Africa Trip 2024 - Day 8, Ngorongoro Crater

[This is post #17 of 21 posts about our 2024 trip to Africa. To go to the first post in the series CLICK HERE.   At the end of the last post there is also a Directory with links of all 21 posts.]

After enjoying our visit at Olduvai Gorge and grabbing some lunch (previous post), we continued eastward in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) towards Ngorongoro Crater.   

Encountering people.  Unlike being in Serengeti National Park, where the only people we saw were in safari vehicles or in the camps, we encountered more and more people along the road.   There were women at the exit to Olduvai Gorge selling jewelry and multiple women and children along the road at various places selling honey. At one place we had to stop and wait for some boys to move their cattle off of the road.

Boys with their cattle on the road.  You can see the windshield wiper mark from all of the dust we had gone through.  It definitely had not been there at the beginning of the day.  Fazal kept the vehicle spotless.

Although the conservation area has many restrictions, such as no farming beyond the subsistence level, people are allowed to live within most parts of NCA.  The people living there are largely members of the Maasai Tribe.  They generally lead a pastoral life style, grazing their livestock wherever they can. 

Entering Ngorongoro Crater.  We made it to the entrance to Ngorongoro Crater near the crest of the rim at about 3.  As best I can tell, there are only three roads into or out of the crater.  There was the descent road (i.e. one way down) on the west side where we entered.  There is the ascent road to the south which we never used.  There is a two way road (although I am glad we did not encounter traffic going the other way) in the northeast near Lion's Paw Camp that we used multiple times.

GPS tracks of our travels on topo map of Ngorongoro Crater.  Khaki entering from the northwest-Day 8 (Sept. 17); Dark green in the center-Day 9 (Sept. 18); Light green along eastern rim-Day 10 (Sept. 19)

Maasai with their herd.  While Fazal went inside the office at the gate to get our tickets, we stretched our legs at the overlook.  From the overlook we could see two men with their cattle on the outer slope of the crater.  We watched them as they repositioned the herd.  

I was particularly excited to hear the bell on the lead cow.  According to multiple sources Ngorongoro is believed to be an onomatopoeic word used by the Maasai to describe the sound of the cow bell.  They named the area Ngorongoro after the echoing “ngor ngor” sound.  I would never have come up with that word to describe the sound, but if it works for them.

Two men with their cattle across from the overlook

A closer look at the two men (further up the hill to the right from the cows) revealed several interesting things.  They both wore shukas and they both carried two long objects, a wooden staff and a spear.  Both the staff and spear could be used to protect the cattle from predators and have traditionally been carried by Maasai men.  I also noticed the man on the right was checking his phone. 

Maasai men tending their herd.  They each have a wooden staff and a spear.  The man on the right looks to be checking his phone.

Descent into the crater.  Fazal was soon back with the appropriate paper work and we began our descent into the crater.

Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest unfilled caldera.  This is looking east across the caldera from the rim at the beginning of the descent road.  The alkaline Lake Magadi is in the distance on the right.  The lighter colored area on this side of the lake may be some of the mineral deposits from the lake.

What is Ngorongoro Crater and Why is it so Special?

First the Geology

• Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest intact, unfilled volcanic caldera.
  
• The nearly circular caldera is 2000 feet deep.  The floor covers approximately 100 square miles, 11 miles north-south and 12 miles east-west.
• The caldera formed 2-3 million years ago when the top of the volcano collapsed in on itself.  This occurred when the underlying magma chamber emptied, possibly violently, and could no longer support the top of the volcano.
• The crater floor is currently 5900 feet above sea level.  Estimates of the height of the original volcano are 14,800 to 19,000 feet.

  And the Animals.

• Ngorongoro Crater is a self-contained sanctuary constrained by the steep walls, although there is some movement of animals into and out of the crater.
  
• There are a variety of habitats including grassy savanna, patches of forest, internal lakes (one of which is alkaline), streams, swamps and freshwater springs.
• Approximately 25,000 large mammals live in Ngorongoro Crater, including leopards, endangered black rhinos, cheetahs, elephants, buffalo, baboons, hyenas and the densest known population of lions in the world.  There are also thousands of grazers such as Grant’s and Thompson’s gazelles, wildebeest, antelope, bushbuck, eland, hartebeests, kudu, and zebras.  However, animals notably absent are giraffe, impala, topi, oribi, and crocodile.
• There are over 550 species of birds.
• The high density of animals present makes the Ngorongoro Crater unique in the number of animals observable in a short period of time.

