After climbing Kilimanjaro, we are off to see two of Tanzania's best game reserves, Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater. Both are World Heritage Sites. Lake Manyara National Park lies on the western side of the Great Rift Valley. The park covers 129 square miles of which Lake Manyara covers 89 square miles. The lake is one of the Rift Valley's soda or alkaline lakes. (Ernest Hemingway called it the loveliest lake in Africa.) The Ngorongoro Crater is part of the larger Ngorongoro Conservation Area and was formed about 2 million years ago when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed. The crater is the largest intact volcanic caldera in the world. The steep sides of the crater mean that it has become a natural enclosure for a very wide variety of wildlife. It is estimated that over 30,000 animals live in the crater, including most of the species found in East Africa. There are about 15 black rhinos in Ngorongoro which is one of the last populations of black rhinos in the wild. This is down from over 100 black rhinos in Ngorongoro thirty years ago. If you are lucky you can see the rest of the big five, lion, leopard, buffalo, and elephant, in the crater, one of the few remaining places in Africa where you can still do so.

We meet our guide at the Keys Hotel and start driving west toward Arushu. After Arushu (at the base of Mt. Meru), we drive to Lake Manyara. We are staying that night in a tented lodge on the western edge of the Rift Valley looking east over Lake Manyara. We head into the park around 2:00 p.m. and drive down to the edge of the lake. On the way into the park we see baboons first and then start to see some of the animals that live in or pass through the Lake Manyara area, including elephants, hippos, zebras, cape buffalos, giraffes, huge pelicans, eagles, and flamingos. Sometimes there are so many flamingos in the lake it appears pink. There are no fences and the animals can move into or out of the park as they wish, sometimes over to Ngorongoro or the Serengeti. They prefer the park though because there is abundant fresh water and, better yet, no humans. The next morning we get up early and drive west to the Ngorongoro Crater entrance. The crater rim rises 2000 feet or so above the surrounding plain. We drive to the top of the rim and then back down into the crater. It is the dry season so the grasses are mostly brown, but they are very thick. There is plenty of fresh water from springs flowing into the crater and it is very cool. We are all wearing jackets. We were never warm while in Tanzania even though we spent the entire time 4 degrees south of the equator. Huge herds of cape buffalo, zebra, and wildebeest roam the crater floor. There are about 7 prides of lions in the crater (or about 100 lions). There also are leopards in the forests along the crater rim. We spend all day driving through the park and then return to our hotel on the crater rim the first day. At one point, we get to see 7 lions surround 5 warthogs and then move in to kill one of the warthogs for lunch. The second day we are up before sunrise and drive down into the crater to see the animals when they are most active. After driving through the crater in the morning, we leave Ngorongoro and drive to Arusha and then on the Kilimanjaro airport to catch our KLM flight to Amsterdam that night. We have a wonderful time in Tanzania. It is a beautiful place. We hope to return soon.

Photos from Africa can be found under the link in the right column of this page. Use the Slideshow button to view the photos.