When you stop at the very edge of the crater and get your first glimpse of the crater, it looks like something out of a movie, really not real but it is. After crossing the Serengeti (which in Maasai means "endless plain") and is about the size of Connecticut, it was quite a change to be looking down into this BOWL of life. The crater is home to all animals of Africa except giraffe becasue they eat from high branches of trees and those are limited in the forest in the crater and there are no crocs. It seems that elephants get 6 sets of teeth. When they lose their last set of teeth they "know" they need to walk over the mountain and go down into the crater, as there is a huge marsh there and they will be able to live out their days eating that wonderful mushy food. Kathleen described it as one giant nursing home for bull elephants. Elephants are crazy smart. Once a year, a grand daughter elephant (of course) shows up at the crater to visit her old grandfather. They interlock their tusks and somehow communicate what has been happening over the past year and she might stay a day or two and then climb back out of the crater and head back to her herd! Just like the nursing homes in the USA!
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