Tanzania

ON SAFARI
Part Two in our Three Part Series
with Lorne & Heidi Sulcas

LIFE ON THE SAVANNAH:
TANZANIA

“On the summit of a hill, in the middle of Africa, we were surrounded by millions of animals as far as the eye can see, not a human being in sight!"

Day 5: Ngorogoro Crater

It takes a good hour to get from the Ngorogoro Farmhouse in Karatu, through the gate into the Ngorogoro Conservation Area, to the point on the rim of the Crater from which one descends down onto the Crater floor. And then the decent takes about 45 minutes down a very poor road, which our guide, James Mazigo, told us was ironically in great shape at that time compared to during the rainy season! The state of the road was more than compensated for by the unbelievable view of the whole Crater, which was visibly thick with animals.

The only trees in the Crater are along the few river courses and in the Lerai Forest, which is dense with the very distinctive neon green-barked Fever Tree acacias. When we got onto the Crater floor, James decided to take us first through the Forest in the hope of finding the fairly elusive Black Rhino, a browser that apparently enjoys the Forest in the mornings. Although we weren’t lucky finding the rhino, we spent at least 45 minutes amusedly watching a troop of baboons grooming, foraging and playing in and amongst the trees. Emerging from the Forest, Abdim’s storks dotted the landscape everywhere, together with tons of general game: wildebeest, zebra, gazelles and buffalo.

By the time we got to a pride of lions that had apparently killed in the early hours of the morning, not one but two buffalo cows, it was late morning. With the heat, the only shade around the site of the kills came in the form of the high-clearance tourist vehicles, and as we approached the sighting, we noticed a couple of very large cat-like silhouettes right under one of the vehicles. The driver told us as we past him that they had been trapped there for nearly two hours already, not being able to even turn the vehicle on for fear of disturbing the lions.

When one of the unsheltered lions starting making his way straight towards our vehicle, there was fairly rapid consensus that we weren’t that excited about the same fate and we immediately moved out of the sighting.

We ascended part-way up the Crater wall for a break near a camping site in the densely wooded forest. Apart from the symphony of birds singing, it was so peaceful - we were completely alone. That is until three slightly-built Masaai women carrying huge bundles of wood on their heads, came wandering down the desolate road. Where exactly they were walking to in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, is a complete mystery. Even though it was such an obvious Kodak moment, James politely suggested that paying Masaai to photograph them encouraged them to be actors rather than proper Masaai, and so was not a great idea.

We heard the unmistakable sound of approaching ringing cowbells. In this part of the world of course, cows are accompanied by herdsman, and out of the blue a group of young Masaai men materialized.

They were as fascinated by us as we were by them, and they stood around our vehicle having a great conversation for at least half an hour. Through James’s interpretation, we extracted key points from the dialogue, the funniest of which was upon seeing a pic of my rather well-built 1-year old son, one of the young men asked what the child eats that makes him so big!

Day 6: Ngorogoro Crater

We made an earlier start this morning, and got down onto the Crater floor in time to see masses of zebras making their morning pilgrimage to the water. Another amorous pair did their thing in the distance, and stallions sparred on the dusty banks of the stream.

In the distance a veritable colonnade of cars on one of the roads, which invariably means a sighting of the more ‘glamorous’ animals. In this case, two cheetahs were lying in long grass, almost surrounded by hundreds of oblivious wildebeest and zebra that were moving to and from the water.

The adults of both wildebeest and zebra are typically too large for cheetah to hunt, and even though we had just come from a mere few kilometres away where there had been tons of zebra foals, there were no youngsters amongst the animals in the immediate vicinity. I could see by their body language that the cheetahs were hungry, several of the other vehicles lost patience and moved on. We remained for another little while, about 20 minutes later we noticed a single calf amongst a wildebeest herd that was approaching the cats.

The cheetah had clearly noticed the calf too, and within seconds one began to trot, no, run, no, make that sprint flat out towards it. As the herd splintered in different directions, the other cheetah was already sprinting round the side to try to cut off the escaping calf, but mommy wildebeest’s maternal instincts were strong and she got between the cheetah and her calf and ushered her offspring off in the opposite direction. Alas (depending on one’s perspective), the hunt failed, leaving two very exasperated looking spotted cats watching their breakfast flee out of range.

