Tanzania - Part 3 (NgoroNgoro Crater)

After a rainy and cold night, the plan was to get up before 6 to ensure we got into the crater before the mad rush. Wilson made us a fabulous breakfast and then we were off for more. The NgoroNgoro Crater floor is about 100 square miles in diameter at over 600 feet deep. The crater is famous for it's Rhino and Lion populations - and boy did it deliver. It was amazing how close the animals and birds were to us as we drove along the crater floor. Geologists think that the crater was formed when a volcano collapsed on itself over 2-million years ago.

Up before the sun. This is the view of from our campsite - looking east. Simba Camp was right along the rim of the crater.

As we drove into the crater, it was just amazing how green and lush it was. It was unfortunate that it was cloudy, the sunrise would have been beautiful.Wild Ostrich - a much better view than the day before. The males have the black feathers.
There is a lake on the crater floor - here are some Flamingos and Hippos.
A very rare black rhino. According to Benny (our guide), there are only 3 in the crater. And because of the potential for poachers, they are monitored 24/7. We saw 2 that day, this was the closest.

Benny drove us to a Hippo pond. While we were close, these guys were pretty boring.

A very large Elephant with huge tusks crossed the road just in front of us. The amazing thing about Elephants is that they make hardly a sound.
Spotted Hyena.
Eland.

OK, now business is picking up. A pride of juvenile male Lions. We were watching them for a while and they didn't move a muscle. Benny told us that all the cats in the parks are pretty lazy and just lay around quite often.
About 20 minutes later, we drove off and we noticed a bunch of trucks pulled over to the side. By the way, a telltale sign that something good is going on. And we were right, we then noticed about 50 yards off the road, another group of lions engaged in a pretty amazing task. It was a group of five Lionesses going to town on a Zebra.

It was amazing to watch them eat - this is the stuff for National Geographic.

While we were watching, this guy came into the picture.
Benny drove the Land Cruiser around to the other side and we had an amazing view.

Just like everybody else.
The ladies continued to eat. If you look real close, their mouths are covered in blood. It was so cool.
For the most part he was just laying around. At one point, Lisa dropped the camera inside the Land Cruiser and it was loud enough that we looked around. while Lisa was embarrassed, the rest of us were like "way to go, he moved!"

We were less than 50 yards away.

My beautiful, blurry wife.

Pumbaa.

African Buffalo.

A much better view of Zebra than the day before. Zebra groups are called Harems. This Harem was on the side of the road grazing and was not startled one bit by us. I probably took about 25-30 photos of them.
Zebra and Wildebeest often travel together. Benny said it was because Zebra have better memories and that the Wildebeest need them to find their way around during the migrations. Wildebeest are much more startled by onlookers than Zebra and really don't stand still. A baby Zebra.

This is probably my favorite photo - Waterbuck.
I wish I could remember the species of bird this was.

We got back to Simba Camp and Wilson had made us lunch and packed up the tents and sleeping bags. It was really nice to not have to pack up our gear - admit it, it is the worst part of camping.
Our lovely facilities at Simba Camp.
This was probably the ugliest bird we saw - a type of stork, pretty common around the camp and in the crater.