Ngorongoro Crater

Sorry Ngorongoro is so late.  Stay posted for Serengeti!  Coming soon!

What’d you do for Halloween this year?  Oh, you dressed up as a monkey?  A rhino?  A lion?  Ya, that’s cool.  What’d I do?  Oh, you know, I was just in Ngorongoro Crater watching those animals in their natural habitat.  No big deal.

Not to be pompous but my Halloween this year was different from any other Halloween I’ve ever had and it was AWESOME!  Tanzanians don't celebrate Halloween but our staff planned something great for us anyways and took us for a no-work-attached game drive in Ngorongoro.  Ngorongoro Crater is within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of Tanzania established for the conservation of its unique native cultures, distinctive landscape features, and complex and diverse ecosystem.  I’ve always wanted to go.  Of the fauna it is known for, we saw zebra (my favorite), gazelles, vervet monkeys, elephants, black-backed jackals, corey bustards, cape buffalo, wildebeest, warthogs, hippos, and some very interesting behavioral displays by ostriches, hyenas, lions, and kites.  By interesting I mean an ostrich chasing a hyena, two ostriches mating, a hyena looking very confused about what he is and where he is and what he’s doing by running back and forth which was slightly unnerving to a herd of gazelle near him, eight lions took down a cape buffalo and were feeding, and kites hovering above tourists and attempting to dive bomb them for their sandwiches.  I also got very close to a herd of zebra. 

So, for Halloween I dressed up like a mzungu and enjoyed being a tourist for a day in Ngorongoro Crater without any assignments or field exercised to complete by being there.  

Yes, this is an ostrich chasing a hyena

Aren't cape buffalo lovely?

Especially when they've lost half their face?

Lions gotta eat and the circle of life is beautiful.

But eating a whole buffalo is hard and exhausting work.  Note the "mud" on this cub's paws.

It's not mud.  It's the contents of the buffalo's intestines that were ripped open.  I watched it

spray everywhere but decided not to take pictures of the mess and aftermath.  

Watching the courtship of ostriches is one of the coolest things I've seen in Africa so far.

Their dancing and feather shimmying is beautiful and their activities are always fun to inappropriately provide commentary for.

 

These kites were swarming around the hippo pool which is a tourist hot spot for lunch.  They would literally swoop out of the sky and grab any food left unattended or from tourists holding food out in the open and not paying attention.  It was pretty entertaining.

Crystal's bright outfit is a perfect indication of her personality.                 Ashley and I doing the skinny arm at the hippo pool.  She

It was also funny to observe her staring at the very mzungu way of         was the only person at the beginning of the program

experiencing Africa.  Wouldn't you want to rough it in Africa with a        that I wasn't sure of and now I spend more time with her

waiter catering to your every need on safari?                                             than anyone else.  She's sarcastic, blunt, hysterical, 

They're experiencing the real Africa!                                                   hardworking and unlucky enough to be my roommate. 

 

Kalyn is wonderful.  We have bonded well over our shared love for horses.  She has her own and has managed to work very hard to keep her throughout her years in college.  She is very smart, is an animal behavior major, has done very interesting research, and is one of the sweetest, most compassionate and understanding people on this program.  And isn't she beautiful?  I need to stop ruining people's beauty shots with my ridiculous faces.