The wild life
Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater is best thought of as a 250-square-kilometre bowl of wildlife. A generous dish for adventurous travellers to tuck into, a hearty stew of drama, natural beauty and visceral wonder. Formed when an extinct volcano collapsed on itself, the Ngorongoro Crater has been no slacker in the intervening 2.5 million years, developing into a wildlife-rich basin, a unique ecoystem that sustains 25,000 large animals within a 20-kilometre wide, 600-metre deep and 300-squarekilometre space. Against the backdrop of two years of lockdowns, restrictions and boredom, this was the experiential travel feast I’d been waiting for.
One small silver lining of the past two years is the supercharged thrill of finally arriving somewhere spectacularly, dramatically, cathartically different to one’s own surroundings. I’ll not forget the joy of unzipping my safari tent at Sanctuary Ngorongoro Crater Camp, on the edge of this UNESCO World Heritage site, the largest unbroken caldera in the world. The name “Ngorongoro” is onomatopoeic, resembling the rolling tinkle of the cowbells of Maasai cattle. We see the distinctive red-cloaked Maasai warriors herding their cattle and goats along the rim, although many villages are relocating to smaller volcanic craters nearby. In Tanzania, most safari guides