As we made our way down the descent road, there were numerous places to catch a view of the crater.

The view looking back towards the western rim part way down the descent road.

There were also long stretches where the view was obscured by trees and brush.  However, there seemed to be an unusual number of birds in the trees.  Some of the birds were similar to what we have seen near home, like the shrike.  It is different than the shrikes we have sen, but it is similar with a similarly shaped bill.

Common Fiscal Shrike

 Other birds, on the other hand, are completely different.  What is a coucal??

White-browed coucal

We continued to descend.

About halfway down the descent. Lake Magadi is dead ahead.

As we made our way down, we observed multiple trees that contained what appeared to be large globs of dried grass on the branches.

Weaver nests

 Fazal explained those were nests built by birds known as weavers. 

Weaver nests.  An entrance hole is observable in the nest on the right.

There are many types of weavers.  For example, we had seen a Speckle-fronted Weaver while eating lunch at Olduvai Gorge earlier in the day.  The nests tend to vary with species.  iNaturalist thinks these nests were built by White-browed Sparrow-Weavers.  According to wiki,

Groups of ten to sixty inverted-U-shaped nests of dry grass appear in the outside limbs of trees, although only several are used for breeding or roosting. While breeding nests have only one entrance, roosting nests have an entrance located at each of the two nest extremities. The construction of these nests shows cultural variations. Research has shown that, throughout a region, nests are located at the leeward side of a tree. This behavior preserves a greater number of intact nests for breeding and roosting.

A view of an entire tree does seem to show the nests are only on the west side, which would be away from the prevailing wind for this tree.

Weaver nests only on one side

Animals at the Bottom of the Descent Road.  We finally made it to the bottom (what the gps said was 1400 feet below our highest point on the rim), but we had to wait for a parade of guinea fowl to pass before we could proceed.

Helmeted Guineafowl

Helmeted Guineafowl

We almost immediately spotted multiple animals in all directions.  

Looking back towards the rim, there were trees and other vegetation.  We spotted an elephant among the trees.

Elephant among the trees at the base of the rim.

Without moving we also spotted a Grant's Gazelle

Grant's Gazelle

and saw our first jackal.

Jackal

Turning to look towards the center of the caldera, we could see zebra

Zebra in the caldera

and buffalo.

Buffalo in the caldera

A closer look at a nearby zebra showed birds on his back.

The birds turned out to be Wattled Starlings.  Although omnivores, the starlings eat primarily insects, hence the reason for perching on the zebra's back.

Wattled Starling

All of the observations on the floor of the crater so far had been from only one location at the bottom of the descent road at the western tip of Lake Magadi.

We proceeded along the main track to the east (dashed line on the map below), entering an area with large trees.  This is the region labeled Lerai Forest on the map southwest of the lake.

Geological Map of  Ngorongoro Caldera and part of Olmoti Caldera [from Geological Highlights of East Africa's National Parks, by Roger Scoon, Penguin Random House South Africa. Kindle Edition, 2022. (p. 341)]

Lerai Forest.  The Lerai Fores region was completely different from the open plain at the center of the caldera.  It was dominated by yellow bark acacia trees, which were quite tall.  The bark had a noticeable greenish yellow color.  It turns out it is one of the very few trees where photosynthesis takes place in the bark.

A yellow bark acacia near the edge of Lerai Forest.  Note the bird (Long-crested Eagle) on the fallen limb to the far left.

In the open space near the edge of the forest next to the tree shown above was a very interesting looking bird, a Long-crested Eagle.  Fortunately he sat and posed for us.

Long-crested Eagle

This bird may look small in the picture, but he is not.  Their body length is 21-23 inches.  They have a wing span of approximately 4 feet. 

We also spotted a vulture on the top of one of the trees.

White-backed vulture

Baboons.  However, the real stars of the Lerai Forest were baboons and particularly one very little one.

The little one with the adults

In one of the thicker parts of the forest with more trees, we saw a baboon sit down at the side of the road.  An infant quickly ran in to join her.  Then another adult appeared.

The adults totally ignored the little one, who seemed to be having a great time exploring the dried grass and climbing around the adults.

 

 

  

Here is some video of the baby baboon playing and crawling around the adults while they preen. 

 

It wasn't long before the troop took off into the woods.  It almost seemed like the baby was left to fend for itself.

Baby on the ground while the troop takes off.

