Safari Day 2

We began the second day with breakfast at the seronera Lodge. Pancakes taste awesome, regardless of quality, when you haven't had them in 2 months ;) We left early, between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m, and soon saw another hippo, and several lions. The majority of the morning was spent driving to Ngorongoro Conservatory, which has slightly relaxd restrictions in terms of living there, allowing the Masai, a local tribe that subsists on their own herded cattle as opposed to hunting, to still settle in the area.

At the gate leaving the Serengeti, there was a large herd of elephants. Since we had to stop there to get permission to carry on anyway, this made for a great pictures. We continued to drive, and as we approached the crater rim we saw several tribes of Masai herding their cattle, and several villages (more on the Masai during day 3). There were many gazelles, a few jackels, and even a cheetah along the way, in the distance. We reached the crater edge around 11am.

There are several pictures I will be posting to flickr involving Ngorongoro crater. Let me tell you that none of them do it justice. This is one of those sights that, I guess without uber-wide panoramic style lenses, can not just be captured well, much like the Grand Canyon. The decent into the canyon was harrowing, a very narrow, very steep, very unpaved dirt trail that us about 45 minutes to transverse into the crater floor. Once there, the vistas were even more impressive. A massive lake was at the center, filled with thousands of pink flamingos. Wildebeasts roamed everywhere, as did zebras. We saw atleast 10 lions in the crater, 2 of them approached ours and several other cars, sniffing them and looking puzzled. We stopped by one of the lakes for lunch, but were told to keep away from waters edge for fear of crocodile attacks.

In the afternoon, we hunted for the elusive Black Rhino, an extremely endangered species. We caught a glimpse of one that was visible with high power binoculars, but photos were not possible with our equipment. Later in the afternoon though, much like the first evening, Moshaka got a call over his CB radio, and began to drive very quickly across the canyon fermament. We were moving through a mixed herd of zebras and wildebeasts, but noticed that some of the animals were fleeing from some large, black shape off in the distance. As we approached, Moshaka yelled to us "BLACK RHINO" and we all quickly stood up to see. Sure enough, about 50-75 yards off, was a black rhino, chasing away a few animals, and then breaking into a light jog. Such an impressive animal!

Later we saw a mother lion with her two cubs, less than 10 ft from the car, and also spotted 2 more cheetahs, well within photographic range. So, with Day 2, we completed the "Big 5" of game viewing, and headed up out of the crater, proceeding along the outer portion of the southern rim. It was here that we stayed for our second night- The Ngorongoro Wildlife lodge. Another impressive lodge, with great food, amazing views; the crated physically sat on the edge of the southern rim, with all windows and a massive outdoor patio looking out into the crater. We had some more Tusker, showered again, and called it a night, even more fatigued than the night before.