Ngorogoro

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The next morning, we left the hotel at 6:15 to descend into the crater. Kelvin asked if we had any interest in making a surprise visit to a Masai village. “Sure,” we said. That’s pretty cool, stopping in at 6:30 in the morning to see how the Masai really lived. Jonathan only showed us the abandoned village near Amboseli. We had never been in a real visit where the Masai lived and cattle, goats and sheep pooped. As we approached the village Kelvin warned us that Masai are very friendly. They like to shake hands and sometimes hug, but we should be careful and use our Purel afterward because they are not good about cleanliness. We had no Purel so I said what my friend Rick Strain always says; “hey, that’s what stomach acid is for.” Nobody bought that. Our solution after the visit was to rinse with water. Since we survived, I’d say that was sufficient.

On arrival in the village, it was apparent that the surprise visit was no surprise and that this village was fully prepared for not only our visit but for the visits of lots of us white folks. Still, it was good to do. The houses, made of sticks and dung were really small. The children had runny noses, like all children and we were certain that whatever bacteria or virus was lurking was looking especially forward to infecting fancy white people. We, however, are brave and didn't run from the danger. Each house had a fire going as it was really cold out. We were invited in to one. Getting my fat ass through the little opening required a deftness and grace that surprised even me. But once in, the smoke was so overwhelming that our visit was all of 30 seconds. Struggling to get out the house collapsed; no not really. I decided to make that up, but I really was afraid that as I brushed against the dung wall and squeezed through the doorway that it might just break. Greg and Lizzie went into another house and stayed there a while longer. They may have partaken of a regular Masai meal of roasted goat with a glass of sheep's blood. However, they did not admit to that. I’m just inserting the picture of Greg at the village so you guys can all know how good looking he is, in case you’ve forgotten.

Then we descended into Ngorogoro Crater, some 2,000 feet below the crater rim. Once down the steep, narrow road we saw herds of Wildebeest, Zebra, Thompson’s Gazelle, and Grant’s Gazelle, but what was there in greatest number was a certain exotic species, Range Rovers filled with diverse populations of homo sapiens. The most interesting of this lot were the masked Japanese women, covered from head to toe in white safari clothes, huge hats on their heads and surgical masks covering their mouths and noses. Ha, ha, we thought. How absurd! This, after the Masai village. We are so much more liberal in our thinking. We are not fearful of germs, even if the dust does contain all forms of powdered carnivore and herbivore dung and we sure were breathing it in. We felt so superior! But we were a bit nervous. Did they know more than us? Will we develop some horrible ailment that only shows up twenty years from now? This is the dry season for Ngorogoro and the lake has receded about 30 percent, the tributaries are all dry and the small ponds hold very little water. The dust issue was magnified by the dozens of vehicles each seeking the Lion, the Leopard, and the Cheetah, each stirring up the dust on their way to the prize.

Humor me for a minute. I need to digress. I'm going to detour this blog to write about something that I actually know something about; Blue Marlin fishing in St. Thomas. Blue Marlin fishing in St. Thomas is exciting for lots of reasons, most of which revolve around catching and releasing these giants of the open ocean. St. Thomas is one of the best places in the world to catch these fish but when you leave the dock in the early morning it’s not at all certain that one will be successful. The marinas in St. Thomas in the summer and fall are full of boats, captains and anglers each intent on finding the big one. Every morning the fleet leaves the docks of the various marinas at about the same time and follow pretty much the same route to the fishing grounds which are represented by a color change, a current break, a drop off, evidence of a school of bait or just a spot where fish were seen the day before. Each captain has a strategy based on his experience and understanding of the habits of the targeted species. They run hard and fast to the fishing grounds and then begin the troll. The captain and the anglers keep their eye on the ocean, looking for anything unusual. On the radio, captains sometimes keep their friends informed of any sightings or bites. Mostly though, they keep the information to themselves. But when there’s a bite and when a boat begins to back down on the fish, secrets are revealed and the rest of the fleet turns to that location and converges because that is proof that there are Blue Marlin in the vicinity. The area becomes tight with boats, trolling outrigger to outrigger, each trying to get into position. Tempers shorten but usually it all works out.

Game drives are almost exactly like fishing. They start the same way, with the Land Rovers leaving the various hotels at about the same time and each driver or guide having his own ideas of how to find the targeted prey. The guides look for the proper topography and vegetation. They check out where the lions were seen the day before, where the leopard is likely to be (at the edge of the forest, near a drinking source), where the favorite foods are found and where the herbivores are congregating (Wildebeest and Zebra for lions, Impala for leopards, Thompson Gazelle for cheetah. They talk on the radio with one another. And then we drive, just like trolling, keeping a sharp lookout for unusual movements. And when one vehicle finds a pride of lions and stops, other vehicles see the stopped one and it’s not too long before five, ten or even 15 other vehicles arrive. One significant difference in a game drive is that all we do is shoot photos of the game while in fishing, catching is part of the effort. Consequently, game drivers are much freer with information than boat captains. There’s no competition for the prize. We can share. Blue Marlin can’t be shared.