Not to worry.  The Baby grabbed on the back of one of the adults (mama?),

Grabbing on to catch a ride

climbed up onto her back,

Settling in for the ride

  then decided to jump to another adult.

Jumping to an adjacent adult

The troop then disappeared into the thicker foliage.

Beyond the Lake.  Working our way a bit further, now to the east of Lake Magadi, we left the thicker foliage and came out again into a more open area. 

Looking southeast over Goringop Swamp in the distance with the crater wall behind

We briefly caught sight of a lion, although we did not get much of a picture.  It was only after I saw the picture at home that I realized there was another lion lounging in the grass.

Lioness walking away plus another one in the grass on the right

There is reported to be a sizeable number of lions in the crater, resulting in the highest density of lions anywhere in the world.  The first episode of the really outstanding award-winning National Geographic documentary Queens, which came out earlier this year, features lions and hyenas in Ngorongoro Crater.  Perhaps these are some of those featured lions.

We also saw two beautiful Grey-crowned Cranes.  Not only are they beautiful, but they show up often on info about Tanzania since they are the national bird.

Grey-crowned Crane, the National Bird of Tanzania and Uganda

It was now roughly 5:15 p.m..  We quickened the pace across the crater with no more stops for pictures.  It was only after we got to the entrance/exit gate near the top of the crater on the northeast side did Fazal explain we needed to go through the exit by 6 p.m.  The gate official closes and locks the gate at 6 p.m. sharp and leaves for home.  Anyone that has not passed through the gate by then is stuck in the crater until the gates open again at 6 a.m. the following morning.   Fortunately that was not an adventure we had to deal with on this trip.  We went through the gate at about 5:30 then arrived at Lion's Paw Camp 10 minutes later.

 

We could not see the crater floor from the camp, but it was still a beautiful scene looking out over the crater through the acacia trees as the sun went down. 

Sunset at Lion's Paw Camp

It was good to relax a bit.  It had been a jam-packed day.   

Next up...much more of Ngorongoro Crater, including a sighting of the extremely rare black rhino.

Africa Trip 2024 - Day 8, Leaving Serengeti N. P. and on to Olduvai Gorge

[This is post #16 of 21 posts about our 2024 trip to Africa. To go to the first post in the series CLICK HERE.   At the end of the last post there is also a Directory with links of all 21 posts.]

We had had a wonderful time watching the lion pride at the marsh (previous post) and especially the adorable little cubs.

Some of the lion cubs at the marsh

However, we really needed to get moving since we had a very long trip ahead.  Our ultimate goal was Lion's Paw Camp on the far rim of Ngorongoro Crater.  However, we also planned to stop at Olduvai Gorge.  

GPS track for Sept. 17 in khaki--from Serengeti Sametu Camp in the northwest (first part of khaki track hidden under cyan track for Sept. 16) to Lions Paw Camp to the southeast (on the northeast edge of Ngorongoro Crater).  Red line is gps track of our flight to north Serengeti on Day 3, Sept 12.

Python.  As we were turning around in the marsh to make our way out to the main road,  Fazal spotted a very large snake that he immediately recognized as a python.  Looking just at its head buried in the grass it doesn't appear that impressive,.

Head of an African Rock Python in the grass

However it was huge. 

Southern African Rock Python on a termite mound

This is an African Rock Python,the largest snake in Africa and the third largest snake in the world.  iNaturallist thinks this is a Southern African Rock Python.  Although smaller than the Central African Rock Python that is also found in this area, Southern African Rock Pythons average 9 to 13 feet long and weigh up to 70 pounds.  Although unusual, there are reports of Rock Pythons as long as 20 feet and weighing 200 pounds!

Whatever kind of snake this was, it was enormous both in length and diameter.  As seen in the picture above, it was on a termite mound.  I am not sure how long it was, but the termite mound was probably 4 feet high.  That means I can account for at least 8 feet of snake in the picture (4 vertical feet, 3 horizontal feet along the top, and 1 foot for the neck and head buried in the grass bottom right).  Since the tail is normally smaller in diameter than the main body, there was probably more snake draped over the back.

I am glad we were in the vehicle and not on foot. According to this source, they are very aggressive and can tackle an antelope weighing up to 130 pounds. 

Hyenas.  Further down the road we encountered three hyenas.  They had apparently just come from a kill, since at least one of them had blood on her chin and her side.

Two spotted hyenas passing by.  Note the vulture on top of the bush.

A Lappet-faced Vulture keeps watch

I don't know where they were going, but the hyenas seemed to be on a mission.  They walked around us and just kept going.

