SAFARI in the Ngorongoro Crater!!!!

Austin and I in the jeep

The only people who live in the crater, the Maasai people.

The day looked promising as we drove towards the crater and saw a giraffe roaming in a field and had to stop the jeep for a few dozen baboons to cross the road with their babies on their backs. We took dozens of pictures until we realized there would be even better things ahead to capture with our cameras.

An Elephant heading to water.

The Ngorongoro crater was a big volcano about 3 million years ago until it erupted leaving a giant hole behind, just like Crater Lake in Oregon or Yellowstone National Park. The crater is 360 sq. km and 200 meters deep and absolutely FULL of exotic animals.

We saw thousands of zebras and wildebeest

Our goal was to see the "Big 5" of Tanzania which are the black rhino, elephant, cape buffalo, leapord and lion. We saw everything except for a leapord, but we saw even more than we had hoped! We saw gazelles, ostriches, warthogs, hippopotamuses, hyenas, a cerval cat, zebras, wildebeests, tons of amazing birds, and many more animals that I can't recall at this moment (Aust could tell ya... he knows everything). :)

The 3 coolest things from the safari were probably Austin reaching his hand out of the jeep and touching a zebra, seeing an entire pride of lions (including cubs, the papa lion, etc.), and watching an elephant cross the road right in front of us in order to get to a water hole that was full of warthogs bathing and zebras and wildebeests drinking. It was AMAZING... probably one of the coolest days I've ever experienced (and I've had a lot of cool days in my short life)! :)

Austin and I agree that it was worth the hit that our checking account received. It was a day we will both never ever forget!