African Safari Day 3 - Ngorongoro Crater

Sleeping in the Serengeti was a once in a lifetime experience. The thunderstorm that down poured on us during dinner was a great change of pace. I couldn't get any good photos of lightning bolts which was a bummer, every time I set up for a long exposure I happened to miss lighting. The rain came rolling in and I put away the camera for the rest of the night. That night we were visited by some hyenas. Their laughing and cackling in the middle of the night was scary the first time, but after that it was a nice reminder that we were sleeping in the middle of the Serengeti. Not many hotels around the world would be able to offer experiences like this.

The plan for the day would be a morning drive out of the Serengeti then onto Ngororo Crater for the final day of the safari. On that drive out we captured nature happening at its finest! We got to see some lions on vacation as well. Apparently when lions decide to mate, they leave their pride and spend a couple days away from the pride (lion and lioness, haha) just relaxing by themselves. I was lucky enough to capture lions on holiday and relaxing, THE CIRCLE OF LIFE!!

After capturing this moment on the way out we saw another pride of lioness hunting. As the lioness was approaching the gazelle the herd of gazelle ended up running away. BUT the lioness happened to use our cars as a shield from the gazelles finding out her plan.

When we got to the top fo the Ngorongoro crater it was literally a massive crater! Being on top and looking down was breath-taking.

After getting down into the crater we saw another rare spotted cat! THE OCELOT! Tiny, solo hunter, this guy was just walking around trying to hide away from us.

Once inside the crater it felt vast, but you could see the walls on all sides of the crater. It felt like you were in a sandbox game, it felt like...dare I say it..."Un'Goro Crater". Honestly after being there for a day, I am pretty convinced that Blizzard was persuaded by Ngorongoro Crater for its inspiration of that zone.

One cool thing I learned in the Ngorongoro crater was to promote vegetation growth the conservationists will come in and actually burn all the grass in one area through a controlled burn (when the animals are safely pushed out). In the picture below you can see the burned side on the left.

What an amazing safari and journey! Thanks to our guide for showing us around for a few days. I can't wait to come back for a longer safari the next time I visit Africa!

!steemitworldmap -3.165926 lat 35.551887 long Ngorongoro Crater D3SCR