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  Serengeti, Tanzania
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Once again, I find myself a bit behind with the posts. No matter,
there's a solid chance you're reading this in September. We're all in
this crazy thing together, whoever "we" is, and whatever this "thing"
is.



I went to Arusha to arrange a somewhat economical safari which also
took me to see the wildebeest migration. Arusha will be covered in the
next post, but for this one, it will do to mention that the town is a
hustlebustle of activity, a small but highly visible amount of which is
directed squarely at wealthy western tourists

Day 1 - pretty bird

. In short, there are tons
of street urchin safari touts that follow you around, literally, for
hours.



After a long tiresome day of dealing with folks like this, I happened
to enter an office of a recommended company. In the office were two
Dutch couples looking for an economical option as well. I managed to
convince them quickly that the Wildebeest migration would be worth
seeing, and so we arranged a 4-day, 3-night safari to the Ngorongoro
crater on day one, and the northern Serengeti for the next three days,
two nights. One of the couples was on a super-budget, and would bail
after day/night one. For benchmark in case any of you decide to safari
in your lifetime, this camping safari cost the other three of us $625

Day 3 - first bull elephant challenge

.
It would have been $540 with a group of 5 in for the whole time. Moral:
find groups of people, as the cost drops significantly.



Enough about the arrangement. We "left" for the safari on day one,
picked up in a crappy minivan-cum-safari 4x4. We then went to Shop-rite
to pick up supplies, where we were abandoned for an hour and a half.
After this false-start, we negotiated to start the safari a day later
with a real 4x4 as promised. The company made some small mistakes here,
but otherwise were very helpful (Easy Travel, one of ~130 safari-type
companies in Arusha).



Off to Ngorongoro crater the next morning. This is actually a volcanic
caldera, or collapsed volcano, forming an impressively circular valley
approximately 15km in diameter. Inside are dramatic sights, including
the fabled "Big Five" of Lions, Leopards, Buffalo, Rhinos, and
Elephants

Day 1 - Acacias in mist, Ngorongoro crater rim

. The animals are not trapped, but are mostly content to stay
in the pleasant climate, with easily accessible water and grass/prey to
graze/devour. Elephants mostly hang out in the the green vegetation of
the rim. We drove up to the outer rim of the crater in a thick mist,
characteristic of the area. Dense rainforest on the outer surface,
thick growth spilling out over muddy red roads. Tons of safari 4x4's
careening around corners with their headlamps on, dimly warning
oncoming trucks through the fog.



We encountered some Masai at the crater rim just before descending. The
Masai, a once-proud cattle-herding race of complex cultural
organization and substance, has mostly been reduced to begging,
aggressively, for handouts or business from white tourists (at least
near the points of tourist interest, such as the Ngorongoro crater)

Day 1 - big elephant and hippos

.
Everywhere, in cities and in the countryside, all Masai wear
characteristic red or purple robes, and carry their cattle-herding
sticks. The Masai are allowed, to this day, entry to the crater. They
drive their cattle herds to the bottom to drink. These herders also
often carry spears, apparently to defend the herd from the very real
threat of predation in the crater. However, many times, the herders are
young boys who abandon the cattle to sprint around 500m, in order to
meet up with a 4x4. They allow a photo, and then demand either a dollar
or a pen, of all things.



Now, for the game drive in the crater. All very overwhelming and
shocking

Day 1 - Zebra in the crater

. Immediately upon descent, we encountered a large (5000+) herd
of wildebeest and zebra, who often travel together. Right off the side
of the road, and seeing a zebra from the open-top of a safari 4x4, in
the wild, is a lot of fun compared to the zoo. After this, a lot of
gazelles. Gazelles are everywhere, and I mean that. I probably saw no
less than 10,000 gazelles, maybe more, over the four days.