Highlights of the remainder of the day: buffaloes wallowing in the black mud of the hippo pool, a spotted hyena carrying the carcass of a baby wildebeest into a mud pool (the local refrigerator), incredibly well camouflaged lions lying in some reeds, and the standard yellow-billed kites aggressively swooping down to try to grab morsels of tourist picnic lunches at one of the picturesque picnic sites on the Crater floor.

Since we’d had such an amazing time in the Crater we’d call it a day and make our way back to the Lodge. It started to rain on the opposite side of the Crater. It was so weird – we were in bright sunshine on the one side and could see the black clouds on the other. It caught up, and not a moment too soon James replaced the ‘sunroof’ hatches. The ascent was tough on what is surely, the worst road on the continent. When we said something to James, his only comment was: “This is nothing. You should see this road in the wet season.” Hmmm… I s’pose it’s all relative…!

What was left of the afternoon was spent swimming in the crystal clear swimming pool and relaxing back at the Ngorogoro Farmhouse. When I picked up a chameleon that was walking in the garden, Vivienne, the Farmhouse hostess, let out a blood-curdling shriek that would have made Psycho look tame, ran into the open plan reception area and was literally cowering on the floor in fear of this tiny reptile! Having worked for many years in the Greater Kruger National Park, I was well aware of the Shangaan superstition about chameleons. Apparently it’s true for East Africans too!

Day 7: Ngorogoro Crater - Ndutu

Since the Crater is essentially on the route to Ndutu, we made a slight detour to go back down onto the Crater floor, for a last glimpse of this phenomenon. In the beautiful first light, we watched a huge elephant bull walking across the Crater floor and right in front of our vehicle, crossing the road and eventually disappearing down towards the Forest.

Flamingos reflected in the still soda lake, while on the other side of our vehicle two zebra stallions were locked in a serious fight that we could see as we drove away continued even after the 20 minutes we stayed to watch.

The standard colonnade of vehicles had gathered, to watch a Black Rhino that was a mere speck on the horizon. We stopped at a point where he thought the rhino would most likely emerge. The rhino obliged. I noticed what looked like a feline ear protruding from the long grass about 200 meters away from us. Binoculars showed it to be a cheetah, and behind it a jackal eating the remains of what the cheetah must have killed. The rhino continued its path, completely ignoring the predators, which of course are no threat. All the other vehicles drove right past us in pursuit of the rhino, their inhabitants completely oblivious to the great sighting we were having of the cheetah and jackal.

En route to the nearby picnic site in the Lerai Forest before we started out for Ndutu, we observed about 4 hyenas showing a lot of interest in the calves of a large wildebeest herd.

Standing right in front of the sign oblivious to the “Do not feed the animals” sign, a women overtly offered watermelon to a very mischievous and interested looking vervet monkey on a nearby tree. Before she could say “vervet monkey" it had jumped down from the tree and was coming right for her. Letting out a shriek that would send shivers down the most bravado of spines, she dropped the piece of fruit and dashed towards the nearest vehicle.

The guide jumped back in fright, encouraging the errant monkey, and with nowhere else to go, he came straight for Diane, who was standing next to our vehicle. When Diane jumped into the car, I decided to call upon my six years of daily escapades with thieving vervets and baboons in the Kruger National Park’s Sabi Sandwildtuin, and aggressively took one quick step towards the monkey. This slick move of mine had never in my experience failed to send a primate scurrying, this monkey not only stood his ground, but came quickly for me, snarling.

I very quickly weighed up the, machismo, pride (a veritable crowd was now watching the scene) and testosterone that was brimming inside me, with thoughts of hospital (one of the first facts about vervet monkeys we learned whilst training to be a game ranger, was about the diseases they are known to carry), not seeing my family again, etc. The latter won, I aborted my advance. Unfortunately, as we always told the tourists we guided, the animal you feed today is the animal that has to be shot tomorrow.

The drive from the Crater to the Ndutu area of the Serengeti is gorgeous. Coming down off the plateau of the Ngorogoro Conservation area, the Olduvai plains were quite green and populated with lots of zebras and gazelles.

