Ngorongoro Crater Safari

The second-largest crater in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Empakaai is almost 8km in diameter and its floor is dominated by a saline crater lake and enclosed by sheer 300m high walls that rise to an elevation of 3,200m on the eastern rim. On of East Africa’s most underrated and seldom-visited scenic gems, the crater lies about 90 minutes’ drive northeast of Ngorongoro Crater via the Embulbul Depression, a grassy bowl that which dips to below 2,350m at the base of the 3,260m Mount Losirua and 3,648m Lolmalasin (the highest point in the Crater Highlands). The view from the forested crater rim is fabulous, whether you look inward to the emerald green crater lake, its shallows frequently tinged pink by thousands of flamingos, or east across the Rift Valley to the ashen slopes and smoking fumaroles of volcanic Ol Doinyo Lengai, a scene that also takes in Lake Natron and snow-capped Kilimanjaro on a clear day. Empakaai offers a welcome opportunity to break the safari regime of twice-daily game drives with a stiff steep guided hike to the crater floor. The steep but scenic descent along a tolerably well-maintained footpath takes 45-60 minutes, longer if you’re looking out for the plentiful birds that inhabit the forested crater walls, and there’s also a chance of spotting bushbuck, buffalo, blue monkey and even elephant. Good walking shoes and a reasonable level of fitness are recommended.

Credit: Naona Moru Camp

Coming from the direction of Arusha, the road from Lodware Entrance Gate to the crater rim switchbacks uphill through fertile slopes swathed in Afromontane forest to Heroes Point, which is where most visitors catch their first breathtaking view to the crater floor. It is here that German conservationist and filmmaker Michael Grzimek (son of the legendary Professor Bernhard Grzimek of Serengeti Shall Not Die fame) was buried in 1959 after his tragic death in an aeroplane crash over the Serengeti at the age of 24. Look closely at the crater floor below and you should pick out a few hundred-strong herds of wildebeest, zebra and buffalo moving across the crater floor, as well as elephants on the edge of Lerai Forest or flamingos in the shallows of Lake Magadi.

Bounding the southern Ngorongoro Conservation Area at the base of the Rift Valley Escarpment, remote Lake Eyasi is a shallow soda lake prone to large fluctuations in area and level depending on local rainfall. Possessed of a certain desolate beauty, the surrounding dry savannah is home to the Hadza, or Hadzabe, a tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers that numbers fewer than 100 individuals today and speaks a similar click language to the San people of Southern Africa. The overgrown village of Mang’ola is the most important settlement in the area, and the base from which it is usually possible to visit a family of these traditional nomads, who resolutely refuse to be coerced into a more settled agricultural or pastoral lifestyle, and join them on a hunting expedition in search of baboons, dik-dik or even mice, all of which are despatched with a traditional bow and arrow.

Set within the Rift Valley on the eastern border of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Natron is perhaps the most starkly beautiful of all the Rift Valley lakes south of Turkana. Almost 60km long but nowhere more than a metre deep, this primordial alkaline sump is renowned for its caustic and unusually viscous waters, which are enclosed by a crust of volcanic ash and salt, as well as a few isolated swamp patches fed by bubbling hot springs. There is some large wildlife in the area, but Natron’s main faunal claim to fame is as the only known breeding ground for East Africa’s 2.5 million lesser flamingos, which congregate at an inaccessible part of the lake between August and October. Natron also attracts up to 100,000 migrant waders during the European winter. The main attraction close to the Natron is Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Maasai ‘Mountain of God’, a textbook volcano that rises more than 2km above the surrounding Rift Valley floor to an altitude of 2,960m. Probably the most active volcano in East Africa, Lengai has erupted at least a dozen times in the past 150 years, experienced almost continuous low-key activity over the last past century and a half, the most dramatic in recent years being over 2007, when it emitted an ashen steamy plume that travelled almost 20km downwind. The steep ascent of Lengai, ideally undertaken overnight to avoid sun exposure on the black shadeless slopes, is a popular hike with fit and adventurous travellers, at least when the volcano is sufficiently placid. It should only be undertaken with an experienced local guide, ideally leaving shortly before midnight to reach the crater rim for sunrise.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area is essentially an eastern extension of the vast Serengeti-Mara ecosystem – indeed, it formed part of the original Serengeti National Park as it was gazetted in 1951 but was split off shortly afterwards to appease Maasai protests against being evicted from their traditional grazing lands. Today, the southeast of the conservation area, around Oldupai Gorge, remains an important component of this migratory ecosystem, a fact of which you will be in no doubt should you pass through the area en route to the Serengeti National Park during the rainy season (late November to early May), when large herds of wildebeest and other ungulates disperse across the short grass plains and calve en masse in February. At other times of year, the area is a good place to look for cheetah, bat-eared fox, eland and ostrich. The game viewing centrepiece of the region is Lake Ndutu, which straddles the Serengeti-Ngorongoro boundary at the epicentre of the wildebeest dispersal, when it offers truly dramatic game viewing.

