Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Ngorongoro, ‘Cold place’, in the Maasai language. Center of biodiversity where many of the great animals of African fauna can be seen, Including the Black Rhinoceros, being the latter one of the last refuges of this species.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area combines the most striking mix of African landscapes, fauna and archeological sites of Africa. This is why it is called the “African Eden” or “the eighth wonder of the natural world” UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Just 3.7 million years ago, the first hominids trod these lands and, by that time, the great crater of more than 20 kilometers in diameter did not exist yet. The hominids who lived and died in what is now the Olduvai Gorge, might have seen an enormous mountain, similar to the nearby Kilimanjaro which according to geologists erupted 2.9 million years ago, drawing in the landscape an immense scar; Hundreds of thousands of years of wind and water softened the terrain, turning the volcano into a paradise; A perfect refuge for the more than 25,000 animals that inhabit today the world’s largest volcanic caldera.

Located in the great Rift Valley, almost 5,000 kilometers long where the horn of Africa insists on separating from the rest of the continent, the Ngorongoro Nature Reserve occupies one of the most imposing places in African geography.

It borders the Serengueti to the northwest and, nearby, the shores of Lake Victoria can be found. In its bosom is the throat of Olduvai, where you can find the oldest human fossils in the world, and following the plains, advancing along with the annual migrations of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles, getting to the highest point of Africa, is Kilimanjaro, Mecca of the cyclists of the five continents.