Day 70 – Stared down by a lion

Serengeti to Ngorongoro Crater - Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge

Our drive to Ngorongoro started with another safari through Serengeti, this time we came very close to a large male lion and a pride that was just finishing devouring a female zebra and her foal. It is remarkable how you can drive right up close to them and they vaguely look at you uninterestingly or don’t even acknowledge your presence, though at one stage M tried to climb onto the roof of the jeep to get a good photo – one of the lions stared directly at him, and the driver told him he should never get on the roof of the car! On the way out of the park there were hyenas on the side of the road just finishing off gazelle road kill.

Out of the park, we stopped by Olduvai Gorge and the museum to view replicas of the old hominid skulls and tools that were found nearby, and also saw replica footprints of three hominids trapped hundreds of thousands of years ago about 25km from the gorge. We were also given a lecture by one of the guides there, where we heard more about the remains found at the gorge, and the related similar “Lucy” remains discovered in Ethiopia. We also learnt that the gorge was incorrectly named, it should be “Oldupai”, after the plant that grows in the area.

After the gorge we continued our drive through the Maasai grazing lands, which are shared with any wildlife that ventures outside of the parks, and we stopped by the edge of the rim of Ngorongoro crater, which was originally a mountain before it collapsed millions of years ago, to look over where we would be descending to tomorrow.

Our accommodation was the lovely Sopa Lodge which had the most wonderful view of the crater. Our room was massive and after dinner we had to be escorted back to our room by staff because of the chance of wandering hyenas, buffalo etc. You are continually warned that buffalo is one of the most dangerous animals you can come face to face with in Africa - the lone buffalo is particularly aggressive as they are older males that have been ejected from the herd, and must always be kept at a great distance.