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| ONE of the Real Madrid legends, the former Spanish soccer player, Ramon Cobo, exits from a Maasai traditional hut when the group visited the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority in Arusha Region on Tuesday. (photo: Marc Nkwame/The Daily News, Tanzania) |
Story by Mussa Juma, The Citizen Correspondent
To most of the visiting former Real Madrid soccer stars, Ngorongoro Crater is a giant stadium in which players are an assortment of wildlife species with an untamed nature in the backdrop.
“It is unbelievable! It must be the world’s most spellbinding scenario,” exclaimed Ramon Cobo, a former soccer player with Spain’s decorated football team after he and fellow legends, flanked by their families, drove around the crater that ranks high among Africa’s’ New Wonders of Nature.
Game sighting is best done in the early morning, but the ‘Drids,’ as they are referred to, managed to see all the Big Five during their midday game drive.
They saw lions, leopards, elephants, buffaloes and rare rhinos; not to mention creeping reptiles, as well as large hippos at the Engoitokitok Lake. Others were wildebeests, and of course, monkeys that usually welcome visitors at the Loduare Gate entrance.
The soccer legends, who also visited one of the Maasai Cultural Bomas in Ngorongoro, vowed to promote Tanzania’s wildlife-filled caldera and the gypsy Maasai traditional culture in both the capital Madrid as well as in Barcelona. They took back to Spain with them various artifacts as souvenirs from the Maasai huts.
“Unlike many other Tanzania attractions, Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) is not only dealing with tourism promotion and wildlife conservation, but also takes care of the Maasa residents in the conservation, as well as promoting their world-famed traditional cultures,” explained Mr Adam Akyoo, the Public Relations manager of the authority.