Two million years ago, the landscape of Ngorongoro Conservation Area looked very different to how it does today. Ngorongoro itself would have been an active volcano, taller perhaps than Kilimanjaro is now, and the seasonally parched plains at its western base were partially submerged beneath a seasonal lake that formed an important watering hole for our hominid ancestors. The fluctuating nature of this ancient lake led to a high level of stratification, one that accentuated by sporadic deposits of volcanic ash from Crater Highlands, creating ideal conditions for the fossilisation. Then, tens of thousands of years ago, fresh tectonic activity caused the land to tilt, leading to the formation of a new lake to the east and the creation of a seasonal river that cut through the former lakebed to expose layers of stratification up to 100m deep and a continuous archaeological and fossil record of life on the plains over the past two million years. Named after the Maasai word for the wild sisal that grows in the area, Oldupai Gorge is one of the richest palaeontological sites in East Africa. First excavated in 1931 by Professor Louis Leakey, it was here, in 1959, that Louis’s wife Mary Leakey unearthed a critical landmark in the history of palaeontology: the discovery of a fossilised cranium that provided the first conclusive evidence that hominid evolution stretched back over more than a million years and had been enacted on the plains of East Africa. Nicknamed ‘Nutcracker Man’ in reference to its bulky jawbone, the cranium belonged to a robust Australopithecine that had lived and died on the ancient lakeshore around 1.75 million years earlier, and while its antiquity would later be superseded by more ancient fossils unearthed in Ethiopia and Kenya, it rewrote the perceived timespan of human evolution, shot the Leakeys’ work to international prominence, and led to an a series of exciting new discoveries, including the first fossilised remains of Homo habilis. At nearby Laetoli, in 1976, four years after Louis’s death, Mary Leakey discovered footprints created more than three million years ago by a party of early hominids that had walked through a bed of freshly deposited volcanic ash – still the most ancient hominid footprints ever found.

Today, the original diggings can be explored with a guide, but the main attraction is an excellent site museum that lies a short distance off the main track connecting Ngorongoro Crater to Serengeti National Park. Displays include replicas of some of the more interesting hominid fossils unearthed at the site as well as the Laetoli footprints, along with genuine fossils of a menagerie of extinct oddities: a short-necked giraffe, a giant swine, an aquatic elephant and a bizarre antelope with long de-curved horns. Outside the museum, look out for colourful dry-country birds such as red-and-yellow barbet and purple grenadier.

Credit: Travel Buckhead

Another dramatic relic of the volcanic activity that shaped the Crater Highlands over the past ten million years, Olmoti – a Maasai name meaning Cooking Pot – is a sunken caldera whose rim is reached along a 30-minute footpath from the ranger post at Nainokanoka. Covered in grass and bisected by a river valley, this shallow crater doesn’t quite match Ngorongoro or Empakaai for scenery, but it is very pretty, and it offers good grazing to the local Maasai cattle and various antelope. Look out for pairs of augur buzzard cartwheeling high in the sky, and the cliff-loving Verreaux’s eagle. From the main viewpoint, a short footpath leads to the seasonal Munge Waterfall, where the eponymous river cascades out of the crater.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area is one of the last places in Africa where large herds of wildlife still roam alongside people. The people in question are the pastoralist Maasai, staunch traditionalists renowned for their ongoing adherence to a cattle-herding lifestyle and distinctive attire of toga-like red blankets, ochre-dyed hair and beaded jewellery. Several Maasai ‘cultural villages’ scattered in and around Ngorongoro Conservation Area now cater to tourists, and while these manyattas admittedly offer a slightly contrived the experience, all are longstanding Maasai settlements whose inhabitants live a largely traditional lifestyle – and the opportunity to meet, interact with and photograph these proud and charismatic people (whose traditional respect for the local wildlife is the main reason why so much of it still survives in Maasailand) is not to be missed.

