Ngorongoro CA.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

www.Ngorongoro-crater-africa.org

Called the eighth wonder of the world and stretching across some 8,300 sq km, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania boasts a blend of landscapes, wildlife, people and archaeology that is unsurpassed in Africa. The volcanoes, grasslands, waterfalls and mountain forests are home to an abundance of animals and to the Maasai.

Ngorongoro Crater is one of the world's greatest natural spectacles, its magical setting and abundant wildlife never fail to enthral visitors. It borders the Serengeti National Park to the north and west. A few hours drive to the east takes you to the town of Arusha which nestles at the foot of Mount Meru, within view of Mount Kilimanjaro. Arusha is known as the gateway to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Northern Parks.

Maasai pastoralists arrived in the Conservation Area a few hundred years ago. Their strong insistence on their traditional customs and way of life allow them to live in harmony with the wildlife and the enviornment.
As of today there are approximately 52,000 Maasai living in the NCA with their livestock.
Being herders of cattle, goats and sheep, their semi-nomadic life depends on accessible water supplies.
Their seasonal homes, known as bomas, are scattered throughout the landscape and are rebuilt upon return from the dry or wet season quarters

Visitors now see Olduvai Gorge (also known as Oldupai, the Maasai spelling of the name) as a dry, shallow canyon draining wet season run-off from Lakes Ndutu and Masek to the Olbalbal depression.
However, several million years ago the entire area was a vast alkaline lake. The wildly fluctuating waters of this ancient lake formed the definitive sediment layers that have yielded a valuable paleoanthropological and archaeological record.In the seventy years since Louis and Mary Leakey first began searching the area for clues to our distant past, more than sixty hominid remains have been found, belonging to four different hominids, showing the gradual increase in brain size and in the complexity of their stone tools. One of the most famous of these discoveries was made by Mary Leakey and is the well known 'Zinjanthropus'. At Laetoli, hominid footprints are preserved in volcanic rock some 3.6 million years old and represent some of the earliest signs of the small brained, upright-walking Australopithecus afarensis, ever to be found. Imprints are among the facinating exhibits in the museum at Oldupai. Excavations are on-going and continue to produce splendid specimens of extinct hominids, animals and plants. The museum at Oldupai Gorge provides excellent exhibits, lectures and its location offers great views over the gorge. Walking tours of the area, which is also a birders' paradise, can be arranged.

Met dank aan de Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority