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“You woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”
“The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.”
-Isak Dinesen Out of
Safari Day 3
Serengeti National Park to Ngorongoro Conservation Area with a stop at a Maasai Village
Another early start with coffee, tea and biscuits at about 6:15. Then headed out for a game drive, hoping to add to our Big 5 and predator sightings.
We were near one of the kopjes when Madil got a radio call and started heading back the way we came. He wouldn’t tell us anything but he was driving fast! It turns out to be a leopard which was in a ditch next to the road. The leopard crossed the road in front of us and then stayed parallel to the road as it walked along. Madil spotted a dead tree and moved the land cruiser next to it. Sure enough, the leopard leaped up and laid there surveying the savannah. It was amazing – a gorgeous animal – and only about 15 feet away. We watched it until it left the tree, at which point it came back on the road between the vehicles and actually started walking down the road. Madil told us this was a very rare sighting – to have the leopard so close to the road and vehicles. A few vehicles followed the leopard but we went off to search for more animals. Periodically Madil would hear about the leopard – it stayed on the road for awhile and eventually was lost in the grasses.
We watched some buffalo at a water hole. Then we drove to a stream crossing with a larger pool and found a huge herd of zebra moving in and out of the water to drink – in an extremely orderly way! The wildebeests would dash in and out in their usual chaotic way and try to create some havoc. The zebras appeared to ignore this and continued with their organized drinking plan.
We continued driving and observed our first cheetahs. There were two of them, some distance away (but could be seen without binoculars). They were watching a giraffe that was in a depression. The cheetahs were watching this giraffe very closely. A second giraffe had come out of the depression and was standing a short distance away. There was also a small herd of gazelle behind the giraffes that appeared agitated and seemed to know that the cheetahs were close by. The gazelles crossed the area quickly in small groups, but the cheetahs didn’t pay much attention to them. The cheetahs were well hidden and downwind from the giraffe. One cheetah finally made a move closer to the giraffe. At one point, it looked like they would go after the giraffe from two sides or circle it. We watched for a long time and eventually the giraffe in the depression stood up and moved away towards the second giraffe. The drama and tension were now over, the cheetahs settled down and we humans moved on in search of the next “encounter”.
We drove back to the water hole where the zebras were. This time there were more vehicles and more commotion among the animals. I thought the source of their stress was the vehicles, but then we discovered the lioness sleeping in a grassy area right in the middle of two road sections that join at the water crossing. Obviously, this made the animals extremely nervous even though she was paying no attention to them, or us for that matter, and we were only about 10 feet away! The zebras ended up in a mini-stampede away from the area and we headed back to camp for brunch.
On the way we saw many large groups of zebras, wildebeests and gazelles – all migrating. Even though we were only seeing a small part of the migration, it seemed huge! There’s such a natural pattern to it, but hard to imagine over a million animals doing this. Once back at camp we had brunch – quiche and the usual assortment of fruit and bread. We then packed up camp and got ready for the drive back to Ngorongoro. Madil showed us lion tracks right outside his tent from the night before. He had mentioned earlier that lions had come through the camp the previous night, but I don’t think anyone believed him until we saw the paw prints.
We stopped at the park’s visitor center which had great exhibits and an outdoor walk around a kopje. Even had a tape of a lion roaring. Bought a “hakuna matata” t shirt at the gift shop and shared a fanta with
Warthog
As we drove towards the park gate we had even more wildlife encounters. There was a small pride of lions, two females, one male, napping under a small tree right next to the road. Behind them you could see remains from their latest kill – a gazelle, according to Madil. The lions weren’t moving, except for the occasional tail twitch. We kept hoping that the male would lift his head and look at us, but that didn’t happen!
Driving on, we came across an elephant family (about 8-10 of them) getting ready to cross the road in front of us. The matriarch clearly was not happy that we were there. I think if even one more vehicle had shown up, there may have been a problem. The elephants went across with some hesitation. They do a great job of protecting and hiding the young elephants whenever they sense a “foreign” presence, so sometimes it was difficult to see the babies. Elephants are fascinating: they spend most of their days eating, have a matriarchal society, once males reach adolescence they wander alone or with one or two other males, they mourn their dead, they can transmit low frequency alarms, and the pattern of rips, notches and scallops in their ears is unique to each individual, similar to our fingerprints. Peter Matthiessen, in his book The Tree Where Man Was Born talks about how he can watch elephants for hours and they do some strange things like mow grass with their toenails or drag tusks from a dead elephant into the bush. He said: “There is mystery behind that marked gray visage, an ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.” (1972) I could watch them for hours too.
