Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater, one of the wonders of the natural world, is an extinct volcano that collapsed in on itself around 25 million years ago thus forming a vast superbowl where the largest permanent concentration of African game is on display. The central bowl – the caldera – has sides roughly 1,950 feet high and a flattish centre with a diameter of about ten miles. The views from the top of the crater wall are absolutely breathtaking. The crater walls are forested but four wheel drive vehicles will take you down into this primeval paradise of woodland, lake, river, swamp and plain that shelters around 20,000 animals. Many of these are the large grazing animals such as wildebeest, buffalo, gazelle and zebra who depend on the open grasslands in the crater. These attract the attendant predators, the black-maned lion, the leopard and hyena.

Elephants feed on the giant sedges and hippo wallow in the pools. The Fever Tree forests shelter monkeys, bushbuck and waterbuck and the few black rhino that have taken refuge here. A soda lake, fed by the Munge river attracts water birds, including flamingos and is a favourite place for predators to make their kill.

One of the most fascinating attractions in the area is the Olduvai Gorge, where an old river has carved away the rock to expose layer upon layer of volcanic soil.

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