Affordability is a relative thing when it comes to Ngorongoro and the other parks along the northern Tanzania safari circuit. All the parks are serviced by mid-range lodges but these tend to charge rack rates that would be considered upmarket in most other contexts. With Ngorongoro specifically, a good way to keep things affordable is to stay in or around Karatu – although it is less atmospheric than sleeping on the crater rim. Rooms in terms of quality are probably 50% cheaper outside the conservation area, and there are even a few genuine mid-range options that offer simple but comfortable accommodation at wallet-friendly rates. Accommodation and meals aside, most costs associated with an Ngorongoro or northern Tanzania safari (for instance, fuel, driver and conservation fees) are pretty much the same irrespective of whether it is labelled a budget, mid-range or upmarket safari, but the ‘per person’ cost of a safari will decrease significantly if these are split between a group of four or five like-minded friends or family rather than a solo traveller or couple.

The Ngorongoro Crater cannot be considered a budget destination. The conservation authority charges a high daily entrance fee and crater service fee and access is only realistic in a sturdy and well-maintained 4×4 with an experienced local driver, and accommodation on the crater rim and in nearby Karati is all pretty pricey. The best way to keep down costs is to camp, either at the official campsite on the crater rim (stunning location, but expensive, with limited amenities, and very cold at night) or at one of several equipped but less attractive private sites close to Karati. It will also cut the price significantly if you join or try to put together a group of four of five like-minded travellers, so that transport-associated costs can be split between several people, bearing in mind that most itineraries would also take in a couple of other safari destinations, for instance Serengeti, Tarangire and/or Lake Manyara National Park.

Northern Tanzania boasts some of the most luxurious, exclusive and expensive lodges anywhere on the African safari circuit. Typically, these offer packages inclusive of world-class cuisine, house wines and beer, and game drives with guides who boast a higher level of expertise and far greater local knowledge than the average jobbing safari driver. These all-inclusive lodges also tend to cater to a clientele willing to pay more to fly between lodges rather than to drive along the long, bumpy, spine-jarring roads characteristic of the region. It should be noted that exclusivity and luxury are not always synonymous in northern Tanzania: some of the region’s most prestigious camps and lodges are truly world class in every respect, but others are semi-permanent or mobile tented camps whose main selling point is their remote, down-to-earth and exclusive atmosphere rather than five-star amenities.

Ngorongoro and the other reserves that comprise Tanzania’s northern safari circuit are well suited to family and small group safaris. Cost-wise, since almost all safaris are undertaken in 4x4s with pop-up tops, the optimum group size is four or five individuals, though larger groups can always be split between two or more vehicles. It is generally a good idea for groups to be reasonably compatible in terms of previous safari experience and special interests – repeat safari goers often have different priorities than first-timers, while passionate birdwatchers or photographers are likely to get up the noses of less dedicated fellow passengers. For this reason, unless your budget absolutely dictates it, we would recommend against joining a group safari with strangers.

Credit: Ngorongoro Crater Camp

Bespoke safaris are the name of the game in Tanzania, and probably half of the open-topped 4x4s you see in Ngorongoro and elsewhere on the northern safari circuit are occupied by one couple. In many respects, the best way to explore the area is with a like-minded partner rather than a larger group with more divergent interests and temperaments. It is also a more spacious arrangement than cramming four or more passengers into one vehicle. For honeymooners, the Ngorongoro Crater rim must one of the most romantic and memorable settings imaginable. While long dusty game drives on a chilly highland morning watching lions devour gazelles or elephants depositing their heavyweight stools on the roadside might not be everyone’s cup of romance, the crater rim does boast a couple of lodges whose honeymoon facilities live up to the superb setting. A popular option with honeymooners to Tanzania is a few days on safari taking in Ngorongoro and the greater Serengeti area, or even a sojourn into Kenya if you have the time and budget.

