Cindy's Africa adventure: Sept. 29

Alfred wanted to be at the gate for Ngorongoro Conservation Area when it opened this morning, which is 6 a.m. Which meant we had to get up around 5 a.m. to leave at 5:30 a.m. for the half-hour drive to the gate.
He said all the animals are more active in the morning, and he sensed that we might see a lion kill.
And, indeed, we were the first in line to do the paperwork at the gate and drive into the conservation area!
The Ngorongoro Crater is the caldera of a volcano that erupted about 2 million years ago. By the way, it is about 160 square kilometers or about 20 kilometers by 18 kilometers. It's huge, which means it most likely was bigger than Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is about 16,000 feet.
As soon as we started ascending to the rim, we ran into some pretty thick fog so we essentially drove in really thick fog for at least an hour and a half. The fog started lifting as we started our descent. We arrived on the floor of the crater around 7:45 a.m. We were there until about 2 p.m.
It was a banner day! Before we ate breakfast around 9:30 a.m., we already had spotted a herd of zebra then a herd of cape buffalo (a huge herd), a few wildebeests and a few hippos.
Then we encountered a zebra kill.
There were three lionesses with the carcass of a zebra, which had been recently eaten. The lionesses in the pride make the kill, then the male eats first before the females. The females had just eaten, as all of them were lying down asleep. The photo I took is the lioness who was guarding the carcass. There was a silver-backed jackal that was hanging out but it kept its distance.
While we were there, a hyena attempted to get close; the hyena hunts but it prefers to scavenge. The lioness became alert, stood up and started toward our vehicle but pulled back and marked by scratching up the grass with her hind legs, but then she wheeled around, crouched and came right to the front bumper of our vehicle, bounding out from under the bumper and chased the hyena. She didn't get close to the hyena, but the hyena got the message. The lioness then marked and sat for a while before we left. It was pretty exciting - Beth has a video of it. Sort of….
We then climbed a rather small hill where we ate breakfast. Before breakfast, however, we watched two elephants traipse the floor of the crater in the green portion below.
Then I spotted some ostriches not too far away doing something strange. It was a courtship dance, so we went over and watched them for a while. You'll see in the photo that the male's neck and hind quarters are bright pink - that is attractive to the female and is one way to convince her to mate. The male spreads his wings and ducks his head, preparing a nest into which he will invite the female. In the photo, the female is reciprocating by spreading her wings. It was fascinating to watch.
We ate breakfast on the hilltop, then descended again to the floor where we saw huge herds of wildebeest.
We also saw flamingos, not a lot but more than we saw at Lake Manyara, which is famous for its flocks of flamingos this time of year. Alfred told us there were no flamingos because it had rained too much and the water's alkalinity was low and was not a happy place for the birds. It was somewhat of a disappointment (like Kilimanjaro) but we saw a small flock in the crater.
We stopped at the "hippo pool," a beautiful stream-fed area in which there were several happy hippos in the water.
Speaking of hippos, we also saw a hyena approach a hippo that was out of the water but it was merely curious. A sole hyena could never take down a full-grown hippo.
At one of our "comfort" spots (i.e. bathrooms), we spotted a small watering area where a lot of rufous-tailed weavers were watering. I got a photo of one of them hovering. It was interesting to watch them hover over the water before landing to take a drink of water.
I also photographed a superb starling. I posted one earlier that was taken looking up to the bird. This is one looking down on the bird, and you can understand why it's called a superb starling.
We also saw Thompson's and Grant's gazelles. They are not impalas but they are as beautiful and graceful as impalas.
About 2 p.m., we headed to the Olduvai Gorge dig site that was about an hour from the crater.
Mind you that all of this travel, except from the crater gate to Karatu is the roughest roads we've ever traveled (they call it an African massage - maybe I've previously mentioned it?). You bounce around - a lot!
The Olduvai Gorge is "the cradle of humankind." It is the dig site that Drs. Louise and Mary Leaky (and others) discovered hominid remains, including Lucy (perhaps the most famous) and the Tauga child. They also discovered footprints that indicated that our ancestors walked upright much sooner than we previously believed. In fact, they were walking about 2 million years ago.
The footprints initially were made in volcanic ash then they were preserved because it rained, then it dried and more ash fell.
Pretty amazing stuff. We listened to a lecture while gazing out over the site, a portion of which was preserved so we could see the layers of sediment. A lot of it had been excavated. There also was another site that the Leakys excavated.
Albert also told us that there is a sand dune within 20 kilometers of the gorge where Masai women who could not get pregnant would go and lie down, belly on sand, then her husband would come get her and take her back to the village. And whallah, the woman would announce within two months that she was pregnant.
We barreled and bumped our way back to the lodge, arriving around 6 p.m. We were exhausted so we ate supper when it became available at 7 p.m. then went back to our cottage and were in bed by 9:30 p.m.
We missed seeing Alfred, who is such a kind and caring soul, during dinner. He was going to bring me the memory card I bought in Arusha that wouldn't format. After having his uncle visit the store, he found someone here that was returning to Arusha (about a three-hour drive but on paved roads) so he sent the card with them, his uncle went to the store the next day to get the card working properly and sent it back to Karatu. Alfred picked it up yesterday and was going to give it to me at dinner.
Alas, we had to wait until Sunday morning to get the card and test it. Hope it works, as I'm running out of space on the cards I brought (forgot to bring the extra I bought), and we're in the Serengeti for four days beginning Monday.
Again, I'm just posting a few of the photos I got today because of the internet situation. Enjoy.