Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area

We went on safari with Green Bee Eaters, our driver Dio was very knowledgable about the local areas and kept providing us with useful information throughout our trip.

We were picked up early from Maasai Camp in Arusha. The Arusha region has a population of 1,000,000, the second largest in population after Dar es Salam, Tanzania’s capital. It’s main tribe is the Meru after nearby Mount Meru, and then Maasai, these are two of the over 100 tribes in Tanzania. The two main religions in the area are Christian at around 60% and Islamic. The Arusha region relies mostly on agriculture and exports a lot of it’s produce overseas, either through Nairobi or Dar es Salam.

En route to the Serengeti We drove through Kisongo just outside of Arusha which was bustling with locals, it hosts a Maasai market a few days a week, where the Maasai bring cattle for sale and trade. Driving on to Makuyuni where we turned right and onwards through Mto wa Mbu and Karatu and past Lake Manyara National Park. The landscape was lush, green and hilly, with fields growing corn, coffee and sunflowers.  We drove over the great Rift Valley, which stretches from the Red Sea to Mozambique. All along the way there were lots of curio stalls selling the usual crafts and jewellery, and loads of canvas paintings which I hadn’t seen in Kenya, the paintings were beautiful!.

When we entered the Ngorongoro Conservation Area it was like stepping into the jungle, due to the rainy weather we were driving through the clouds, very atmospheric. The road was stones and red mud. Once we rounded the crater to the west and the Serengeti, the clouds starts to lift and the rains stopped. The difference in the landscape was clearly noticeable, from lush forests to dry plains, covered by whistling Acacia bushes and Acacia trees, almost in the blink of an eye. This is caused by what is locally called a “rain shadow” the warm air from the Indian Ocean hitting the mountains and rising up, causing clouds, and rain to fall.

The road from the crater to the Serengeti was rough, bumpy and very dusty, but great fun! The Serengeti gate was just a gate in the middle of nowhere, but full of character. Once we got into the park we got to see a pride of fifteen lionesses and cubs relaxing in the long grass beside a watering hole. The landscape was very flat, but there were a few rocky volcanic outcrops dotted around, these are the best places to see lions. We were very lucky to see a Cheetah wandering along beside the road. We saw lots of zebra and wildebeest herds, most likely heading to the Maasai Mara on their yearly migration, the zebra lead the wildebeest in the migration.

We stayed at a basic camp in the Serengeti called Tumbilu, zebra and wildebeest were wandering about outside our tents all night long and we could easily hear their calls to one another.

We stayed at Simba Cmp on the crater rim and drove into the creator early in the morning. There were lots of flamingos feeding in the lake, with herds of zebra and wildebeest on the the lake shores. After a few hours in the crater we saw a male lion stalking an injured lone buffalo, we didn’t see a kill, but the buffalo’s days were definitely numbered. Then we saw three male lions pursuing a female lion, they were so close to our trucks it was amazing to be able to see them in so much detail.

The Ngorongoro Crater is 260 sq km, with a depth of 610m and diameter of 19km and 23km. Ngorongoro means big hole in Maasai. The lake inside the crater is called Lake Magadi and is home to flocks of flamingo. The crater was created by the collapsing of a mountain bigger than Kilimanjaro. The difference between the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area is that people can live in the conservation area but not in the park.  8000 Maasai live in the conservation area, but are not allowed inside the crater.