Ngorongoro Crater is a conservation area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The conservation area including the highlands and the crater covers over 3,500 square miles. The crater itself is close to 20 miles wide. This is considered one of the best known wildlife viewing areas with a a concentration of lions, elephants, rhinos, gazelles, zebras, wildebeests and buffalo. Since no hunting is allowed, most of the wildlife isn’t shy and walks very close the the safari jeeps. At one point, a male lion marked his territory on a jeep.
Besides the safari jeeps and the dirt roads, there was nothing to indicate humans exist, no power lines, no houses, no jets flying overhead, no choppers, no telephone poles or cell towers – just this crater with all of this wildlife running around it.
As interesting as all of the animals are, there is something about the big cats. The lions are truly spectacular along with the leopards and cheetas. The highlight of the day was seeing a cheetah in action. Our group got to see it hunt. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful in grabbing one of the baby warthogs when their mother intervened and a group of Zebras chased it on to a rock pile and stood guard while their calves put distance between them and the hungry cheetah.
Lions and cheetas weren’t the only thing we saw, we also saw hyenas and jackals. Heyenas give me the creeps, there is something that that animal that looks horrible and that laugh sounds so human. They bug me. I have not paid much attention to Jackals and I found myself intrigued by them, small canines that popped in and out of their underground dens.
There were plenty of other animals including warthogs, ostriches and hippos. Hippos pretty much stay underwater except at night so the only thing I got to see was the eyes and nose coming up for air every once in a while.
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