 

Cheetahs.  It was not quite 9:30 am, but we discovered three cheetahs that had claimed one of the very few shady spots in the region.

Three cheetahs lounging under this lone small tree

This group, known as a coalition, is almost certainly three males, possibly brothers.  Females remain solitary for life unless they are raising cubs or there is a temporary mother-daughter allegiance.  Given the blood on their faces, they had probably recently come from a nearby kill.

Naabi Hill Gate.  Despite the various stops along the way, we were making good time.  We reached Naabi Hill Gate at about 10:15.  

View of the picnic area and restroom building from the parking lot of Naabi Hill Gate

Naabi Hill is a large kopje rising out of the flat, treeless plains that spread out in all directions.  

Naabi Hill Gate is the main entrance to Serengeti National Park for visitors entering form or exiting to the east.  There are administrative offices, restrooms, a refreshment stand, and lots of picnic tables.  Naabi Hill is still over 10 miles from the actual boundary between Serengeti NP and Ngorongoro Conservaton Area, the region to the east.  Apparently the plains during the rainy season are too wet for permanent structures so they located everything here partway up the hill.

We stopped to take care of the paperwork for exit from Serengeti and to get our entry permits to Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  Ngorongoro Conservation Area includes Olduvai Gorge and the Ngorongoro Crater. Tanzania seems to be big on paperwork.  Fortunately Fazal took care of all the details while we either hung out at the vehicle or made a pit stop at the restroom. 

More of the picnic area and concession building.  The hill rises behind and to the right

The other major attraction here is the 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding plains from the top of the hill.  The top is accessible via a short hiking trail.  We decided not to do the trek up the hill since there wasn't much to see.  However, during the rainy season, the animals of the Great Migration are here.  At that time the plains are filled with 2 million wildebeest, zebra, and Thomson's gazelle.  

The picture below is looking north from the parking lot.  We were only part way up Naabi Hill or about 170 feet above the plain according to my gps.  Dust trails from vehicles on the roads are visible.

View across the surrounding plain from the parking lot of Naabi Hill

I don't know whether it was the paperwork or standing in line, but it took more than half an hour for Fazal to handle the formalities.  However it was a welcome stop after a long morning of rough roads.  Before we set out again, Fazal put down the top on the vehicle and we stowed our cameras in our camera bags.  We would be traveling at somewhat faster speeds on the "highway", but it was unpaved and extraordinarily dusty.  At the very least we wanted to protect the cameras from the dust.  I don't know the makeup of the dirt on the roads, but it reminded me of caliche in west Texas.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area.  It was  about 11:30 when we officially left Serengeti National Park and entered the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). 

National  Heritage Site.  NCA, like Serengeti National Park, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Interestingly it has been so since 1979, while Serengeti NP was not designated as such until 1981.   It was initially listed for its natural significance.  Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest unbroken and unflooded volcanic caldera and is part of the East African Rift. The National heritage Site was expanded in 2010 to include Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli for their cultural significance.

Although the NCA is a protected area administered by the government to protect the animals, it is different from a national park in that people can live within the conservation area.   We began to see people, homes, and domestic cattle.

Olduvai Gorge.  It was just past noon when we pulled into the parking lot at Olduvai Gorge.  It took a few minutes for Fazal to get our tickets, but fortunately there were very very few tourists while we were there.

Fazal went in to take care of getting our tickets.  The green plants in the foreground are sisal.  The gorge is named after the Masaai word for the wild sisal plant, Oldupaai.

Olduvai Gorge is one of the most important paleo-anthropological sites in the world.  The area has yielded numerous fossil remains from about five million to 10,000 years ago, including the skull of the primitive hominid australopithecus boisei ("nutcracker man") and homo habilis ("the human who used tools”). 

Although first discovered by German researchers in the 1910's, it was Louis and Mary Leakey who worked at this site for decades.  Their work revolutionized the understanding of the evolutionary development of humans.  Before the discoveries at Olduvai, the human race was thought to be only about 600,000 years old. The Olduvai Gorge showed that the human lineage goes back at least a million years. 

More importantly, much of the work here showed the connection between the development of stone technologies (i.e. increasingly more sophisticated stone tools) and the evolution from Homo habilis, "handy man", to Homo ergaster, "working man", to Homo erectus, "upright man", the immediate precursor to Homo sapiens.  [For more info, see this very readable discussion:  https://altezzatravel.com/articles/olduvai-gorge   It explains how these species, unlike their contemporaries, developed from herbivores to omnivores and hence survived being forced to leave the forests for the savannah.]  