On our visit to Ngorogoro we were looking for certain species and that’s how we hunted. We had already seen elephants and buffalo and hippos, and there were plenty of them in the crater, but we had not seen leopards. We had not seen Rhinos. We had not seen Cheetahs. We had not seen big maned male lions. So we hunted. Quickly we found lions, a mature female and an almost fully grown adult male. The male had been in a tussle with one of his siblings or some other mature male and he bore fresh claw marks on his hind quarter. I’m not sure how well this shows up on the photo in the blog, but on the original, it’s really clear.

He would fully recover from this. These lions were well fed and not the least bit frightened of the cars or their passengers. We kept hunting, all the while seeing antelope and thousands of birds, mostly pink flamingos, feeding in the shallows. As lunch time approached we saw a zebra herd all standing tall and looking in one direction. Thompson’s Gazelles were intermixed with the Zebras and they too were on alert. We stopped and looked. Lions? Maybe. We scanned with our binoculars. Then Lizzie saw something move in the grass a couple hundred yards away. She kept looking and we tried to see what she saw. A car in front of us stopped. Several pair of binoculars popped out of the top and turned in the direction Lizzie had looked. We scanned some more. We were very excited. Maybe we’d get to see a kill. We were all salivating and drool was dripping down my Patagonia Safari Shirt. The smell of testosterone engulfed the 2010 custom Range Rover. Here we were, sophisticated, well-educated, civilized adults hoping to see some big cat rip a Zebra or Tommy to shreds. Ok, Fran not so much, but even she was at least a little excited. A little sicko, huh? And the Zebras are really cute and seem quite nice. It’s not like they are criminals or anything. And speaking of cute, there’s not much cuter than a Thompson’s Gazelle. Hell, a Tommy could be a pet, like a dog. How can you not love them? But there, about 100 yards away, we saw 2 cheetahs, moving slowly toward the herd. More cars approached. The cheetahs were more visible now, walking generally in our direction. The herd remained on alert. We drove forward and stopped in a spot calculated to be near the direction they were heading and if they continued in that direction they would pass close to us. And they did, all the while completely ignoring our presence. These were two healthy looking; mature males and they crossed the road right in front of us. They are so beautiful they take your breath away. They are lithe, graceful, with a coat so elegant, soft and clean looking; we can understand why they were pursued by men for pets and for skins. They continued to move toward the herd and then
they disappeared into the tall grass. We stayed and waited but didn’t see an attack.

After all that excitement we were ready to rip into our chicken quarters and I was all set to devour even the bones and entrails. But alas, there were no entrails in the boxed lunch and the bones hurt my teeth. So we settled for a picnic lunch by a pond off the lake at a place set aside for cars and tourists. Kelvin set the folding table and chairs, opened a bottle of South African wine and laid out the china and silver (ok, plastic plates and cups, but they were nice plastic). The birds were well trained with guinea fowl begging at our feet and kites swooping down to steal our food. The hippos in the pond would look up once in a while but we were told by Kelvin that they are only dangerous when they are on land feeding not when lounging in the water. We bravely took that as fact. Fran commented that the hippos were cute.

Kelvin, asked, “what is the difference between cute and beautiful.” What an interesting question this was from someone where English is not his first language! We each took a shot at it. We stumbled trying to answer. Babies are cute but not beautiful. A landscape can be beautiful but not cute. I ventured that cute is something that one wants to approach. Beautiful is something to be admired from afar? Nobody was satisfied with that. I think we failed in our attempts. Here’s a test to see if you are really reading this drivel. There have been no comments on the blog for three days. What is the difference between cute and beautiful? No Websters allowed. Greg fell in love with a strange little animal, a helmeted Guinea Fowl. He thought it was cute. Not shy, the little fellows would walk right up to us and beg like a puppy. Cute or beautiful?

After lunch, we headed out again and found another prize, one that is proving more and rare. In the distance we saw a Black Rhino. We could tell that he or she was huge even though she was far away and not approaching. We looked through our binoculars and took some far away shots. That 300mm lens that I was too cheap to buy would have come in handy. It was getting to mid afternoon so we headed back up to the rim and to our hotel. We had a full day of game viewing and dust eating. The Kilimanjaro would taste great.

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[Gwen Wagner]

looks come from his mother :)