Ngorongoro Crater: A World Inside a Volcano
A collapsed volcano, a crater floor full of wildlife and one of the best chances in Africa to see a black rhino. Here is how to make the most of it.
Drive up through the cloud forest on the rim, round a bend, and the ground simply falls away. Six hundred metres below is a green and gold bowl roughly twenty kilometres across, dotted with what look like specks of dust. The specks are buffalo. There are thousands of them.
What it actually is
The Ngorongoro Crater is a caldera, formed when a huge volcano collapsed in on itself roughly two to three million years ago. It is often described as the largest unbroken, unflooded caldera in the world. Its steep walls have created something close to a natural enclosure, and the animals inside have everything they need: grassland, a soda lake, springs, swamps and a patch of forest.
Who lives there
Lions, elephants, hyenas, zebras, wildebeest, hippos and, on the lake, clouds of pink flamingos when conditions are right. Above all, Ngorongoro is one of the most reliable places in Tanzania to see the critically endangered black rhino, usually at a respectful distance through binoculars. The wider conservation area is also home to Maasai communities, which makes it a rare place where people, cattle and wildlife share protected land.
How to do it well
- Go down early. The first vehicles of the morning get the best light and the quietest roads. Time on the crater floor is limited, so make it count.
- Bring a warm layer. The rim sits at well over two thousand metres and mornings are genuinely cold, even when the Serengeti below is hot.
- Stay on the rim if you can. Watching the mist burn off the crater at sunrise from a lodge on the edge is one of the great travel mornings.
- Combine it. Ngorongoro fits naturally between Tarangire and the Serengeti on a classic northern circuit, and Olduvai Gorge is close by on the road west.
Is it too busy?
It is popular, and you will share sightings with other vehicles. But the scale of the place absorbs a lot, and a good guide knows where to wait and when to move on. Most people who worry about the crowds beforehand come out talking only about the rhino.
