Moving To Paradise

Another plane trip, another change of scenery! It was off to the unique ecosystem of Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest caldera. A caldera is crater that has progressed to be able to support life. So technically it should be Ngorongoro Caldera. But it was hard enough to find out how to pronounce the darn word properly let alone going into geological specifics! It is believed that if the crater had not collapsed due to volcanic activity eons ago that it would be bigger than Mount Kilimanjaro. The plane trip was short, and we flew right over the crater getting literally a bird’s eye view!

Packed lunch for our travels

The rim and the floor of the crater

We landed at Manyara airstrip where we were picked up by the Lemala Ngorongoro Crater Camp staff. The drive to the camp would take over 2 hours and so we made a brief stop to purchase some Tanzanite, found originally at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. Malcolm put his excellent bargaining skills to use and we got a couple of beautiful pieces. We enjoyed the lush green mountainous scenery driving up to the crater rim, as well as enjoying the significantly cooler weather due to the altitude. We were told that the crater would be flat and warmer but that will have to be verified tomorrow as all we could see today was seemingly just mountain and mist at the crater rim.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing with some much needed down time. The showers here work in a similar way to the previous camp where the water was physically heated with coal and placed into the buckets manually when we wanted a shower and the showers had to be booked 5-10 minutes in advance! Dinner was also communal as like the previous camp with tasty home style cooking food. The staff were as friendly as ever, helping Jonah’s advancement as a Maasai warrior this time improving his spear throwing skills.

Walking to our tent

Our home for the next 2 nights

Comfort inside!

Desk and chair to the left

Secret entrance to the bathroom on the right

Our toilet and "talking" shower, so called because you had to tell them when you want to start and finish so they can physically fill the hot water in for you

Playing doppelkopf during downtime