The Seven Daughters of Eve & Ngorongoro Crater

We got up the next morning, checked out, and were greeted by our driver, Sadai. We headed out toward the Ngorongoro Crater with dust funnels following close behind.


Passing more villages. They looked all pretty much the same and were starting to feel familiar, someplace comfortable.






Our first sighting happened before we even got there, a few baboons just hanging out.


The Ngorongoro crater is the world’s largest unbroken volcanic caldera, meaning it exploded and then collapsed on itself. The crater floor is a little over 100 square miles with its walls a little over 2000 feet. Trapped inside are over 25,000 animals, but with a decent water supply they have no need to ever leave. This again is one of those images that escapes the camera lens. Looking down in the crater is beyond breath taking and unlike anything I have ever seen before. It’s so big and vast, yet there it all is right in front of you, this may be the largest image my brain has ever had to process.


I felt in a way that I was coming back to something that I forgot long ago. This was the location of the world’s oldest footprints of a hominid species walking upright.


This view was so amazing yet so simple, it had meaning. I was reminded of a recent book I read, The Seven Daughters of Eve. The author uses mitochondrial DNA, which is preserved in the female line, to trace all of modern Europe back to seven clan mothers in Africa. And I struggled to understand what I was really seeing.


The road up to this point was quite an adventure, it’s a single lane dirt road that works its way up the side of the crater wall. However someway, when someone is coming down they seem to find road that was not there before in order to squeeze by each other. Just another 30 minutes down the inside of the crater wall. Our permit was only good for 24 hours so the sooner we got to the crater floor the better and Sadai was beating the crap out of our vehicle to get us there fast.


One thing that you will get on safari in Tanzania that you won’t get in Kenya or South Africa is that in Tanzania they leave nature alone and let it play out. Elsewhere they clean up dead animals and try to nurse the sick ones back to health. This guy did not make it.


Our first sighting inside the crater would be an ostrich.


Then came a zebra, and so close. I felt rushed by our driver and was excited to see these things, however he knew what we did not, soon we would be surrounded by huge herds of just about everything. So he continued driving.






A few gazelle as we reached the crater floor.


A few hundred flamingos.


There is a Maasai village in the crater and these are their cows, with more zebra in the background.


Our ride included a pop-up top so we had great views of just about everything.


A few warthogs in front of Lake Magadi.


We stopped for lunch in front of a pond full of hippos.


At this point there were all kinds of animals in just about any direction you looked.


And they all seemed to ignore each other.


The whole trip we never saw one get out of the water.




We did see quite a few roll over in order to keep cool.


A few years ago I was in Denali and the few animals we saw were way off in the distance so I was blown away by the volume and how close we were getting to everything.


There was no shortage of wildebeest.




Then we saw our first lions.




Some were sleeping.






Some were not.






How close do you get to the animals? Here is a lion resting in the shade of a safari vehicle, so pretty close I would say. I was hoping to see our first kill here but the people in the truck all kept their arms and legs inside the ride at all times.


Another warthog.


More wildebeest.


The one animal that we were not able to get close to was the Black Rhino, this was the best my camera could do, but you could make it out with a decent pair of binoculars.


Near the end of the crater we caught our first sighting of an elephant. With it being so big you think it would have been easier to pick out from all the other animals.


The roads are bad and they really beat the crap out of these, they really made me a believer of the Toyota Land Cruiser, even if they only last 3 to 4 years out here.


Out of everything we saw I would have to say that I was most fascinated by the giraffes, so big, so strange, but so majestic.








After exploring the crater we started working our way to Olduvai camp. This place was one of the coolest places that I have ever been. The tents were much more roomy then our accommodations on Kilimanjaro. That desk had me wanting to write a poem of today’s events, but I had no paper and pen, I’m not good at rhyming and I don’t like to write, so I passed.


And took in the amazing views from our patio instead. Ten tents in the middle of the wide open Ngorongoro plains, and me. It didn’t seem real, I could only have dreamed of such an amazing place, but then here I was, and I could have stayed for weeks.




And they even kind of have hot showers. Around 6 in the evening they would come by with a sack of hot water and hang it up behind your tent. However it goes fast, so you get wet, turn off the water and lather up, then turn it back on to rinse. But its great, there is something in the air, something around you, it completes the experience, and you feel cleaner then you ever have been.


There is another Maasai village about 10 kilometers away and one of the Maasai warriors was coming by to take us on a sunset walk.


We had the option of a long walk or a short one. After Kilimanjaro the answer was quite easy, let’s try out that short one.




Olduvai Gorge is commonly known as “The Cradle of Mankind” because the oldest known hominid bones have been found here. I began again thinking about the seven daughters, and where I was, and what might have happened here. It was surreal, and the impact so profound, whose footprints was I now walking in?




Man living the way man was suppose to live.


We then walked back to our tents for dinner. The food was amazing, I don’t know how they pull this off but anyone considering a trip to Ngorongoro with a sense of adventure should strongly consider a stop at Olduvai camp.


I was still wondering if I was really experiencing all this, it was almost too amazing to be true.