Then, we saw a loping hyena half-heartedly jog at a gazelle, almost
playfully, or oportunistically anyway. That was cool. Then, a grand 30
minutes into our safari, we hit the motherlode. A pair of lionesses,
about 5m off the road, were devouring a fresh zebra kill. Now, of
course when something like this happens, the 4x4's cue up 5-10 deep for
their 30 seconds of observation

Day 1 - lion devouring zebra, ngoro^2 crater

. The rangers watch carefully, doling
out fines to any vehicles that linger too long or stray off the road.



But there it was, regardless - a bloody scene, two lions eating the
hell out of a dead zebra's guts. The lions pulled and chomped at chewy
innards, blood splattering all over their faces and the surrounding
grass. I got a pretty good shot, even with my dinky camera.



A brief aside about my dinky camera. Man, did I see some expensive
cameras and lenses over the four days of safari. Many of these take
great pictures without really any help from the photographer. All you
have to do is point, zoom, and snap off a few frames and you're bound
to get a close-up of a lion/elephant/hyena/zebra face, complete with
aperture-induced sexy blur effect

Day 1 - zebras in dusty forest

. My camera, in contrast, is a paltry
digital with 5x zoom and a significant delay between pressing the
button and the frame capture, plus an intolerable refractory period
afterwards. I definitely ran into the limitations of my equipment on
safari. Animals move fast, colors and lighting are complex, the spaces
are vast. That being said, I believe that it's better to work your way
up to a nice kit. Some people I saw, such as 12 year old children,
obviously just got pretty gifts, and I had strong hunches that they, as
well as many of the other owners, didn't know how best to utilize the
expensive jewelry they'd purchased for their fun safari trek.



Another briefer aside - westerners bring their status with them to East
Africa

Day 2 - lionesses resting after feast, Serengeti

. There are gradations between the well-off, the wealthy, and the
super-wealthy, mostly based on the type of safari and the company. The
well-off, in relativity to the region, take the camping or budget
safaris and wear their own clothes. The super-wealthy reside in the
posh sexy lodges and are given fancy khaki pants, shirts, vests, and
hats with lots of pockets and buttons to make sure that... they look
like they're on safari (or something). The wealthy are somewhere in
between. Oh, and the Africans. They're driving and cooking. Barely any
Africans go on safari. Probably too expensive, and, as a Tanzanian
businessman I met on the plane explained, "why would I pay to see a
lion? I've already seen lots of lions near my village where I grew up."



After two asides, we return to the crater

Day 2 - Serengeti plains

. It's beautiful and stunning.
Tons of animals. Birds, dinosaur-like and pretty colored. A massive
bull elephant. Hippos, floating and farting and splashing and rolling
over all day in a pool of muck, grazing on grass all night. Tons and
tons of zebra, buffalo, gazelles, and wildebeest. A rhino, which was
more of a moving spot through binoculars, but a black rhino
nonetheless. Lots of car-surfing, e.g. 4x4 driving across dirt roads
while we all stood up looking out through the push-up-top roof.



At night, after another stunning ascent through rainforest with the
dusky crater sitting below us, we stayed at the public Simba A
campsite. Our chefs (of all the groups) made dinners for their
respective groups

Day 3 - Zebra/Wildebeest crossing, Serengeti

. Typical safari dinner fare, which is to say, better
than you expect seeing as you're in the bush. Quite delicious. Probably
because of the perfect amount of excess salt, sugar, cheap spice, and
vegetable oil.



One Dutch couple and I tossed a few beers back because we were cool
like that. I hadn't drank a beer since ... man, maybe my birthday, so
after 3, plus altitude, I was feeling pretty jovial. Rikush, the guy,
and I decided to pee into the bushes right next to the cinderblock
bathroom structure. As we began relieving ourselves, a cook came up and
warned us, quietly, that we should be careful - wild buffalo about.
Instead of buffalo, Rikush immediately spotted a hyena, about 8 feet
away, which was creeping towards us out of the bush

Day 3 - migrating herd drinking at river

. In a moment of
dulled instinct, we nonchalantly finished and walked back to a safer
place, where we then realized how effing terrified we were due to the
last 5 seconds of our lives.



