Sure as Kilimanjaro Rises Above the Serengeti (Not)
From Voyage of Discovery in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania on Jan 05 '08
By Dan
I’d long had a feeling that Asia, or Christopher Cross, or whoever sang that cheesy song in the early ‘80s had never been to Tanzania, and had his geography wrong. I can now confirm that no, Kilimanjaro does not rise above the Serengeti – it’s about 175 km away, and you can’t see it, even on a clear day. But, enough of geography – let’s get on to the report.
Our big time game-viewing started on the 3rd, when we left Gibbs Farm and headed for Ngorogoro Crater. Grayson covered the animals there, so I’ll give a broader overview. The excitement builds as you drive up the outer side of the crater wall, through a dense forest that feels very primeval. Suddenly, you reach the rim, and look out over a huge bowl – it’s 14 km across, and about 800 meters down to the floor. Things are just impossibly green and lush, at least from a distance, and with a little imagination you can actually see the critters moving around far below. We spent a really spectacular day looking at game, then drove up and out of the crater and west towards the Serengeti plain.
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We spent that night at Olduvai Camp, which was a very cool collection of large canvas tents tucked in under a big rock outcropping, or kopje, that was situated in the middle of a broad plain. We were greeted upon arrival by some Maasai guys who live at the nearby village and work at Olduvai Camp. After dropping our bags in our tents, Christina, Betty, and I took a short walk across the plains with two of our new Maasai friends, and watched a beautiful sunset over the Serengeti. Serengeti apparently means “endless plain” in the Maasai language, and it was very apparent to us how it got that name. The Serengeti is vast, very flat, and a beautiful shade of green (at least at this time of year). For showers at Olduvai, they filled a small canvas bucket suspended above the shower area behind each tent with 10 liters of water – it required fast, efficient showers, but generally worked OK. Dinner was amazing, as they somehow pulled off terrific food out in the middle of nowhere. For the first time in what became a regular occurrence, Abby was escorted to her tent hand-in-hand by a young Maasai warrior, who was apparently a lot cooler than her dad, and probably much better prepared to fight off the odd hyena or lion that might be lurking around the camp.
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The next day, our first stop was Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakeys did their stuff, and we even saw the spot where Mary Leakey made her most significant anthropological discovery in 1959. It definitely gives you pause, to look around and think that our ancestors were walking at this very spot several million years ago. How’s that for thought-provoking? The most amusing part of the morning was getting dive-bombed by dung beetles, which were all around us. Dung beetles are about the size of a golf ball split in half, and spend their time standing on their front legs and pushing around huge balls of dung with their back legs. They bury the balls underground and use them as cozy nests in which they lay their eggs. They fly, too, albeit not very well. I was reminded of the pod-racers in Star Wars movies, as I watched them wobble around in a sort of drunken fashion. A number of them managed to fly in the windows of our LandCruiser, and it makes a big impact when one smacks into you. It also makes a big impact when one crawls up your shorts, but I’ll spare you the details. . . .
On we drove, into Serengeti National Park itself. Apart from the odd kopje or small hill, it’s just flat, flat plains broken by a few meandering creeks, some rolling hills, and various small areas of woodland. The density of animals is nowhere near that of Ngorogoro or even Lake Manyara, but it is pretty amazing to look out and see game sprinkled across the plains for as far as the eye can see. And, around the bend one does come across a group of lions, or a herd of elephant, or a leopard in a tree, or whatever. As we headed for our lunch spot, we passed a group of about a dozen elephants, including some very young ones, strolling along and ripping things up left and right. We stopped for lunch next to a wide spot in a small creek, where a few hippos had themselves parked and snorting. With nobody else around, and various kinds of critters visible in the distance, it all again felt very primeval.
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Right after lunch, we came across a group of five lionesses, looking very fat and lazy, lying around a small watering hole. Despite having apparently eaten quite recently, one of them did seem to gaze at Abby with longing in her eyes. Moving on, we spent time squinting at a leopard that was lying on a branch in a distant tree. In Serengeti, vehicles are not allowed to go off the roads (well, actually dirt tracks, some of which are pretty spine rattling), so if the animals you want to see aren’t close, you’re just out of luck. Technically, we did see a leopard, but it wasn’t exactly an intimate experience. Later, though, we were within about 20 feet of a very young lioness and her two mid-sized cubs. They started some distance away, but then came much closer to us before plopping down behind a bush right near the side of the road, where they became invisible to us. It was a good reminder that as we drive around, there is probably all sorts of great stuff that we don’t see, because it is behind a bush or in the shadows or we just aren’t looking carefully enough. But the hunt (visual, that is), is part of what makes being out on safari so much fun.
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Another part of what makes being on safari so fun, is enjoying the beautiful, lilting accent of East Africa. Christina and I have always enjoyed African accents, and still talk about the “waaaaadubuk” (waterbuck) that we were shown in Zimbabwe, among other things. We were chuckling with the kids about that at one point, when Felix said that he hoped we’d be quoting him for years to come. That was right around the time that we were seeing the leopard, and so we officially declared that his pronunciation is the one we are adopting as our own. Henceforth, you will hear us pronounce that large cat by its proper East African name, which is something like “leah-pod”. Here’s to you, Felix!
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Our next two nights were at Ronjo Camp, which is run by the same folks as Olduvai Camp and has a very similar set-up. Ronjo is at the top of a small ridge, with amazing views out over the plains in both directions. We’d watch giraffe stroll below us, or a terrific lightning show, and then hear the hyenas and lions during the night. Definitely a cool African bush experience. Betty had brought a box of Bisquick for Grayson, and one morning after we had run out early to watch a large pride of lions about a mile from Ronjo, I commandeered the cooking tent and whipped up some pancakes on the grill. With a nice Tanzanian guy acting as my sous-chef, some good African music playing on the transistor radio, and the sounds of the bush outside, it was a lot of fun. Bisquick seemed to go over pretty well with the Ronjo staff, too.
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Felix, our absolutely wonderful driver/guide, was a great part of the whole experience. He patiently answered all sorts of crazy questions we threw at him, ranging from animal behavior, to Tanzanian fauna, to the underlying reasons for the unrest in Kenya, with a smile and great insight. He anticipated the needs of our diverse group, intuitively knew what it was that we wanted to see and worked hard to find it for us, and generally made it a better experience. He also does trips up Kilimanjaro, and had interesting stories from there. Let us know if you’re looking for a guide out of Arusha, and we’ll put you in touch with Felix.
Our second day in the Serengeti turned out to be a pretty quiet one, as far as the animals go. That’s just the way it is, sometimes. We did a lot of driving, but the animals, at least apart from the zebras and gazelle, must all have been at a big meeting at some secret spot. It wasn’t a total wash-out day, though. Among other things, we hit the biggest hippo pod in the Serengeti, and the biggest pod I have ever seen. There were what seemed to be hundreds of hippos, all clustered together and snorting and pooping like crazy. The stench was almost unbearable. Christina was, I believe, glad not to be on a canoe in the Zambezi with them, given our past experiences. Despite the comparative shortage of game, it was a beautiful day to be out and driving. The roof of our LandCruiser comes off, so one can stand on one’s seat and look out the top. Rolling down the road with the sun on your face, the wind in your hair, and the sights and smells of the African bush all around you is hard to beat. Our friends Pam and Mike quoted Beryl Markham as saying that being on safari is like having drunk half a bottle of champagne, and that’s right on the money.
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