Today is our last day in the major national parks of Tanzania. We have to be by 2PM at the Lodoare Gate to exit so we have some time but still we cannot stay too long at any place along the way. So we leave Ndutu after breakfast watching the planes leaving above, we of course are ground based during our return.
The first stop for us is the area where we saw lovebirds the day before, and they are still there as well as a few more birds but nothing special. So we move on to the open savanna where immediately we stop to enjoy a group of ostriches doing their best to hide. And failing horribly in this area with no hiding places.
On we continue towards the main road through the grasslands watching zebras and wildebeests everywhere, quite beautiful. And a bit bittersweet as these are some of the last views for us of the migration.
There are also antelopes here in groups or alone and we continue enjoying them and the eagles as we make our way to the main road.
As we stop we notice also some other birds, a more rare lapwing, the Black-winged Lapwing and a Temminck’s Courser exploring the grasslands.
Water seems to be rarer in this section so the few waterholes are taken over by zebras doing their lunch drinking with a foal keeping an eye on us. From here the road becomes weird. Somehow since we drove the other way two days ago there are large mounds of dirt in the middle of the road. You can go around them but we are not sure why this is happening. We even see a truck bringing dirt and dumping it, are they repairing the road? But why as it is in great shape?
And then we are at the main road. Luckily the dumping activity didn’t block the road completely and now we can proceed on the known main road back to Lodoare gate. This is the dusty stretch so we pull the top in but somehow there are fewer cars today which is nice.
What didn’t change are the number of Maasai herdsmen along the road and the cold drink sellers, luckily neither of them are aggressive or pushy as we move past them towards the crater that we can now see in the distance.
Now starts the climb towards the crater rim. Our car struggles keeping high speed when going up but it at low speed slowly slowly we are making the Rim and then continue on enjoying the great views.
And then we descent to Lodoare Gate, exiting here at least is fast and easy and soon we are out of the protected area and back on pavement.
Almost immediately we enter the surrounding village, we have to keep in mind to not speed as the police again is out in force. Luckily today we will stay close by at “The Retreat at Ngorongoro” a beautiful accomodations with some nice grounds. So we have time to recalibrate to driving through villages and keeping an eye out for police.
