28
JULY 2005 ‚ 2030 HOURS ‚ NGORONGORO SOPA LODGE NGORONGORO CRATER TANZANIA
Skipped yesterday. It was all about the traveling from Serengeti to our room
overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater, with a side trip to the Oldupai Gorge ‚ site
of the Leakeys' discovery of some of our earliest known ancestors. I learned
that
references to it as "Olduvai" Gorge stem from a writer who misheard "oldupai,"
the
name of the succulent plant abundant in the area from which the Maasai named
the place. Thus it is in pretty much all of civilization incorrectly called Olduvai
Gorge, but it's really Oldupai Gorge. Thus endeth the lesson.
We set out yesterday
morning after breakfast at our campground at Turner Springs (the night before
we heard hyena calls in addition to the lions) and instead
of bolting out of the park, engaged in an impromptu morning game drive that
allowed us to view a gathering of maribou storks squabbling over bits
of something dead
in the grass at their feet. We also enjoyed a family of mongoose who came out
of the bush en masse and headed down to the watering hole past the storks for
a sip before leaving en masse. We also 
encountered a female lion with a wound
to her left leg grabbing a drink from a crossing where the stream spilled across
it. About 20 yards to the left was a large cape buffalo who is nothing but
bold fearless power and brute strength with a helmet of horns that
looks like it could
knock down walls.
Then it was across too many
of kilometers of really bad road past many granite "kopjes" (outcroppings
unique to the topography) just to get to the check-out gate at Naabi
Hill, and then it was many more miles
of bad road across desolate plains getting to the Oldupai Gorge,
where we had lunch.
The final leg brought us climbing back up along the winding red clay road
up to the rim of the Ngorongoro where it was much cooler and more lush.
Passing Grizmek's Tomb (the renowned zoologist and researcher) and
heading up the side road to the Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge at the crater
vista point
we thought
we were almost home, but instead had to navigate much more of the narrow
road along another 
third of the rim's perimeter before arriving at
our destination ‚ which,
at some 7,800-feet above sea level, sports wonderful views of the crater
interior but, after the authentic accommodations we found at the Virunga
Lodge and
in the rustic majesty of the tented camp at Kirurumu, the rooms here
are very much a Disney-fied
version with cottage cheese stuccoed walls and ceiling and odd art on the
walls. We don't even hae an outside deck. Just an glass encased mini-porch
with two uncomfortable looking rocking chairs in which we haven't once
sat. But it is what it is: a place to lay down and sleep the night
away, and it takes nothing
away from the marvel that is the crater itself.
There had been rain during the night, and at 8 a.m. we met our driver in the lodge entryway and were soon on our way down through the fog and clouds past the gate that allows access to the road that descends some 1,800 feet to the crater floor.
Not long after landing, we found a mother lion and four youngsters ‚ let's call them adolescents ‚ lounging by a crossing of the Munge River (let me be clear that this is the dry season, and though it's called a river it's really no more than a creek at this time of year). At our next stop a distance down river we found another lioness ‚ at least she was the only one visible ‚ situated in a den on a bit of land that the river wrapped around. Next we found a lone hyena snoozing oblivious to all the commotion and camera click outside a den amid a scattering of bones well bleached by the sun.
It was after that
that we saw a magnificent female black rhino some 300 yards off the
road. At first I couldn't tell if it was standing in tall grass or
laying down, but I kept my camera trained on it until it leapt up with
some
sense of urgency, ony to move slowly forward to graze. A black rhino!
In the wild! Just as my eyes watered profusely at the sight of a mountain
gorilla looking right through me, so came the waterworks
seeing this
magnificent animal.
It's funny, but I'm at a point in Hemingway's "Green
Hills of Africa" where they're
busy sport killing rhinos near Lake Manyara. Earnest is very unapologetic
in describing the thrill of the hunt and subsequent destruction. Check
that, it's
not really the thrill he describes as the matter-of-factness of trophy
hunting.
Something I not only will never understand, but will forever find
a reprehensible aspect of human nature.
Myself and Susan, we were content to respectfully train our respective
cameras and binoculars on this creature. As one of only approximately
19 left
in the park
(and I don't even know how many exist in total in the wild) it was
honor to personally see her so proud and strong and protected.
We
bypassed the alkali Lake Magadi and went for the Lerai Forest in
search of leopards and elephants. We didn't find the former, but
after coming out the other end we found to magnificent bull elephants,
one right near the roadside and another
that ambled easily over from the forest's edge. I took picture
upon picture and video, too, even after they moved across the road
together
and out onto the plain.
There were black-backed jackals, and wildebeest and zebra and warthog and another momma lion with four youngsters sprawled off in the grass that Susan spotted ‚ even four more unsupervised lion teens who at first visit in the morning were huddled and cuddled together in the cool temps, and a later visit in the sunny afternoon found them still in the same area, but scattered about still in full recline. They were two males and two females, and Susan and I both wondered why we hadn't seen any adult male lions.
"Someone's sure been busy!" Susan remarked.
After lunch inside the vehicle at the picnic site near the small lake that Ngoitokitok Springs empties into (famous for its black kites that divebomb and grab food from unsuspecting picnickers who dare eat outside), we headed back for another extended visit with the rhino. Back over to the river and the den we'd found in the bend, there was no more lion, but there was a dead zebra in the water that hadn't been ther before ‚ an interesting predicament given the lion's abject dislike of water. While other vehicles pulled up and their occupants expressed sadness or disgust at the sight, Susan and I mulled over potential ways for the lions to access their prey. Will they try to haul it downstream to a more accessible entry point, or perhaps will they just start at the head and neck (which were out of the water) and use the zebra's body as a pier from which to dig in? Clearly nothing was going to be decided by the lions either at that point or in the near future, so our driver moved us across the Munge River and upstream to a highland looking over the crater that afforded excellent views. Keeping between the river on our right and the Ndoiyo Olkaria Hills on our left, we saw ostrich and warthog and Thomson's gazelle and guinea fowl and the same young lions we saw first thing (minus their mother). We even spotted some eland up near the base of the hills.
Crossing the river again, we headed back to the road that would bring us up out of the crater, but not before I spotted a lone lioness walking the ground above and on the other side of the Oljoro Nyokle River (again, just a stream really), not really on the hunt yet, just seeing what might be available. We stayed with her until she crossed the river and the road and made her way up along a ridge before disappearing over it. As there was a good chance she was the mother to the four teens still lazing near the Munge River, I was hoping her hunt would yield enough food for her and her kids. And at that point, with a lioness walking away from us into the setting sun, Susan and I were more than happy to call it a day. But instead our driver turned us around brought us back nearer to the Munge where we watched her show interest in a pair of ostriches who wasted no time putting a lot of distance between them and her. Up on the hill to her left was a group of water buffalo, but holding the high ground and the fact that they're buffs they didn't even budge.
So we left the lion who'd become a distant dot some many hundreds of yards off, still just scoping out the scene and in no really hurry to waste any energy, especially since night would be coming and then the party would get started.
Back up
at the lodge, Susand and I enjoyed Ngorongoro Sunset cocktails while
watching the remnants of the sun setting
behind clouds above
the crater.
Then it was on to dinner and talk of tomorrow which will
find us back in Arusha
for lunch before our flight from Kilimanjaro International
Airport to our last leg
of our honeymoon: Zanzibar.