Then, as if it had only rained on the Olduvai section, the land was all of a sudden like a desert, with only gazelles and a few small Maasai herds of goats sporadically scattered. Again, so different from the last time, when giraffe were browsing the whistling acacias that lined the descent from the plateau, and zebra and wildebeest covered the green savannah.

After the Farmhouse chameleon, we felt reassured that Ndutu lodge also had its requisite reptiles. Walking from the lodge reception area to our chalets, a brightly coloured tree agama was sunning itself, and a very large leopard tortoise scurried (in as much as tortoises can scurry) across the path. The kitchen had very accommodatingly held what was now a late lunch for us, and after a short nap, we headed out again on our first real gamedrive in the Serengeti ecosystem.

Despite having heard that the bulk of the migration was up north past Naabi Gate, we decided to just use the couple of hours of daylight that were left, to explore the Ndutu area itself, as there had been murmurings of large groups of animals there. A huge advantage of gameviewing in the Ndutu area is that one can drive freely off-road, unlike the area that is the nucleus of the Serengeti National Park where staying on the roads is mandatory, limiting viewing.

We found one massive splinter group of the migration in the Macauw area and parked in the middle of the herd captivated by the sight and sounds of so many animals.

By the time we arrived back at the lodge, it was almost dark, largely due to a giraffe a few kilometres from ‘home’ that posed silhouetted against the beautiful sunset whilst an oxpecker gave its teeth a cleaning. Although prohibited by the park rules to be out when the sun isn’t, the scene begged to be photographed, and we were forced to answer the calling. Dinner was welcomed, as always, a pleasure, after a long and full day.

Day 8: Ndutu

After the first part of this morning’s gamedrive, we were elated. We found the migration. Having seen the group of wildebeest the previous afternoon, James followed his instinct to stay in the Ndutu area. When after an hour or so, we hadn’t seen a single wildebeest and were beginning to despair that we wouldn’t be seeing the phenomenon of the legendary migration, James said: “Let’s go that way,” and steered the vehicle across the open plains towards a completely blank horizon.

As we came over a slight rise, thousands of black specks dotted the new horizon. Our course took us straight into the midst of the largest group of animals I have ever seen in my life. There was a hill in the distance, which James decided we should summit. The text message I sent to Heidi most eloquently and succinctly (if I say so myself!) describes our experience:

“On the summit of a hill, in the middle of Africa, surrounded by millions of animals as far as the eye can see, not a human being in sight!"

We retraced our route (important when the completely flat land offers absolutely no landmarks) and when we finally emerged from the herd, we stopped in the second middle of nowhere for our bush breakfast. The hood of the car served as our elegant table, and a very nice piece of very African fabric, as the table cloth. Breakfast was fit for a king, including hot tea and coffee, which was welcome on this cloudy, cool morning.

Many times it’s the less obvious things that really make the experience of being in the bush. While we were standing around munching our breakfast, we watched mesmorised and with complete fascination, dung beetles doing their remarkable thing. The male beetle locates fresh dung, rolls it into a ball, rolls the ball away, periodically climbing up to the top of the ball to navigate by the sun, and then when he gets to a suitable location buries the ball (I’ve never been exactly sure what criteria he uses to make that call!).

We even witnessed the female supervising the whole process (no comments from peanut gallery, thank you), making sure that everything is to her satisfaction before she lays her eggs in the buried dung. The larvae then feed on the dung before emerging to reproduce the cycle. Of course with a million or so wildebeest having recently passed through that area, a shortage of fresh dung to roll, was not a challenge.

We started back, feeling like if we didn’t see another thing for the rest of the whole safari, we would still be ecstatically satisfied. At that time of the day -10h00ish- the animals tend to be less active with the onset of the middle of the day heat. So, after a half an hour or so of casually ambling back towards the lodge, excitedly reminiscing about the incredible morning we’d had, James suddenly stops the vehicle and says: “Cheetah!!”

We all grab our binoculars to see what he’s pointing at under a tree about 150m away from the road, and although the open habitat was good cheetah country, closer inspection showed that the cheetah was actually a leopard! I couldn’t believe our luck and to say that I was extremely excited, would have been a significant understatement.

