Kilimanjaro
* Lake Manyara * Ngorogoro Crater Masaai Lands * Serengeti *
Tarangire
Onto
the Serengeti...
The
next morning, we decided to spend the morning in the Crater and then
move on to the Serengeti. We were up again before the sun with our boxed
breakfast and lunch in tow and we were off down the road (widened cow
path) into the crater. We were greeted by the usual magnificent
sightings of animals in the morning light, but this morning was special.
As
we headed off toward the picnic area to get out of the vehicle and
stretch to have a bite of breakfast, James spotted a zebra giving birth
only a short distance off the road. We got there as the baby was
standing up for the first time, which happens in a matter of minutes.
The placenta was still hanging out of the mother and gently blowing in
the wind forming a bright red kite, never a good thing when there are
predators around. Luckily it was mid morning and most of the
predators were snoozing in the shade.
We
watched as this baby found its legs and a marabou stork started eating
away at the placenta. I couldn’t believe this, as I was trying
to focus and capture it on film - part of the greater ecological food
chain. The mom eventually passed the afterbirth at which point a
battle between a few marabous ensued.
The
most fascinating thing to watch was the way the mom was keeping the baby
separated from any other zebra, including her own yearling that was
hanging around. Every time the yearling got close to the baby, the
mom butted in between them. It is imperative in the first few
hours of the life of baby zebras that they imprint their mom’s scent
and stripe pattern or else their chance of survival is compromised
greatly. What a privilege to see this happening.
We
picnicked at a most
beautiful spot at a spring with hippos in the water, surrounded by birds
and game. We were visited by a small herd of zebra. I
had my breakfast sausage stolen by a buffalo weaver, a bold little bird
that tried to inhabit our car. So, thinking that nothing could
beat a morning like this, we headed out of the Crater to the Serengeti.
To
get there we had to drive part way around the rim through the Masaai
lands and descend to the plains a couple of thousand feet lower in
elevation - a world apart as far as climate.
The views of the
Masaai lands are stunning. The Masaai are still somewhat nomadic,
but not completely. They are still largely herdsmen, allowed to graze their cattle in the Crater and other
wildlife areas in an attempt by the government to keep their way of life
intact.
It’s quite interesting to hear the attitude by the more
westernized African people about the Masaai. It’s not always
positive. Some feel the Masaai are just maintaining their culture
to influence the government and extort money from tourists.
That’s a very abbreviated explanation. Of course, the politics
are much deeper than that.
A fun fact about the Masaai’s donning
of the red blankets, if you’ve seen any pictures of them in various
publications: the red plaid blankets were introduced to Masaai
culture by Scottish missionaries about 150 years ago. The
missionaries were horrified to find these people walking around with no
clothes or with animal skins and tried to give them clothing, which was
accepted graciously but never worn.
The missionaries noticed that
they often painted themselves red with ochre, so one of them
gave a group of Masaai a Scottish tartan, which was donned and adored.
So since then, the Masaai have worn red, plaid blankets, and they are
now woven in Kenya and Tanzania. You see cattle being herded in
areas amongst the wildlife and the contrast of the red blankets with the
sometimes brilliant green or dry dusty earth is striking.
As we were descending from the Crater rim we saw a
small spotted cat called a serval. That was the first time I have
ever seen one. They are quite unusual and elusive. We
watched him hunting and saw him trot away with what looked like a scrub
hare. 
There were large groups of giraffe browsing very close to
the road and crossing it every so often. As we proceeded closer to
the Serengeti, the forest and trees gave way to open grasslands with
miles and miles of plains.
This area just south of the Serengeti
National Park is called the Ngorogoro Conservation Area. That
means that you can drive off road, which you are not allowed to do in
any of the National Parks, this also means if you get stuck, you had better
hope and pray that someone finds you, or that your radio is working!
It was such an incredible feeling of freedom leaving the road and just
driving out across open plains, not another vehicle in sight.
We
were soon surrounded by literally probably millions of animals,
wildebeest, zebra, and gazelles, mostly. This was the migration. There is no possible way to explain it or capture it on film. You
have to see it yourself!!
As far as you could see with your bare
eyes and through binos, the plains were dotted with animals. The
smells and the noise you just can’t describe. If it wasn’t for
the sound of our vehicle and the animals it would be dead silent.
In other words, there is no background noise, except maybe the wind, but
not even that because there were no trees or shrubs to rustle.