Stopped at the Serengeti park gate so that Madil, as in each park, could take care of paperwork. We then started on the long dusty drive back to Ngorongoro. On the way we stopped to visit a Maasai village. The Maasai are rightfully protective of their lifestyle and visitors have an often negative impact on this, so they have some villages, cultural bomas, set up specifically for tourist visits. We each paid 10,000 shillings ($8.00) and were able to explore, observe, and take pictures. The villagers came out and started singing/dancing in two groups – men & women. Then they led us into the courtyard, which at night is the cow enclosure, surrounded by thorn bushes to keep predators out. The dancing and singing continued and the men took turns jumping as high and fast as possible.
One young man who spoke good English acted as spokesperson and guide. He told me he was in school and hoped to open a shop in one of the market areas when finished. We took a look at one of the homes which are like hogans. Small with very low ceilings – two rooms and a cooking area with ventilation hole. The Maasai have traditionally been nomadic, traveling with their cattle. Now more of them are settling into permanent villages, sometimes by choice and sometimes forced to as their allowed grazing territories have changed. Raising cattle is a major part of their lifestyle; they drink milk and blood from their cattle, sometimes mixed. If anyone watched Survivor Africa, there was a scene where the Survivors had to participate in drinking this mixture as part of a challenge.
We also visited a school they had for the younger children, similar to kindergarten. The kids were adorable, they recited and sang for us and one boy went up to the blackboard and led the rest of them in a number chant: 50-60-70-80-90-100!!! Mick kept trying to distract them by getting them to wink at him. The kids were laughing and as we left, high-fiving us.
As expected, there were hand crafted items for sale, including beaded jewelry, spears, masks etc.
The rest of the drive to Ngorongoro Conservation Area, though rough, was interesting. I enjoyed the scenery- the occasional Maasai village plus cattle, wildlife including zebra and gazelles, and the occasional dust devil, mini whirlwinds of dust that seem to travel for miles. As we climbed from the valley floor to the crater rim it got greener and a lot cooler. We added more clothing layers once we reached our campsite, which was right on the rim. This site was the most crowded of the camps, both in terms of people and the animals we shared it with, including zebras! There was one large enclosed communal cooking area which looked like a market with all the different foods scattered around in various stages of preparation. An enclosed eating area with long concrete tables and benches was next to the cooking area. The toilets were the usual hole in the ground “squatters” and there was a separate sink/shower building. All the comforts of our safari home.
The buildings in the background are the cooking & eating areas
We ate our last safari dinner late, around 7:30, and it was good. Erastu made spaghetti with meat sauce, as well as soup, bread and fruit. Madil said that he was not going to eat a lot because Erastu was making ugali for the staff. It is a thick maize porridge and is considered a dietary staple. I asked if I could try it. Madil agreed, so after dinner Marsh and I went into the cooking area to watch Erastu finish cooking. There was still a lot of activity with the cooks cleaning up and starting to prepare for the morning. The only woman was next to Erastu, rolling out dough for chapattis. Anyway, to eat ugali, you pick up a small amount and use it to scoop up vegetables or sauce or meat. It was pretty tasty, although the scooping technique was awkward for us westerners. Madil said that eating a bowl of ugali would keep you going for 24 hours, no other food needed. I told Marsh that we had discovered a whole new ultra food. It was really nice of Madil to share his meal with us; especially since I’m sure we weren’t exactly eating it in a culturally “correct” way.
When I came out of the restroom before heading to my tent, there were three zebras standing right in front of the building. There was another woman there who was trying to reach out and touch one. I’m watching this, thinking, these are wild animals…but they seemed completely undisturbed by our very close presence. The night was clear and cold with, again, a fabulous starry sky. Not able to sleep right away as there was a large, noisy group camped near us running their own generators. They were traveling on a bus for several months through
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