After we watched the sun come up which incidentally was amazing (there's that word again ...sorry) we went to breakfast, while we were eating there were elephants just outside as the lodge was actually in part of the park. We finished eating and the much needed and fabulous Tanzanian coffee and joined Kavishe and Larry & Esther at the jeep. We began the decent into the Ngorogoro crater, now if you are of a nervous disposition you would be advised to close your eyes. The road was VERY primitive, the drop over the side enormous, the width of the road was narrow and the bumps and potholes very large. It was like being on a roller coaster ride, exhilarating, a little scary, and again if you are a girl, murder on the boobs!
Once we got to the flat of the crater my breath was taken away, it was the sheer number of animals, Kavishe told us there were over seven thousand wildebeest, four thousand zebra and four thousand antelope of one variety or another,they all stood or walked in lines, so you saw row after row of them, as far as the eye could see there were animals and birds, we saw crested crane, fish eagles, egret and a huge number of flamingos by the lake.
We saw the Masai children bringing their cows down the side of the crater to allow them to drink at the lake. The Masai are no longer allowed to live within the crater but they are allowed to use it for grazing and watering their animals during the day. 
We drove slowly (pole pole in Swahili) through the crater and came across a golden jackal, and then a three hyena's eating a freshly killed zebra with at least twenty vultures close by waiting for their turn at the carcass. We saw more zebra, some warthogs, and then a large pond filled with hippos, snorting and flicking water over themselves to keep cool, it was then I decided I would quite like to come back as a hippo, they spend all day lying in cool water and mud, and then at night they come out eat their own body weight in food, and then slip back into the water....not bad eh?
Then in the distance and only with binoculars we saw a black rhino, Kavishe told us there were now only about 70 in the whole of Africa and to see one was rare as they were very shy, although we couldn't get close enough to get photo we had now seen four of the big five, but I did feel sad at the demise of this beautiful creature. We carried on driving and came across two more warthogs this time with 5 tiny babies, the funny thing is ALL baby animals are extremely cute, even though you know when they are fully grown they could probably tear you limb from limb.
We stopped at a lovely spot by a pond (I never know when a pond becomes a lake so it could have been a lake) for a packed lunch, while we ate we saw two hippo cooling themselves and lots of birds trying to get any crumbs they could. The guides were telling everyone not to feed the birds as when the tourists go they don't know how to find their own food. After lunch and a toilet break (now here I will mention that the toilets in the game reserves and a lot of the places you stop are actually holes in the floor and not very pleasant but when you gotta go you gotta go, and really speaking you don't want to go crouching behind a bush in a place that is filled with things that could kill you in seconds so you have to grin and bear it and breath through your mouth!)
We got back in the jeep and carried on with our tour of the crater, our guide Kavishe spotted a lion snoozing in the grass just next to the road, he explained it was up to the females to do the hunting, and sure enough the female crossed the road right in front of us, the second lot of lions we had seen up close, we watched until they disappeared and carried on driving.
We carried on driving and saw a hartbeast which was a type of antelope that looked like it had 4 ears, then lying in the sun another hyena. Kavishe told us there were no giraffe in the crater as they can't get up and down the sides, but there were elephant, buffalo and various other animals all of which we lucky enough to see. Just like that 4 hours were over and it was time to leave Ngorogoro crater and all it's inhabitants. Kavishe pointed to a red dirt road at an almost 90 degree angle on the side of the crater, and said "see that - we're going up there", apparently the crater has a one way system! Now if I thought the drive down was a little scary the drive back up was terrifying, again the road was narrow the drop a long way down, several times the jeep skidded and I thought that's it, I resisted the urge to ask if any jeeps had ever gone over the side! we held on for dear life and laughed nervously, one particular wheel spin that took us extremely close to the edge found me praying to God, and eventually we made it to the top. Just as we got to the top the heavens opened, torrential rain, thunder and lightening, I thanked God again that we weren't trying to drive up from the crater now the road was muddy! So it was on to our next stop the Serengeti.....to be continued again......
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