Most people picture the migration as the one scene from the IMAX with
the wildebeest being snacked by the crocs as they crossed the Mara River
in Kenya. The migration is so much more than that. To see
the masses of animals is what it’s about and all the little dramas
playing out 24 hours a day, of which you may be lucky enough to catch
one or two while you’re there.
I
do not feel that I can adequately describe the feeling of awe.
That first afternoon driving out
among the great beasts, we witnessed our second zebra birth of the day.
This time Lorne spotted it, from about half a kilometer away. He
saw a flash of something shiny which caught his eye and on second
inspection, saw the baby, still connected by the umbilical cord, lying
on the ground in the sack. We got there as the mom was trying to
get the sack off of the baby. You just can’t imagine the feeling
of being in the middle of nowhere with no one else around witnessing
this kind of miracle. We watched as the baby had his eyes cleaned
by mom, the sack removed and as he stretched his legs attempting to
stand for the first time. From dropping to the ground to running
with mom was no more than 10 minutes. Amazing!!
I
think we only had one day (at Lake Manyara) where we didn’t see at
least one of the big cat species. Otherwise, we saw big cats
everyday at least twice.
We
spotted leopard, several cheetah and lots
of lion. We saw a big male lion on a kill under an acacia thorn
tree, one of those sights that you always imagine when you think of the
Serengeti. James spotted it from about a kilometer away as a lump
under a tree nearly on the horizon and said, “look, there, a lion”.
Incredible!!
The camp we stayed in was called Ndutu and was at the
very southern end of the Serengeti outside the park boundaries.
The camps there are not fenced and very remote, so a membership to
Flying Doctors is essential. We had generator power for a couple
of hours a day, otherwise, it’s candles and flashlights.
We
heard lions calling every night. Lorne didn’t sleep much because
everytime they called, he had his 'ears on' to hear which direction they
were heading. In fact on two mornings, at first light he found the
lion that was making all the noise. Both times it was a large
male.
The one morning we followed the lion for about 11
Even though Lorne’s heard it so many times,
there’s nothing quite like that unbelievable sound and experience -
Lorne was totally in his element.
The area immediately around
Ndutu was quite wooded with beautiful acacia woodlands and intermittent
open plain areas.
The
open areas in between were where we saw most of the cheetah. One
morning we found a male lion and two lionesses. He was quite
interested in one of the females, who was giving him quite the cold
shoulder. He was sniffing her (to test for oestrus) and following
her around quite attentively. We heard the next day that someone
else saw them and they had started mating, but we never saw them again.
There
were quite a few people staying at Ndutu, 35 to 40 or so, but we really
saw relatively few vehicles when we were out and about. It really
felt like we were in our own private world. The one morning we
found a mom cheetah and three cubs. We had actually seen them the
previous evening and went back to the area to find them and hopefully
see them hunt. We sat and watched for a couple of hours as they
groomed each other and played and watched a herd of wildebeest walk by.
They were ready for the kill, in good position, but for some reason
didn’t go for it. So we kept watching as other vehicles began
to arrive including a BBC photographer who was there doing a film piece
on cats of the Serengeti.
Nothing was happening and they didn’t
look interested in hunting, so we decided to look for another cheetah
that was spotted not far away. We saw the other cheetah and a
lion, and then came back to the group of four and in the 20 minutes we
were gone, they had killed a baby wildebeest. We were so
disappointed to have missed it, but we still saw the eating of the kill
and the following feast by all the vultures, of which there are hoards
that follow the migration. Apparently, only one other person
caught it on film. It was a fluke. A baby wildebeest had
been separated from its herd and apparently out of nowhere came running
alone toward the cheetah thinking that they were four-legged friends and
became their four-legged snack. Poor thing, but that’s life (and
death) in the African bush.
One
of the days that we were there we drove up to the Seronera area in the
center of the Serengeti. The migration is in that area in June -
July time. When we were there, hardly an animal in
sight…relatively speaking. It’s incredible to believe how
these masses of animals can move these enormous distances.
We
still had some great sightings.
We saw a little herd of banded
mongooses drinking - always fun to watch, two lionesses hunting a lone
impala bull, leopard in a tree, lots of giraffe, hippo, another group of
lions in some rocks, a group of bat eared foxes (quite unusual there), a
very large snake, which we still have not identified and didn’t want
to get any closer to check, another serval, elephant, and beautifully
colored agamas. So not by any means a dry day, but a long one.
We were late to the Nabi Hill gate because of the sunset photographic
opportunities of a herd of waterbuck and luckily James had Dale
Carnegie-like people skills and we were allowed to proceed.