Credit: Sanctuary Ngorongoro Crater Camp

Very few people visit Ngorongoro solo. The main reason for this is presumably because a solo safari in northern Tanzania works out to be so much more expensive per person than it does for a couple or a small group. That said, if cost is not an obstacle, there is absolutely no reason why you couldn’t do a solo safari to Ngorongoro and elsewhere in Tanzania. Those actively seeking company along the way might do best to fly between the sort of exclusive lodges that offer all-inclusive packages, shared game drives and a common dining experience. Those that prefer their own company might prefer to book a bespoke road safari with their own driver/guide throughout. Special interest groups for which a solo safari might be preferable to joining a group safari are photographers and birdwatchers who want to pursue their passion without having to compromise to allow for the requirements of more generalist safari goers.

The game viewing centre piece of Ngorongoro Conservation Area is the grassy floor that stands at an altitude of 1,800m. T he crater is dominated by a cover of open savannah that looks lush and green during the rainy season but is altogether dustier and more windswept during drier months. Important micro habitats within the crater floor include the fever-tree forest at Lerai, the shallow saline Lake Magadi, the lush reed-fringed Gorigor Swamp, and a permanent hippo pool fed by Ngoitokitok Springs. The open grasslands of the crater floor is home to immense concentrations of grazing antelops all year through, with numbers peaking between December and May, the main rainy season. Most common are blue wildebeest and Burchell’s zebra, resident populations of which are estimated at 10,000 and 5,000 respectively. Wildebeest and zebra are commonly seen together and/or in the company of other grazers such as the diminutive Thomson’s gazelle, the larger and longer-horned Grant’s gazelle, and the rather doleful looking topi and Coke’s hartebeest). Other less numerous antelopes include the handsome Defassa waterbuck (which differs from the common waterbuck in having a redder tinge to the coat and a full white rump), the secretive bushbuck, and the massive eland, all of which are most commonly seen in the vicinity of Lerai Forest or swampy areas.

Animals

The crater floor supports significant populations of all the Big Five. Most commonly the African buffalo, large herds of which are often seen marching across the crater floor in search of grazing or water. Least likely to be seen is the leopard, which is resident on the crater floor, but only in small numbers due to a lack of suitable habitat, and tends to be retiring and secretive. Ngorongoro Crater serves as something of a retirement ground for old elephant bulls, many of which sport outsized tusks to dimensions now seldom seen in parts of Africa that have suffered from commercial poaching in recent decades. Lerai Forest and the nearby Gorigor Swamp are the favoured haunt of these mighty male tuskers, up to 70 of which are resident at any given time. Oddly, no elephant breeding herds are resident on the crater, though females and family herds do pass through from time to time.

Ngorongoro Crater is one of the best places in East Africa to look for the black rhino, an endangered species with a very restricted presence in Tanzania. Between 1964 and 1992, the crater’s resident population of these cumbersome beasts decreased from an estimated 100 individuals to no more than 10 as a result of poaching. Since then, the local rhino population and the diversity of the gene pool has been boosted by the introduction of several individuals from South Africa, though the authorities are reluctant to publicise actual numbers. All the crater’s rhinos have been fitted with a tracking device in their horns, in order to monitor their movements and to discourage poachers. They tend to range between the Lerai Forest and Lake Magadi, browsing in the latter by night and then moving into more open terrain by day. Their unusually pale coloration is attributable to a predilection for bathing in saline Lake Magadi and rolling in the fringing salt flats. The floor of Ngorongoro Crater reputedly supports Africa’s densest concentration of lions, with up to 100 individuals present in suitable conditions. That said, lion numbers do fluctuate somewhat, due to a combination of disease (the closed nature of the crater makes its inhabitants particularly vulnerable to epidemics), emigration from and immigration to the surrounding highlands, and occasional pride takeovers that often result in the new dominant male killing all unrelated cubs and adolescents. It would be unusual to spend a day in the crater and not see any lions, which are generally very relaxed around vehicles, though they might be encountered just about anywhere so it is difficult to predict where you might find them.

