The Cradle of Mankind
Ngorongoro Conservation Area covers about 8300 Square kilometers and next to the famous Olduvai Gorge near the centre, a place with many fossils, some of which are ancestral to us, that were unearthed and hence the name ‘’.
Ngorongoro Crater is one of Africa’s best known game viewing areas and Tanzania’s most visited, covering about 20 km wide. It is also one of the largest collapsed volcanoes in the world hosting a variety of animals and vegetation, including grasslands, swamps, forests, salt pans and a freshwater lake!
While in Ngorongoro you are likely to see lions, elephants, buffalos, hippos, the critically endangered eastern black rhino, and many of the plains herbivores like wildebeest, Thomson’s gazelle, Grant’s gazelle, zebra, coke’s Hartebeest and the reed buck together with a variety of bird life and thousands of flamingos wading in the shallow shores of Lake Magadi (only during their migration).
Despite its steep walls, there’s a considerable amount of movement of wildlife in and out of the crater – mostly to the Serengeti, since the land between the crater and Lake Manyara is intensively farmed. This area remains a favored spot for wildlife because there’s a permanent water supply and grassland on the crater floor. The crater, with its 264 square kilometers of various habitats, harbors 4 lion prides and a number of the endangered black rhinos, all of which are closely watched.
CLIMATE:
The Crater rim, over 2,200 meters high, touches swathes of clouds for most days of the year, with cool high altitude vapors that seem to bring a clean lightness to the air, and also a chill. These highlands wake up to a misty fog in most months, other than the high dry season in December and January.
GEOGRAPHY:
The Ngorongoro Crater is the world’s largest intact volcanic caldera in an exceptional geographical position, forming a spectacular bowl of about 265 sq km with sides up to 600m deep and a diameter of 20km at the widest points. It is the stalking ground of 20 – 30,000 wild animals at any one time.
Ngorongoro is the only protected area on Earth where humans (Maasai) and their livestock interact and live freely and in peace and harmony with the wildlife.
HIGHLIGHTS:
The alkaline Ndutu and Masek lakes in the west are particularly good areas for game viewing during the rainy season from March to May. In the east of the conservation area are a string of volcanoes and craters and along the southern border is Lake Eyasi, a salt lake around which the Hadzabe people (Tanzania’s only original ethnic tribe) live. To the north-east on the Kenyan border is the beautiful Lake Natron. Ngorongoro Crater is also presently one of the most likely areas in Tanzania to see the endangered eastern Black Rhino, as a small population is thriving in this idyllic and protected environment (though a number of six eastern black rhinos have been reintroduced in Serengeti from South Africa recently).