The Ngorongoro crater is another destination to add to your safari list in northern Tanzania and it is home to wildlife species including the big five.
Tourist activities to do in Ngorongoro conservation area includes game drives, bird watching, hiking, hot air balloon safaris and walking safaris
1.Wildlife
Ngorongo is home to the big five i.e. rare black Rhinos, Elephants, Buffalos,Lions and Leopards that are widely seen while on game drives. Other than the big 5 there is also lots other wildlife like Wildebeest, Zebras and lots more.
2.Ngorongoro crater
Ngorongoro crater is widely popular for both the beauty of its geology and the variety of animals and plants that may be found in a startlingly small space. On a wildlife drive in the Ngorongoro Crater, you can count on seeing large concentrations of animals.
The Ngorongoro Crater is home to some of the densest concentrations of large mammals in Africa in addition to being the largest unbroken volcanic caldera on Earth. The Ngorongoro Crater has essentially developed its own ecology as a result of its enclosed nature.
3.Lerai Fever free forest
The Lerai Fever Tree Forest, has tall, slim yellow barked acacias forming an airy, lace-canopied wonderland of glades, Elephants rhinos, eland, bushbuck, hyrax, and other birds frequent the Lerai Fever Tree Forest,
4.Olduvai gorge and Laetoli
Nearby Olduvai Gorge, where our ancestors started their journey towards civilization by making the first tools and establishing the first human settlements, are Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek, which are also on the migratory route in the Rift Valley. In 3.7 million-year-old sedimentary rock at Laetoli, hominid footprints of our genetic ancestors and their cousins have been discovered.
Without a guided tour of the Olduvai excavations and small paleoanthropological museum, where you can see view evolutionary fossils, no Tanzanian safari would be complete.
5.Hadzabe Tribe
The Hadzabe Bushmen of East Africa still call Lake Eyasi, close to Ngorongoro, home. They only eat wild foods and communicate by clicking and whistling. There are currently pastoral and farming tribes called Mbulu and Datoga that were expelled from areas that the Maasai now call home centuries ago.
6. Empakaai Crater and Olmoti Crater
These two neighboring craters offer opportunities for leisurely, and supervised walks. Olmoti Crater is a small, grassy crater where Maasai people pasture their cattle beside eland, bushbuck, reedbuck, and the occasional buffalo. It is quite serene and beautiful. The Munge stream creates a lovely cascade on the caldera’s south wall before dropping several hundred meters into the Ngorongoro crater to supply Lake Magadi. A soda lake that is extraordinarily deep fills half of Empakaai Crater. From the rim, you can see Ol Doinyo Legai, the Great African Rift Valley, and, in very clear conditions, snow-covered Mount Kilimanjaro’s distant Uhuru peak across an amazing vista of volcanic craters and depressions.
6. The Bird life
Birds are one of the key attractions in Ngorongorro with both permanent and migratory birds from Europe and Asia that usually come around from September to April that is a rainy season for breeding purposes. Some of the migratory bird species include European rollers,swallows ,Caspian wing and so much more .
The soda lakes of Ngorongoro are also breeding grounds for other water birds too like falimingos ,ducks and waders.
There is lots of birds species too like the ostriches,grewcrown cranes, secretary birds and so much more.
The Ngorongoro conservation area is about 4 hours’ drive from Arusha.
The best time to visit the Ngorongoro crater is also during the dry season around June to October as well as around December to March when the calving season takes place in the Ngorongoro conservation area.
