The Serengeti is the place to be

I have arrived back in Arusha safely, having not been eaten by the big cats or trampled by buffalos or elephants. I was a bit worried when seeing Tanzania was so green that we would not see much game as in game parks in southern Africa, the animals disperse throughout the park and don't need to visit waterholes when the vegetation is green and moist. Most viewing is done at waterholes and these are especially busy in the dry season. However, this is not the case up here because the animals go on migration every year. Vast herds of wildebeast, zebras and buffalo and their attendant predators migrate down from Kenya late in the year to the lush pasture in the Serengeti and give birth in February. Because the Serengeti soil is on a relatively shallow lava base, grasses can grow but the hard underbase stops trees taking root, except where there are streams, so the area of flat grasslands is huge ( big sky country ) and at the moment has millions of animals are far as the eye can see. A really spectacular sight. On our first afternoon in the park, we saw a a pride of lions, 2 cheetahs and a leopard which crossed the road inches from the front of our safari vehicle, as well as heaps of giraffes, elephants and gazelles ( mainly Thompsons and Grants ). Then on our one full day driving around we sighted more lion prides ( though no full grown males ) , a leopard with her cub playing in a tree, another leopard, hienas, hartebees, toppis, and other animals I have probably forgotten at this moment.

Adjacent to the Serengeti is the Ngorongoro conservation area where the wild animals mix with the Maasai people ie it's like a national park with traditional farming included. The Maasai are allowed to graze their cattle and goat herds with the wild animals and they live in fenced villages throughout this area. They mainly still can live their traditional lifestyle and still wear traditional clothing. We did pay a visit to one where they performed some dances and the gave us guided tours around their village and talked about their lifestyle. Their diet is based on meat, milk and blood ( extracted from live cows ). Once becoming Maasai warriors, having killed a lion singlehandedly, they are permitted as many wives as they can afford. A wife is exchanged for cattle. Each wife lives in her own mud hut with her children ( and any baby calves or goats ). Really interesting and not nearly as touristic as I expected. It is a hard life and many do leave if they can get a good education and job or start a business in the outside world. I met one chap who had his own motorcycle repair business near one of our early campsites.


Ngorongoro is a caldera or collapsed volcaco, about 20kM across with a year round water supply ( a large lake in the centre ) . Inside this crater is a marvellous array of animals in a really small area. The crater rim is about 500 m above the crater and we camped the night on the rim. Wild buffalo grazed around the tents during the night and an elephant was just outside the campsite. Indeed the campsite within the Serengeti was also unfenced so any wild animal could pop in for a visit. Apparently a hiena did visit one night but I didn't hear it.


On the lake in Ngorongoro were large flocks of flamingoes. This time we got to see hienas up close, a pair of lions copulating right beside the road and a old male lion resting beside a recently slaughtered buffalo as well as lots of rhinos though these were some distance away from us and could only be seen clearly through glasses.

The roads within the parks are quite rough and nearly everyone travels around a long wheel based 4WD Toyotas with a safari company. There were 14 in our tour so we had 2 vehicles as well as a support car that carried our supplies, camping equipment and support crew. Indeed, we did seem to have too many support staff with a tour leader, 2 driver/guides, a cook and assistant cook and supply vehicle driver who looked after the tents ie putting then up and down for us in each camp. The most valuable was the driver/guide and we had a very good chap...knew heaps about the animals and how to find them and then be a bit aggressive in positioning the vehicle amongst all the others so we got as close to the game as possible! Sometimes the presence of the tour leader was a case of more is less as when he was in our vehicle, we had less room and he insisted on occupying the front passenger seat ( the prime viewing site ). Equipment standards were excellent with relatively new vehicles and brand new camping equipment. Maybe we were the lucky ones at the beginning of the equipment replacemet cycle. I seemed to be the odd one out when it came to assessing food quality as all the North Americans seem to rave about the food whereas I thought it very ordinary and not nearly as good as we had in Botswana/Namibia where 1 cook managed to do much better in much shorter time periods. I did think they might have provided us with some game meat. Maybe another example of more is less!!


Also having 10 out of 14 from North America we did tend to have quite a bit of mutual backslapping and I think the tour leader tended to cater for this, asking all the time if everything was good. A bit over the top for us folks from the other part of the world but overall an excellent tour.

The other 5 tour members who joined us in Arusha were a Canadian solder serving in Afghanistan ( though if I had to guess his nationality I would have been 95% sure he was America ) , 2 American women from DC and 2 lads from London ( another 2 musicians!). For the 2 vehicles, one was all Canadian (they had all been togther on a 1 week Kenya tour ). No dramas on tour, everyone got along fine.


Most of the local Tanzanians are friendly though in high tourist spots the souvenir selling can be a bit intense.


I'm taking a shuttle bus this afternoon to Moshi and start the "trek" tomorrow.

For those not members of facebook yet, photos can be found @ these links for a while :
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141691&id=656590962&l=89dfd7ab7e
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=141704&id=656590962&l=d07290dca9