"If you want to leave your tent in the middle of the night, shine your torch outside your tent first. If you see eyes reflected back at you, DON'T get out of your tent. If you are outside your tent and see a lion, DON'T run or you WILL die"! With those comforting words from Tour Leader Tanya, we settled down in our tents for the night, in the middle of a 3 day trip to the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.
Rewind a couple of days and I'm in Karen Camp, Nairobi, Kenya. The tour is at a natural break day, with some people leaving the group and others joining. Leaving us are Leticia, Gary, Laura, Hannah, Liz, Davie and Chani. Joining us, we have James & Alison (UK), Mike (UK) & Caitlin (Oz), Amelia (Oz), Amaia & Elisabeth (Spain), Nicole (Oz), Harriet (UK) and Hembert (El Salvador). The "old" guard cooked a BBQ dinner for the group, then it was an early night after a few drinks for an early start the following morning.
At 7am the next morning, we left Nairobi and crossed the Kenya-Tanzania border, complete with another US$50 visa fee, on the way to Arusha and the "Snake Park Camp", our base for a 3 day visit to the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. On the way, we visited a tanzanite store. Tanzanite is a precious stone which is only found in Tanzania. The visit to the store entailed a history of the stone, mining, how its price had appreciated and of course, the chance to buy some stones. I wasn't convinced by the arguments of how much a bargain it was when they compared their selling prices to the market price, particularly as being an investor in other things, I'd never heard of the stuff before and hence, hadn't done any research. They had a fair few expensive gems on show, one had been sold for half a million dollars. I'm sure not sure a group of budget backpackers was their ideal market.
Since it was Halloween, on arrival at our camp in Arusha, some people suggested we try to find, buy or make some fancy dress costumes. We had to do a truck swap (I won't go into the reasons here, but drivers have to stay with their own truck so we swapped our driver Alan for Joash, who happened to be Tanya's ex-driver, and his truck Ben). On the new truck, as luck would have it, we found a bag of fancy-dress costumes! We donned our costumes for the evening. (Kiwi) Ben seemed to found a dress which fitted him perfectly. We thought he must have bought it back home and brought it along just for that one special night. Some of the women put make-up on. Some of the men put make-up on too, since they were dressed as women. After dinner, there followed much drinking in the camp bar. At one point, someone suggested we have a round of "Ma's Revenge" - a cocktail of rum, tequila, cinnamon, and tabasco. It was probably the most disgusting thing I'd ever drunk. Try making it at home and see.
The next morning, we packed rucksacks with stuff we'd need for the next three days and headed off to the Serengeti National Park, seven of us in each of three 4WD minivans with pop-up tops. We had an amusing lunch stop. We stopped in a clearing surrounded by trees. Our guide, Simba, suggested we sit under a tree as there were Black Kites in the area which would swoop down and snatch food out of your hand if you weren't under cover. Unfortunately, the others weren't told and within minutes of them sitting down with their lunches, shrieks split the air as Kites swooped down over their heads, snatching chicken legs out of their hands! A few of the others tried to get some cover under our tree. We urged them back out as bait, getting our cameras out. Compassion took a back seat for that perfect photo! It was great watching the Kites, circling, waiting for a chance to swoop, then with a sudden movement, plunging down and striking. It was like watching the Andean Condors in Peru.
Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is a large expanse of grassy plain dotted with granite outcrops and trees. It is home to tens of thousands of hoofed animals constantly on the move in search of fresh grassland. The most famous inhabitants are the wildebeest, with over one million in an annual migration, the NPs major drawcard, particularly river crossings where lions and crocodiles take their pick of strugglers. Unfortunately, they wouldn't be on the move in the area of the NP when we'd be visiting. One of the things I most wanted to do was to see the migration from a hot air balloon. However, the vagaries of the weather and unpredictability of the timing of the animal movements meant I'd have to be really lucky to time a visit at the right time.
There were masses of other different animals in the NP, and we had a fantastic afternoon game drive - the usual numerous antelope varieties, zebra, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, lions sleeping on rocks, a leopard coming down from a tree, hippos and plenty of birds. The highlight was another leopard extremely close to us and there were two cubs inside a hollow tree trunk who poked their heads out! Unfortunately, there was a huge scrum of minivans and jeeps around them, the ones in the best position not moving after they'd taken their shots as they should have, an irate ranger trying to get them to move, and vehicles having to drive off-road to get past and being issued with fines. There was another stunning sunset too, maybe the best one yet.