One
night on our way back to the lodge our progress was arrested by a huge
herd of many thousands of wildebeests on the move through a forested
area. We stopped to watch as this endless line of animals was
running through the woods across the road in front of us. As you
looked through the trees all you could see was wildebeests in every
direction. It had rained a few kilometers away the day before and
apparently it was time to move to greener pastures, so the millions of
animals were on the move. We kept wondering if they really knew
where they were going. We actually went back to the plains two
days later where we had seen the masses of beasts on our way into the
Serengeti and with the exception of a stray gazelle here and there, not
a beastie in sight.
.
The
hyenas feast on these migrations and it’s hard to look around and not
see them. We watched a clan one morning at sunrise finishing off
the carcass of some unlucky creature while intermittently chasing off
the jackals and vultures, and taking mud baths. I say that so
nonchalantly, but that sighting was one of the top ten we’ve ever
seen.
We saw
ostriches everywhere.
It’s kind of odd to mix them in to the herds. They don’t seem
to quite fit. Obviously, not the most
brilliant of creatures, but nonetheless, entertaining to watch and at
times, very photogenic. One night as we were coming home at
sunset, one of them decided to race us. We were driving at about
45 km/h and he was striding with ease next to us and keeping pace.
That was one of those bush moments!
The
manner with which James guided and navigated us through this bush
amazing. Though many areas in the Serengeti are
wide open, there are still small forests, swampy areas, drainages and
undulating hills with only a few landmarks on the horizon. We
would drive off through the trees or out on to the open plains and then
into the trees and the sun would start to set James would look a
little worried as we bumped close to hyena dens and ant hills.
He
would mutter something about I know there’s a road here somewhere
going to Ndutu and then we would cross what looked like a little patch
of ground with no grass and he’d say, “AH!, here it is” and off
we’d go along a game trail that led to somewhere. He always
managed to get us where we needed to go, but we kept looking at each
other like, “was there a lighted highway sign that we missed”, how
the heck did he find that “road”. Obviously, there is no such
thing as a highway sign in the entire country, and certainly not
lighted. In fact, there is only about 50 km of road with a center
line altogether. Maybe, I’m exaggerating, but not by much.
Reluctantly,
after four and a half days, we had to move on to our last stop, which
was Tarangire National Park. That was quite a drive. About
250 km bumping and skidding along dusty “improved” dirt roads.
We had to make a stop to have Lorne’s head looked at by a
“doctor”. He gashed it open on the latch to one of the hatches
in the roof of the vehicle. After talking with the “doctor” we
decided since tetanus has a long incubation period, wait ‘til we get
home to have an anti-tet booster (we weren’t sure when he’d last had
one). He should have had stitches, but we had none so I taped him
up with Steri-strips, quite a handy job I thought. The unfortunate
part is that we had to remove more hair in the area of the already
receding hairline. Poor guy!!
The camp is a small tented camp and is absolutely
magical
built around an enormous baobab tree and overlooks
a sand river
We
arrived at our last camp, Tarangire River Camp, in time for a late lunch
and drive in the park. It’s a good thing we didn’t start here
or I may never have left. The camp is a small tented camp with 16
beds and is absolutely magicical. The dining area/lounge is open
and built around an enormous baobab tree and overlooks
a sand river. I could have sat there looking at the view for days.
We went out again in search of more creatures and beautiful views.
Tarangire is home to between three and six thousand elephants. We were
not disappointed. Besides being a stunning park, we had fabulous
elephant sightings of breeding herds with lots of little ones.
The
roads in this park were unusually well maintained, still no rest areas
or toilets, just nice bushes to squat behind. There were lots of baobab
trees, which is the one tree that really speaks to you as being African,
and just magnificent bush.
We were treated to a sighting of two
leopard cubs playing in the rocks waiting for mom to come back with
dinner. We later saw mom hanging out in a tree not far away.
Our last morning in the park (sadly we were only there for 1 day) James
spotted a cheetah, only the second one he has ever seen there in all the
years he’s guided.
We
were quite rushed on our last morning game drive and had a hard time
tearing ourselves away to make the hair-raising dash to the airport
dodging cows and chickens and all the activities of market day in time
for our flight to Nairobi. In a way, the whole week still seems a
bit surreal in a way to me. It’s something I’ve dreamed about
doing for so long, it was hard to believe it was actually happening.
There were so many experiences during this trip that reminded us that
this is why we’ve moved back to Africa.
