For Easter school break we went to Tanzania on a combined Safari and East Indian Ocean beach vacation.   We flew into Nairobi, Kenya and took short flights to Arusha, Tanzania (near Mt. Kilimanjaro) and thence to Ngorongoro Crater.  Ngorongoro "EN-GORO-EN-GORO" Crater is the worlds largest intact caldera; a collapsed volcano crater about 20 miles across with 1800 foot high walls completely surrounding it.  The walls create a special ecosystem with all the trapped game, and you can observe a vast variety of species in settings ranging from lakes, rivers, veldt, and high desert.  We stayed at the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge - quite a special place!  A short distance from the crater is Olduvai Gorge, where Zinjanthropus man was found (the oldest human remains attributed to mankind).  We also saw the fossilized footsteps of "Lucy", a human being of 3.7 million years ago who walked in volcanic ash which then turned to cement.

After a couple of nights at Ngorongoro we headed for the Serengeti, and later to Zanzibar, the spice island off the coast of Tanzania.

http://www.serengetipark.org/

http://www.breezes-zanzibar.com/Breezes/default.asp

Our Safari camp on the Serengeti.  Not pictured - the personal assistant for each tent :-)...  Great food came from the campfire, and the sunsets were magnificent.  Bonnie Biorn joined us for this Easter vacation, and the children promptly named her the Easter Bonnie.
Lions have killed a wildebeest (Emilie's quote : "That's what I want to do - eat 40 pounds of chocolate and sleep for 4 days..."  Giraffe's on the Serengeti (we saw a LOT of giraffes).  Grace in front a a vast carpet of wildflowers - we caught the bloom after the first rains.  Flying from Arusha to Ngorongoro (landing on the crater rim, on the grass strip, was fun!).  We were driving across the Serengeti plains - no trees at all for a few miles, and came across a single old tree covered with bird nests and - two Cheetahs!  A Cheetah can run up to 60 MPH in bursts, and these were elegant in their resting.
A Masai BOMA, or village.  They are all built like this, with an inner corral for protecting cows from predators (e.g. lions and hyenas).  Note that the huts surround the inner corral - the warriors will hear the noise and protect the animals.  We visited a Boma and met the Masai people. Our Safari-mobile, and Derek during a quiet moment driving on the Serengeti.
View from the rim or Ngorongoro crater.  This crater is absolutely wonderful!  The lodge was great, and the morning (pictured) and evening views were majestic.  Pictures of our rooms, and the dining room.  !!! Emilie's bunny in early morning Easter sun.
More Ngorongoro lodge pix...
Wandering the streets and market of Stone Town, on the island of Zanzibar.

Ngorongoro Crater In-depth

Where in the World: Ngorongoro Crater Lodge is built on the south-western rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. The Crater lies in northern Tanzania, at the western edge of the Great Rift Valley. It is surrounded to the west by the Serengeti National Park and Lake Eyasi, and to the north by Lake Natron. The nearest village is Karatu, 30km away.

Wildlife Amphitheatre: Rising from the eastern arm of the Rift Valley, Ngorongoro was once a gigantic volcano, perhaps taller than Kilimanjaro. When the volcano collapsed, a vast bowl known as a caldera was formed. Measuring about 18 kilometres across, with a depth of some 250km, Ngorongoro is ringed by an amphitheatre of steep 500 metre-high walls. It is one of the most perfectly formed and certainly the most spectacular calderas on the planet. There is an impressive assemblage of wildlife within. 

Towering Eden: The word Ngorongoro comes from the sound of the bells adorning the necks of the Maasai cattle as they make their steep descent into the Crater floor. The Ngorongoro Crater is famous around the globe as an echo of Eden. It is a 12-mile (19km) wide volcanic Crater, ringed with towering walls and sheltering forests, grasslands, fresh springs, a large lake, and a dazzling abundance of animals of all sorts. The sunken cone of the extinct volcano serves as a natural cradle for the wildlife, which remains in the vicinity year-round. There is only one exit and one entry point into the Crater.

Ark of Harmony: The world-famous Ngorongoro Crater is a designated World Heritage Site likened to Noahs Ark in its preservation of diversity. CC Africas Crater Lodge is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. The Lodge lies within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), which covers more than 8 000km. NCA is a prime example of wildlife living in harmony with mankind it is the only place in the world where 42 000 Maasai people live amongst wild and often dangerous animals. 

Ancient Attractions: The floor of the Crater is just one of the marvels of the conservation area. Other remote mountains, archaeological sites, short grass plains where over a million wildebeest gather to give birth each year, and misty highland forests, are all magnificent attractions in their own right. Some of mankinds earliest ancestors are known to have lived in the Ngorongoro area, where the rich fossil sites of Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli have earned this part of the continent the title Cradle of Mankind.