Credit: Entamanu Ngorongoro

Other predators are well represented too. Most populous is the spotted hyena, which is Africa’s second largest carnivore after the lion, and tends to be less dependent on scavenging than is popularly assumed. An estimated 400 individuals are resident in the crater, so you are unlikely to spend long there without stumbling across one. If you specifically want to seek out a hyena, head to the eastern shore of Lake Magadi, where they often rest up during the day, occasionally trying to sneak up and snack on the flamingos that flock the shallows. The open grasslands of the crater floor are the perfect cheetah habitat, and there are also plenty of small antelope for these feline speedsters to feed on, so it’s a bit surprising that none were present as recently as the 1990s. The most likely explanation for this is competition with the dense populations of lion and spotted hyenas, both of which will routinely chase a cheetah off a fresh kill. Since 2000, however, cheetahs have recolonised the crater floor and they are now quite commonly seen stalking through the plains in search of gazelle.

Other common predators are the golden jackal, black-backed jackal and bat-eared fox, with the former being most likely to be encountered due to its relatively diurnal habits. By contrast, giraffe and impala, both common on the surrounding plains, are totally absent from the crater floor. In the case of the giraffe, this is possibly attributable to a lack of suitable browsing fodder, or to the difficulty of descending the steep crater walls, but the absence of impala is a mystery. ### Birds A high proportion of the 550-plus bird species recorded in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area inhabit the crater floor. For casual visitors, a highlight is the large flocks of lesser and greater flamingo that aggregate in Lake Magadi, tinting its margins pink from a distance. Common grassland specialists include ostrich (the world’s largest bird), Kori bustard (the world’s heaviest flying bird, known for its spectacular mating dance) and a host of smaller ground birds including the exquisite rosy-throated longclaw, the babbler-like rufous-tailed weaver (a species endemic to the Tanzanian interior) and various larks, wheatears and pipits. Moist grassland often supports flocks of the lovely grey crowned crane and (in the rainy season) huge flocks of migrant white, black and Adbim’s storks. Lerai forest is the place to seek out striking woodland specialists such as Hildebrandt’s starling, green wood hoopoe and Fischer’s lovebird.

Credit: African Bird Club | Rosy-tailed longclaw

Raptors are abundant. The most conspicuous species is the handsome augur buzzard, sometimes seen here in its unusual melanistic form, but always distinguishable by its reddish tail. The crater floor is ideal habitat for the secretary bird, an anomalous long-legged terrestrial hunter that stands up to 1.5m tall and feeds mainly on snakes, which it stamps to death in a bizarre flailing dance. The most interesting of seven vultures recorded in the crater is the Egyptian vulture, a localised species whose who know to crack open ostrich eggs by holding a stone in its beak, making it the only avian tool-user. Finally, on the subject of scavenging birds, watch out for the black kites that haunt the picnic site at Ngoitokitok Springs, swooping down on unprepared tourists to snatch the food from their hands! The Afromontane forest that swathes the crater rim supports a very different flora and fauna to the crater floor. Mammals are thinly distributed, but the forest does support a dense population of elusive leopards, plenty of blue monkeys and bushbuck, as well as the secretive bushpig and the localised tree hyrax (which is more difficult to see than the rock hyrax, but reveals its presence with an far-carrying eerie nocturnal call that sounds like it comes from a much larger creature). Colourful forest birds often seen in lodge gardens on the crater rim include bar-tailed trogon, cinnamon-chested bee-eater, baglafecht weaver, tacazze sunbird, malachite sunbird, golden-winged sunbird and Schalow’s turaco.