Later, we saw the same hyena again, and a buffalo, cruise by about 20 feet away. Yay for camping in the middle of Africa.



The next morning, a long, long drive to and through the Serengeti, the
vast national park so famous for the wildebeest migration and basically
everything from the Lion King (the Disney movie/hit production). We
stopped over at Oldupai gorge (Olduvai was a mispronunciation). This is
where Mary Leakey and her husband, Susan (or whatever his name was)
discovered some ancient hominid footprints dated to 3.5m years, plus a
lot of skulls and tools and stuff

Day 3 charging bull elephant

. Long story short, apparently modern
man is now classified as emerging with civilization 15,000 years ago.
the 2m years figure is for pre-modern man, such as the "Lucy" hominid,
Homo Erectus, and the Homo Habilis (handy man). In sum, we have no real
idea  how we got to be us, but we have a vague hypothesized
blueprint supported by a stately sum of evidence.



After driving down a jackhammering bumpy road for another 2 hours, we
reached the southern plains of the Serengeti. This is where, early in
the year, the massive animal herds breed. Then, as the year progresses,
the fields dry up, thus helping to induce the movement west and north.
By the time we were there, the plains were endless, dry, and completely
dusty

Day 3 - more pretty zebras

. Only gazelles and ostrich were visible. "Serengeti," not
coincidentally, comes from

the Masai's name for the region - Seringit, land of endless space.



After a further 2 hours of driving through more hospitable plains, such
as the Seronera valley, lush with distinctive flat-topped Acacia trees,
giraffes, and herds of beasts, we reached the Lobo area campsite. This
post is getting long. I'll speed it up a bit.



The next day we did a full-day game drive pretty far north in the
Serengeti. We saw, after a few hours of nothing, endless single-file
columns of zebra and wildebeest stretching across the massive plains

Day 3 zebras and beests in pretty field

.
We saw, and challenged, a charging bull elephant. The way this works
is, they stomp a few times and flare their ears out, then stand and
stare, awaiting response. If you respond (rev your engine), they take a
few more stomps at you, closing some ground, and flare and stare again.
If you respond for a third charge, they will straight up attack you.
Our guide, Joffrey, was very good and knew just how to provoke a
frightening charge and a loud trumpet. After hearing elephants trumpet
on TV and in zoos, actually being trumpeted at by a big male is a heck
of an experience.



Some other stuff from that day - a leopard, the last of the big five
for us, sitting in a tree a really long way away. You could see it was
a shadow in the tree. With binoculars, you could barely make out its
beautiful spots. We waited long enough for it to get restless and walk
across the branches to another spot. Elegant. Later, we found a lion's
den..

Day 3 sunset through acacia trees

. complete with two cute little cubs who watched us suspiciously
from underneath this little granite-rock den. We circled about, spotted
the mom, circled again hysterically, spotted the mom leading the cubs
with stealth away from the den, then circled again frantically, and
spotted the cubs, alone, trotting back to the den and awkwardly
slip-sliding back under the rock with the grace of all mammalian
juveniles. The mom had disappeared.



After all the things we saw, my favorites were probably the trees. I
can't explain it well, or I choose not to try on a travelling blog in
the public sphere. But the flat topped Umbrella thorn trees, branches
exposed until their splaying canopy, are absolutely beautiful

Day 4 umbrella thorn from below

. Next, I
really enjoyed zebras and giraffes. They are absolutely pretty and
graceful. Then, lions and elephants are exhilarating. Hyenas, however,
remain my favorite predator. They are wrongly stereotyped as sniffling
little scavenger weenies. In actuality, they are big, strong animals,
with matriarchal clans that hunt expertly. Often the lions chase the
hyenas off the kills, rather than hyenas picking the bones after the
noble kings and queens have had their fill.



So safari was a packed 4 days. In the process of uploading photos
still, but some are there now. I have since flown to Kigali, Rwanda,
but before I speak of that I will have to post a bit more about Arusha,
since one of the most important things I have seen is happening there -
the UN Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. That update will come shortly.

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Day 4 a giraffe under a tree

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