NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA . . . News!
There are several ways to enter The
Ngorongoro Conservation Area,
all of them are spectacular.
If you come from the direction of Kilimanjaro
Airport, drive through coffee areas around Mt Meru and out
through Maasai Land, then once
you begin to climb towards the highlands you pass through Loduare
Gate at the edge of the forest.
The real adventure begins here where only too often,
baboon clans feed and socialise by your four wheel drive.
Buffalo and elephant stand out
against a backdrop of forest, wallowing in their favourite holes that have
inviting mud even now in the height of the dry season. Birds,
many, varied and vibrant are astonishingly visible in the woodland
canopy and ever present. The journey through The Conservation
Area, from this direction dramatically introduces The
Crater itself, when the track brings one out from the forest
to the very edge of the rim. If one misses seeing it in the wet
season, then it is an absolute must to return in the dry
season to see it again.
One of the wonders
of the dry season is that with reduced vegetation, animals are just so much
more visible. Lions are the same
colour as "the dry" and if they are perfectly still, as when they
pause while hunting to gauge prey
or distance, then they melt into the silver, beige
of even the shortest of grasses. To enter either by road or by small
plane from The Serengeti side, the seemingly never- ending
short plains stretch into far,
hazy horizons. Maasai herd their cattle and goats along the
dusty trails of generations of migrating wildebeestes.
All too soon, when the rains come and the Maasai
move eastwards and
further into the highlands, the huge herds
return to the same but now, flourishing plains. This journey takes the safari
traveller through Oldupai Gorge
to the highlands from the North. The first and never forgotten view of The
Crater from this side is when the descent road peels off to
the left and the unbroken walls encircling
The Crater, perfectly frame the floor some thousands of meters below.
October 2003
