December 28th: Ngorongoro Crater

We made our way to Ngorongoro Crater on wonderfully paved roads. I've never been so obsessed with roads! We stopped for a look out over Lake Manyara shortly after driving under hundreds of yellow billed storks The lake was gorgeous. On our drive up to the crater we began seeing many Maasai people and ended up learning quite a bit about them as one of our drivers, Steve, was Maasai. We passed a boma (compound of sorts) where a man lived with his 15 wives and more than 100 children. Apparently its all connected to the cows (and we thought cows were special in Wisconsin!). The more cows you have, the more wives you need to mile the cows. Cows are their life and a main source of nutrients for the. No, its not the mean, but a mixture of cow's milk and cow's blood! And remember, people, refrigeration isn't a part of that scrumptious recipe! Marriages are arranged when children are three, or at least for a man's first wife. It was interesting to hear Steve say that you have to buy a wife (with a dowry of 10 cows and goats and who know what else), like you buy merchandise. He asked Tom how much he paid for me and in typical Tom-fashion he said that I paid for him!

Anyway, we got to the rim of the crater and it was absolutely beautiful. The crater is very large with a lake and we could barely see the animals. They looked more like specks. At first I though we weren't going to see any animals because we couldn't see them from the rim, but as we headed down into the crater we ran across a heard of elephants pulling leaves off acacia trees. They were quite interesting to watch. Once we got to the floor of the crater there were thousands and thousands of animals, including buffalo, antelopes, zebras, ostriches, wart hogs, hyenas, lions, etc. I saw my first flamingo (there were thousands) as well as many, many species of birds. It was incredible. We drove around for several hours looking for the elusive cheetah and leopard, but to no avail. We headed up a steep one way dirt road, as the sun was lowering, to the crater rim and to the Wildlife Lodge, where we stayed. Every room in the lodge overlooked the crater and the bar, restaurant and patio offered spectacular views. That night Tom and I were awakened to the loud munching of a water buffalo directly on the other side glass window. What a great day!