Flora

Credit: Gibbs Farm

Elsewhere the crater highlands support a cover of open Afromontane grasslands where low volumes of grazers such as buffalo and zebra coexist with domestic cattle owned by the red-robed Maasai who still pursue their traditional pastoral lifestyle in the area. Game is rather more prolific in the relatively low-lying short-grass plains that stretch west from the base of the Crater Highlands to the Serengeti border. Indeed, this Serengeti-Ngorongoro border region is the main focal point of the annual Serengeti migration of more than two million wildebeest and other ungulates during the rainy season (typically from late November to early May) and it is also where the wildebeest calving takes place over February.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area can only realistically be explored in a solid 4×4. The 150km road from the northern Tanzanian ‘safari capital’ Arusha to Lodware Entrance Gate, the only access point along the eastern border, is now surfaced in its entirety, and can be covered in less than three hours. All roads within the conservation are unsurfaced, however, and most – including the bumpy descent and ascent tracks to the crater and corrugated strip of fine compacted ash running west to Serengeti National Park – are pretty rough going. Tanzania’s safari industry is not really geared towards a self-drive approach, and the roads are unsuited to large coach tours, which means that almost all visitors to Ngorongoro either join a bespoke or small-group safari with a local driver-guide, or fly from Arusha to a camp offering a package inclusive of game drives. In theory, Ngorongoro Crater could be visited on a standalone one or two-night safari out of Arusha, but in practice it usually forms part of a longer (5-14 day) safari taking in some or all of the other highlights of the northern Tanzania safari circuit i.e. Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Tarangire National Park and Arusha National Park. – A day trip to Ngorongoro Crater is worth planning carefully. Vehicles are forbidden from entering the crater before 07h00, and they must leave before 18h00, and a hefty ‘crater service fee’ is payable every time a vehicle enter the crater. This combination of rulings has forged a situation where most safaris breakfast at their lodge before going on a game drive and carry a picnic lunch. Far preferable, however, to take a packed breakfast and lunch, allowing you to get down into the crater as early as possible, partly because early morning offers the best photographic light, but also because the place is at its most magical before the tourist hordes descend, with the main procession usually starting the descent from 08h00 onwards.

The Highlands Ngorongoro

The conservation authority forbids tourists from staying overnight within Ngorongoro Crater. But several tourist lodges and tented camps are perched on the lofty crater rim, offering fine views over the floor and its teeming wildlife, and there is also a campsite. Plenty of accommodation is also available in and around the town of Karatu, which straddles the main surfaced road from Arusha about 15 minutes’ drive from Lodware Entrance Gate. The lodges on the crater rim are preferable in terms of views and for placing you as close as possible to the heart of the action, but accommodation in and around Karatu tends to offer better value for money. Either way, the elevated altitude of the crater rim and Karatu largely negate their near-equatorial location and nights can be decidedly chilly, so bring plenty of warm clothing to wear in the evening and early morning game drives.

Although Ngorongoro and the Crater Highlands stand in the heart of the tropics less than 200km south of the equator, the high elevation (mostly above 2,000m) means the climate is surprisingly cool, seldom rising above 25°C by day and more often than not dropping to below 10°C by night. It tends to be sunny by day, but cloudy weather is far from unusual and the gap in altitude between the crater floor and rim usually results in a significant build-up of mist in the early mornings. Ngorongoro’s tropical location means there is relatively little seasonal variation in average minimum and maximum temperatures, though the period from October to March tends to be a few degrees warmer than the closest months of May to August. Rainfall is far more seasonal, since it is largely associated with the moist trade winds that blow inland from the Indian Ocean over November to May. More than 80 percent of the annual precipitation of 1,000mm falls over these months, with December. March and especially April being the wettest months. By contrast, rainfall over June to September stands at less than 20mm per month. Despite this, it is fine to visit Ngorongoro at any time of year and there are several more compelling factors in deciding your timing than climate. Because the crater can get quite crowded with safari vehicles during peak seasons, those seeking a relatively untrammeled atmosphere might consider aiming for April and May, which are the quietest months for tourism, not only both in Ngorongoro but in all the other reserves along the northern Tanzania safari circuit.

Since Ngorongoro is usually just a one- or two-night stop on a more extended holiday in Tanzania, the timing of a visit should also allow for seasonal factors at other sites on the itinerary. Those continuing on to the Serengeti might opt to time their safari to try to catch the wildebeest calving season in the south (February) or the peak period for river crossings in the north (August and September), while beach lovers on a safari-and-sand package would almost certainly want to avoid peak monsoon season on Zanzibar and the coast (April and May) and hikers tackling Kilimanjaro should aim to climb during one of its dry seasons (January to March or June to October).