At the time I did not understand the research or where it was being done, but I certainly remember hearing stories on the nightly news when I was in school about the Leakeys and their discoveries.  It was a very big deal.

Overlook.  Our first stop was an overlook on the rim of the gorge.  Olduvai Gorge is a steep-sided 300 foot deep, 30 mile long ravine in the Great Rift Valley.  It was here that one of the guides gave us a wonderful introduction to the site. 

Overlook with stadium seating.  We stayed at the top since it was so steep

One of the things she explained is the name "Olduvai" is similar to the Maasai word for sisal, Oldupaai, which grows wild in the area.  A German scientist who found fossils and tools while in the area in 1910 reported his discoveries when he returned to Germany.  However, he misunderstood the Maasai word for the area and called it Oldway.  This somehow morphed into Olduvai and stuck.

Not only have there been many fossils and artifacts found here, but they have generally been found in well-defined geological layers formed from eruption of the nearby volcanoes or sedimentation from flooding. 

Very visible layers

Since the age of the layers is known it allows for accurate dating of the fossils and artifacts found within them.  Seven major layers or beds have been identified, with the oldest going back 2.1 million years. [http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Olduvai_Gorge]

New Museum.  The museum was founded by Mary Leakey in the 1970's.  A new museum building was built and opened to the public in 2018.  

Entrance to the museum [By Kufundisha - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86178187]

There are five exhibit halls featuring different aspects of the work at Olduvai Gorge.  The exhibit halls form a ring around a central open area, mimicking the layout of a Maasai boma.

[https://www.ncaa.go.tz/olduvai-gorge-museum/]

Laetoli Footprints.  One of the exhibit halls is devoted to the fossilized footprints discovered by Mary Leakey in 1976 at Laetoli, which is about 28 miles south of Olduvau Gorge.  At 3.7 million years old, the footprints were the oldest known evidence for bipedalism of hominins at the time.  Analysis of the footprints and skeleetal structures provide clear evidence that bipedalism preceded large brains.  Hominins were bipedal close to a million years before the earliest known stone tools were made.  This was counter to the original assumption that the first traits to evolve after speciation were related to intelligence: big brains, tool use, and complex language

Impression of Laetoli footprints

The display at the museum shown above is only a small portion of the footprints found.  The original trail of footprints was 75 feet long.  The prints were produced by three individuals, one walking in the footprints of the other, making those footprints difficult to interpret.   More recently additional footprints of the same age but of different individuals have been recovered at the Laetoli site.

Lucy.   Another display of interest to us was the assembly of several hundred fossilized bones, which was 40% of the skeleton of a female hominin from 3.2 million years.   She was discovered in Ethiopia, not Tanzania, in 1974.  She was named Lucy after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which the expedition members played repeatedly at the celebration the night she was found.

Multiple indicators of the skeleton and teeth suggest she was a mature but young adult.

The Frog with Lucy.  Hominins have certainly gotten bigger in the last 3.2 million years.

According to Wikipedia:

Lucy was 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) tall, weighed 29 kg (64 lb), and (after reconstruction) looked somewhat like a chimpanzee. The creature had a small brain like a chimpanzee, but the pelvis and leg bones were almost identical in function to those of modern humans, showing with certainty that Lucy's species were hominins that had stood upright and had walked erect.

The walking gait with an upright structure, coupled with the small brain, was further evidence that bipedalism came before an enlarged brain in human evolution.  

Lunch.  By this time it was nearly 1:30 and we were starving.  We retrieved the box lunches we had brought with us from the camp and had a very enjoyable lunch at the museum's picnic area.

Fazal, Frog,and Turkey finishing lunch

We even had multiple birds show up around the table looking for a hand out that kept us entertained .  They were small and acted like sparrows, but were much more colorful. 

Speckle-fronted Weaver

We were soon back on the road.  We still had a long way to go before reaching Lion's Paw Camp, but we did stop long enough to grab a shot of the new Olduvai Museum Memorial on the highway at the turnoff to the museum. 

Memorial on highway at turnoff to museum showing "nutcracker man" and "handy man”.  Both were found at Olduvai Gorge, but I am not sure which one is which.

Next up...Ngorongoro Crater known as Africa's "Eighth Wonder of the World", the world's largest intact volcanic caldera, and "Africa's Eden", home to over 25,000 animals including nearly all of Tanzania's animal species..