During the many years I had worked as a Ranger in the Sabisand, I had done a project studying the individual leopards of the area and their behavioural patterns, and had developed a personal love affair with these elusive cats.

As many as I’ve seen, it is still always an incredible treat to see a leopard. Although they both have spots cheetah and leopard are different in about every physiological and behavioural respect. So we of course gave our truly masterful guide, James, the requisite teasing for his identification error – wanting to know if he needed the Mammals of East Africa field guide to tell the difference between the two. He laughed, and, as we were in an area in which driving off road was permitted, slowly steered the vehicle in the direction of our prize.

Sensitive to disturbing the animals, he stopped well away from the lying leopard to let him get used to our presence, eventually moving to within 20 meters once we could see that the leopard was relaxed. He continued to lie in the grass surveying us and his surroundings for about 10 minutes and it didn’t look like much else was going to happen. Leopard, of all the predators, haven’t read the animal behaviour textbook though, and after explaining that they often tend to break all the behavioural rules, Paul and Diane agreed we should stay with it for a while longer. Again having quality sightings is about having patience.

He sat up, scratched his ear for a few seconds, walked a few meters to a fallen part of the Umbrella Acacia tree under which we both were, and climbed onto it. Now getting a better view of things, he suddenly became very alert, staring back past our vehicle. Sure that there had to be something of definite interest to him, we turned round to look to see what he was seeing. Out of seemingly nowhere a serval sprang out from the grass and realising that he might be the leopard’s lunch, fled before we could even reposition cameras.

Servals are lanky spotted cats, superficially similar to but much smaller than cheetahs, that are extremely unusual to see in the wild – I think in all the years of living, working and traveling in the bush, I’ve probably only ever seen a handful, and never in the same sighting as a leopard! The large carnivores often readily kill smaller predators or the young of other competing predators.

Although this was obviously what caught the leopard’s attention, the serval had got a head start and the leopard didn’t bother to pursue it. He climbed back down off the fallen log, walked the couple of meters to the base of the tree, and jumped up to the first fork in the tree’s giant limbs, now positioned exactly above our heads protruding from the open top of our vehicle.

After surveying the savannah for a just a couple of seconds, enough time to shoot only one frame of this amazing picture, he leaped up into the crown of the tree, got him self comfortable lying on a flimsy-looking branch, and promptly went to sleep. Several more camera shutter clicks later and after a truly magical sighting, we left him. We drove back to the road, incredulous not only at our luck in even seeing a leopard at all, but at the quality of the sighting we had had, and moreover at being completely alone with a leopard. As difficult as they are to see in the wild, the latter was a first even for me.

We unanimously agreed that we had really seen everything we wanted to see on this trip. We hadn’t driven two more kilometres when I saw the unmistakable form of a lion lying down in the shadow of a tree to the west of the road. Without missing a beat, James turned the vehicle off the road, and as we neared the tree the lion was lying under, we saw a second lion and what was obviously a carcass under a second, nearby tree. These two magnificent males had killed an adult wildebeest, most probably in the very early hours of that morning judging by the amount they had already eaten from the kill.

Despite the cloud cover that had persisted over the last three days, it was already extremely hot, and neither of the lions were interested in doing much more than sleeping, interspersed with large amounts of tongue-out panting to keep cool.

On the afternoon gamedrive, we headed back to where we had been so lucky that morning. Alas, the leopard was no longer where we had left him, but we did see what I’m sure had to be every vulture in East Africa, feeding on and squabbling over a zebra carcass in the middle of the wide open Serengeti plains. The distinct white and black stripes amidst the dust and noise created by the birds, was a vivid reminder of the brutal nature of life and death on the African plains.

We were determined this time to be back at the lodge before dark. On our way we made a quick turn past the site of the morning lions. We were just in time, as with the sun about to set, they had just got up were already walking away from the carcass, back towards the road – unfortunately in the opposite direction to where we needed to go to return to the lodge. We followed them for a short while in the gorgeous albeit fading warm orange light (unfortunately already just too low for quality photographs), cutting it fine yet again to get back before dark!

See Day 9: Ndutu the final in our three part series.

Back to Part One

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