As we headed to our camp, the clouds thickened and a torrential downpour began when we reached our camp. A flash thunderstorm, hail, strong winds, the campsite soon turned into a sea of mud. Tents were blowing around in the wind and upside down. We waited in our vehicles for the rain to die down, wondering if we could spend the night sleeping in the minivan as there was no chance we could pitch our tents in this weather. However, after about half an hour, the rain did stop and we inspected the damage. Unfortunately, one of the groups had arrived before the storm started and tried to pitch their tents. They were ruined and the contents drenched. We managed to find some comparatively drier, raised ground on which to pitch our own tents. We were wild camping with nothing to protect us from the wildlife. Tanya gave a safety briefing about leaving the tent in the middle of the night. She also recounted the story of a previous tour when she had gone to the toilet and heard a lion roar as she got back to her tent. I decided not to drink any alcohol so I wouldn't have to go for a piss in the middle of the night.
The next morning, we had yummy freshly-cooked samosas for breakfast and were off for another game drive in the Serengeti NP. Another fantastic experience. The highlight was a large pride of lions with a kill (largely obscured by the tall grass). Hyenas and vultures waited in the wings while the lions had their fill. They eventually moved off and the next in the pecking order, the hyenas, moved in but had a constant battle to keep the vultures at bay. A couple of jackals hovered on the fringes, bottom of the pecking order. It was great watching it all unfold! We also visited a small pool with a crocodile, hippos fighting, and lots of birds. We saw two cheetahs cross the path in front of us. And there were plenty more elephants, giraffes, antelopes, birds, warthogs, and hyenas. During a mid-morning stop at a lodge, we saw a Green Mamba in some bushes in the parking lot, right next to a low stone wall where people could sit, one of the deadliest snakes on the continent!
We headed back to camp, packed up our tents, had lunch and headed to the Ngorongoro Crater. We would camp on the rim of the crater for the night before heading into it the following morning for another game drive. On the way, some of us visited Olduvai Gorge. This is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and called the "Cradle of Mankind". The gorge contains many layers deposited over millions of years containing fossils and bones from our ancestors and animals, and ancient artefacts. The museum and accompanying talk on the work done there was really fascinating - our ancestors had been around for 3-4 million years but Homo Sapiens only evolved a few tens of thousands years ago. There was also an exhibit on the nearby Laetoli site. Hominid footprints had been found there, the earliest evidence of our ancestors dated about 3.6 million years ago. Amazing stuff! Camping that night, we were warned about possible "visitors" to the camp and told to space our tents out so they could get past without trampling us - bush pigs, buffalo, elephants, maybe a leopard too! I think one or two of us had to get out of the tent in the middle of the night and may have had an encounter with something! The trouble with not drinking so you don't have to get up for a piss in the middle of the night, when sharing with someone who snores louder than than you, is that you don't get much sleep. I was sharing with Hembert and didn't get any. Even my super-duper earplugs failed to drown out the lion's roar of a snore.
We had breakfast at 6am the following morning and then headed off down into the Ngorongoro Crater. The Ngorongoro Volcano, before it exploded and collapsed 2 million years ago, was one of the world's tallest mountains. Today, the crater is one of the most stunning natural wonders in the world, approximately 600m deep with an enclosed area of about 260km2 and is an important part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The sides of the crater are very steep, which creates a natural enclosure for a wide variety of wildlife, although zebra and wildebeest are able to move through it.
As we entered the crater, we immediately saw a majestic, huge male lion and followed it for quite a while, its roar was deafening. It eyed up a gazelle as it sauntered across the plains. A family of warthogs kept a watchful eye on it but it didn't attack. After taking a drink, it eventually headed off to some bushes. We saw plenty of hyena and warthogs, along with grazers - antelope, zebra, wildebeest. However, most of the crater comprised scrubby, dry grassland and the wildlife was much sparser than the Serengeti. I was disappointed. The lack of trees meant that there were also fewer birds. There were a few different habitats. A wooded area contained a forest elephant and baboons. A soda lake was populated with flamingos but having to stick to marked trails meant we couldn't get close to the lake. A sought-after rhino sighting was a distant grey blob through binoculars. I wasn't impressed.
After lunch, we headed back to Arusha, staying at the "Snake Park" again. I had a wander around the snake enclosures - some great snakes, including cool Green and Black Mambas, possibly the most venomous snakes in Africa. A few drinks turned into another piss-up, and another round of "Ma's Revenge", still as disgusting as the first time we'd tried it.
It would be off to Dar Es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast the following morning with a very early start and a full day travelling.
"If you see a lion, DON'T run or you WILL die!"
Friday, November 04, 2011
Arusha, Tanzania
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