Karatu, Tanzania
Yellow, Red, & Green Bananas
A side trip to Ngorongoro Conservation Area on 80k of smooth, newly-paved highway is a delight. A tailwind takes us 36k across the savanna to Mto Wa Mbu (river with mosquitos) in an hour-and-a-half. Then we climbed the 250m escarpment of Africa’s Great Rift Valley overlooking Lake Manyara, passing by several expensive Safari Lodge Resorts. We don’t know if this side trip will be within our budget, but find that Karatu has many non-tourist guest houses like we’re used to. We chose the new Eden Executive guest house, frequented mainly by safari guide drivers. After checking-in, I continued cycling 15k more to Ngorongoro park gate and turned back. Bicycles are not allowed in Tanzania’s parks. “That would be suicide with all those dangerous animals”, a tour guide told us; though the Maasai live in this park and walk along the same roads that I cannot bike on.
The next day we hired Peter to drive us in his old Land Rover through the park to Oldupai Gorge ($120 for 6 hours). The park entrance fee is $50 per person, but we declined to pay the $200 crater services fee (allowing us to drive down into Ngorongoro crater). From viewpoints we gaze across the 23k wide caldera and can see specks moving 500m down below that are wildebeest, buffalo, elephant, and black rhino. It also has the highest concentration of large predators anywhere (lions, leopards, and cheetahs), so we hated to pass it by. As an alternative we continued on bumpy roads (worse than the A104) around the rim of the caldera and down onto the Serengeti plain to see the first footprints of early man at the originally misnamed Olduvai Gorge.
Peter is an independent owner/operater guide.
Ngorongoro crater seen from the rim of the caldera.
First footprints of man walking upright 3.7 million years ago.
Skull of early man (2 million BC)
Maasai beaded neck rings.
Oldupai Gorge.
