A giant hole in planet Earth

If grasping mentally the size of Africa is too difficult, think on this instead. Two to three million years ago, as the great Rift Valley splitting Africa was ponderously opening wider and wider, there were many active volcanoes. The greatest of these blew its top off, heaved ginormous amounts of larva and dust into the atmosphere, then gave up with an enormous sigh and 'schlumped' back down to earth, leaving a hole nearly twenty kilometres across, with a rim well over half a kilometre high.

It is still there. It is still enormous. But it is calm. Inactive. 

It is so phenomenal that surely any earthly name would be inadequate. Maybe this is why it is named after the noise a Massai cow-bell makes.

Ngorongoro.

So big they named it twice.

Thus we headed for this geographical monstrosity. It was on the bucket list, it had to be done. 

We reached the rim and, nearly an hour later, our very remote camp. It was dark. We had been advised to try this new camp as it promised great views over the crater's rim. 

Unfortunately, those who wrote the publicity prior to erecting the camp, new nothing about the local climate. The immense size and precipitous walls of the crater, although geographically stupendous, are also more than big enough to directly affect local weather patterns. Resulting in two constants. Wind and cloud.

It was evening which, near the equator as we were, is very dark. With no possibility of seeing the view, we gratefully ate our dinner.

Well, not so gratefully perhaps. The dinner was basically good fare, except that the chef appeared have a surfit of salt, and wished to share it liberally. A little too liberally for us. Thus, giving up on eating for the night, we fell exhausted into bed.

Try sleeping in a tent with a constant gale blowing.

Constant.

As in all the bleeding time.

Morning finally arrived and our guide awaited us. It was still dark. Good old Ian enjoyed dragging us out of bed at some unearthly hour. With good reason. 

There simply was no view. There was cloud, a.k.a. fog.

The roads down into the crater are few. One goes down only (no way of passing) one ascends only, and one other where both directions are possible. The sides are so steep that there are no giraffes in the crater as they cannot get down. Why they don't just take the roads I've no idea.

This photo shows the descent road, but was taken early evening when the cloud had lifted. Somewhat.

It wasn't long before we ducked under the clouds, and saw the crater as a whole. (Ahem, hole...).

From here, the crater looked empty. The perpective fooled us. Even an entire herd of elephants would be invisible at these distances.

On finally arriving at its bottom, the crater started to give up its wildlife to us.

We drank in our fill that day. Enough to give me well over a thousand photos. 

Ostriches aplenty, some dancing (yes, really) some simply regarding us with an air of derangement. Hippos sleeping, rolling and belching. Lions sleeping and occasionally deigning to move. Buffaloes with birds in both ears. Zebras, flamingoes, all manner of timorous beasties. Even Jackals and Hydes...

Click here for all the photos if you dare.

After a long and wonderful day, we returned for our salty evening meal and our windy night. The champagne came in very handy.

We had returned a little earlier than normal, to allow us to catch the view.

The next morning we were smuggled out in yet another pea-souper. A short trip to a local airport, (technically an air-strip) where we caught a small plane to take us to the Serengeti, the ultimate wildlife paradise.

Things just get better and better....