https://zarrf.smugmug.com/Travel/Tanzania/i-wt2NCF4/A
Video of a lion
Today we visited the Ngorongoro Crater, a giant volcano’s caldera that over the millennia turned into the savannah in the middle of a rainforest. Because of its’ steep sides animals get trapped inside creating a very densely populated area. We started off the morning with two Serval cats, one being chased by 20 or so guinea fowl. It was quite funny! Then our Ranger took us along the crater’s edge and we came across a lone female lion. She walked right under me (I may have been hanging out the window) and was so close I could have touched her! So so amazing! After that we continued the game drive for many hours seeing all the usual suspects: warthogs, wildebeest, zebra, cape Buffalo, ostrich, hyenas. We also saw an incredible amount of Golden Jackals (now after further research renamed the African Golden Wolf), cute fox sized canines that love to trot around. Surprisingly we saw a fox which I hadn’t even know were in Africa. For the life of me I could not tell the two apart. At one point we came across a lion kill, one female still eating, one male watching, and another male and female passed out about a quarter of a mile away. At one point the vultures were getting too pushy for the lioness and she grabbed one out of the air and slammed it to the ground! She had no interest in eating or even killing it, she just wanted the vultures to back off. After watching her and the male for 20 minutes we suddenly noticed another giant male, just 20 feet from the vehicle! He had been obstructed from view by another vehicle. He was a big big boy! He then walked by our vehicle and stopped at the next one and proceeded to claim that one as his own. The face of the tourists in that vehicle were priceless! Total lion sightings for the day were 10 but the rest were, I know you can guess, napping. At the end of the day we saw a giant bull elephant and finally a rhino from a great distance. This is our last night in Tanzania, last night in Africa, and tomorrow we fly to Athens. It was amazing. We shall sorely miss it.