Ngorongoro Crater

You can see a thousand pictures of this crater, but you can’t possibly appreciate it until you’ve laid eyes on it yourself.
We left at 6am on Dec. 21st and headed to Namanga, which is the town at the border of Kenya and Tanzania. We got our visas, changed drivers (to a man named Sifoni), and headed to Arusha where we stopped at the Impala hotel for lunch.
Tanzania is so beautiful. As soon as you cross the border you can see a change in scenery. It is so luscious. We drove in a safari vehicle, with no air-conditioning, but lots of room. We drove to the Ngorongoro Park gates where we had to pay $50USD each to enter. We drove to a lookout point where we saw the crater for the first time. It was spectacular. It’s massive – spreading over 250 square kilometers. We then settled in to the Ngorongoro Serena hotel. Please look it up on the net, the place is amazing. Our rooms had king size beds that faced a balcony that had a perfect view of the crater. We were at 7,000 feet – Nairobi is at 5,000 feet – when I went sky diving I jumped out of the plane at 10,500 feet.
At night we stood on the balcony and watched the stars – I don’t remember ever seeing so many and the sky looked enormous. In the morning we were able to watch the sunrise over the crater. It was stunning.
That day we went for a safari with Sifoni. The drive down to the crater was scarier than the drive through the Rockies. When I looked out my window I could see the tires were just inches from the end of the road.
Seeing animals in the crater is almost guaranteed because, except for the elephants, they can not get out of it due to the steep crater highlands that surround it. We saw tons and tons of zebras, hart beasts, gazelles, and impalas. We also came across some gorgeous lions and cheetahs.
We stopped at a picnic area that is by a hippo watering pool for lunch before heading to the Serengeti.