongoro Crater

Friday 25th March

I was quite gloomy when we descended into the crater. Early highlights were the birds - Abdim's stork, black-bellied and Kori bustards, etc. - rhino in the distance, and many zebra and gazelle.

With no other vehicles to be seen except way off in the distance, it was a strangely peaceful morning.

We saw a pride of lions spread out over a hillside.

A moment of potential drama, and one of the saddest sights of our trip, came with a zebra that had had a hind foot almost removed by a snare. It could barely stand and couldn't really move at all, which made us wonder what the six or so hyenas lying around barely metres away were waiting for — one prod and it would surely have toppled over. (It wasn't making a noise and didn't seem to be in pain, so one hopes it was in shock.)

Driving on a few hundred metres, we came across two lions, a male and a female, ambling down the road right past the vehicles. I don't know if they knew about the zebra, but they didn't seem in any hurry, stopping to rest in the shade of the cars. It would have been interesting to see how two youngish lions fared against six or seven hyenas...

Along with many other groups we stopped for lunch where there were some toilets, by the side of a small lake. There was a herd of zebra grazing nearby and a group of hippos in the lake. There were many black kites swooping around, and we were warned that we had to eat our lunches inside the vehicles. It was good to be able to get out and walk around, though.

While we were there a huge bull elephant wandered past the zebra, along the road in between the parked vehicles.

We drove back up to our campsite.

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