January 20, 2015 Visit to Ngorongoro Crater and onto Gibb's Farm

Leaving Olduvai was heartwarming and certainly a place we could have stayed another day just to learn more about the Maasai but it was time to go.  Our hosts gave gifts to the three of us, necklaces and wristbands for the ladies and a ceremonial walking stick for me (Greg) depicting a leader that would be welcomed into any tribe carrying it. How did he get me right so fast?

Our next stop will be at a working-farm called Gibb's Farm.  Prior to that, we spent the day in the Ngorongoro Crater and by some accounts, the "8th wonder of the world".  It's not all that long a drive to the crater compared to what we have experienced over the past 10 days and we arrive in under an hour.  The crater has security check-in and check-out because no one is allowed to remain overnight.  It has had problems with poachers over the years and in fact, some of the rangers have died at their hands.

According to our guide, Ngorongoro is, in fact, not a crater but a caldera.  The reason being it was an active volcano up to 2 million years ago and was as big as Mt. Kilimanjaro  when it simply imploded. That implosion left a 250 square kilometre patch of sub-tropical forest and plains surrounded by steep, unbroken crater walls more than two thousand feet high.  It would ultimately be home to its own special wildlife sanctuary cut off from the rest of the world.  It has it's own stable herd of wildebeest that don't migrate as well as hippos, elephants, lions, several predators, etc. and the much sought after and close to extinction black rhinoceros.  Other than the precarious one-way switchback roads ascending and desccending the crater walls, I don't know how any animals can get in and out but the Savannah elephants do it on a regular basis. It is too steep for giraffes and we are befuddled how hippos and rhinos made the journey.  While it is an incredibly beautiful valley with a climate onto itself it was a day for savages. Terrifying brown hyenas ripped a wildebeest to shreds and a pride of lions took down a cape buffalo.  I admit to filming it but it was gruesome.  I think that we humans have to admit we possess morbid curiosity. We did get to see black rhinos, 4 in all.  Nothing up close and personal but definitely they exist.  However, even in this guarded sanctuary poachers still get in.  They need to be stopped with less than 25 of these magnificent beasts left in the wilderness who are one of the last ties to animals of prehistoric times.

Ngorongoro is truly worth seeing and while we would have like to spend more time, we did want to get off the road for some down time.  So off to Gibb's Farm.

Gibb's Farm is in the highlands not far from the crater at 5,700 fee above sea level.  Originally owned and established by a Brit in 1920, it is a working coffee plantation and farm with cows, pigs, hens and donkeys and a few acres of coffee beans.  They also have a larger coffee business so all of the coffee grown on the lodge property including the raising of livestock must be for personal consumption of the lodge clients and/or staff because the Tanzanian government limit you to owning two businesses. This place absolutely rocks. Unbelievable scenery, unbelievable accommodations and the right quantity of snootiness of the several British guests.  (One prick I wanted to nail in the head when he said excuse me indignantly to me because I was standing in front of him when he was taking a picture of a "bush baby" which is a monkey.  I keep finding myself staring at him but Di keeps telling me to grow up.  Really).

Anyhow, the place is surreal and we have a 2 storey, 2 bedroom overlooking the plantation.

We are going to explore the property tomorrow and will go and see elephant caves and will explain the purpose of them in the next blog.