NGORONGORO CRATER

About 195 km from Arusha town between the Manyara National Park and the Serengeti National Park is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). The area include the Ol'doinyo Lengai (Lenkai but documented Lengai) the Mountain of “GOD” as the Maasai community believe, Empakai crater, Olduvai Gorge and Ndutu and Ngorongoro Crater itself.

The Ngorongoro crater is famous for its concrete unbroken walls for years now with depth of 610 m and covers an area of 265 sq. km. Basically Ngorongoro crater is a volcanic caldera but again documented as crater in most books and journals along with Olduvai Gorge instead of Oldupai Gorge.

The Ngorongoro and Empakai craters are reserved for wildlife only while the rest of the area is shared by Maasai people and wildlife. It is quite an

experience to see youth Maasai nomadic pastoralist's warrior passing their cattle, sheep, donkeys and goat near the wild animals without any worry.

The wildlife inhabit within the crater rim includes elephants, lions, leopards, different species of antelopes, hippos in the Ngorongoro Hippo pool, wildebeest, zebra, gazelles, elands, endangered black Africa rhino, hyena, cheetah and jackal.