Tripping along the 'endless plains' of the Serengeti

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Once again, we were treated to a quite different terrain from that of the previous safari parks. The Serengeti National Park (pronounced See-ren-geti, so we were told) is huge and while the western region comprises savannah, sprinkled with umbrella-throned acacia over a black clay soil, and the northern region is covered in open woodlands, the majority of the park is dead flat and almost treeless and seems to extend for ever. This gives rise to the name Serengeti, which is Maasai for ‘endless plains’.

Before reaching Serengeti, we had an overnighter and a brief visit to Lake Manyara National Park. This is quite a small park, of which about two-thirds is covered by the lake, although this is currently at a very low level. It also contains a lot of evergreen forest, which houses Africa’s largest herd of Olive Baboons. A group of about 30 of them entertained us for a considerable period, until their space was taken over by three small elephants who came crashing through the bushes, looking for an alternative diet to grass (the trees leaves, not the baboons!). As well as the ‘standard’ zebras, wildebeest and gazelles on show in huge numbers, we also had our first sighting of bushbucks and hartebeest, as well as another array of birdlife including various species of ibis, plover, bustard, crane and stork.

Our first sighting of interest at Serengeti was over a dozen vultures fighting over the remnants of a dead buffalo, which had presumably been left overnight from a lions’ feed. There clearly wasn’t too much meat left to go round, as the vultures spent more time fighting each other than hacking at the carcass. As our travels progressed, we were fortunate to take in over a dozen lions at various spots, including one up a tree, but no leopards or cheetahs. If you want to talk about quantity rather than quality, at one stage we came across a small river that contained over 160 hippos (yeah, we counted them all) nesting side by side in the narrow water as their escape from the humid weather. Presumably this river is also where they do much of their ablutions and it certainly smelt that way. An even greater quantity sighting at one stage was that of zebras, all moving in a line in the direction of the nearest river, often 3 or 4 wide and the line went as far as we could see in either direction, so this bit of morning exercise must have comprised well over a thousand of the animals.

It is interesting to compare the different styles of the guides. At Mara, Marvin talked nonstop on his walkie-talkie (in Swahili of course), almost to the point of driving us to distraction, but it certainly assisted considerably with sightings, especially the big cats. He also was forever taking off onto little used side tracks (at breakneck speed, as previously documented). On the other hand, our Serengeti guide, Ralph, didn’t use his walkie-talkie at all, and we stayed pretty much on the main paths. Maybe this is a function of the topography of the respective parks as much as the style of each driver.

I should say a word here about the lodges/safari camps we have stayed in throughout Kenya and Tanzania. These have in general been exceptionally comfortable, despite in most cases being just upmarket tents with thatched rooves. We have been sleeping under mosquito nets every night and usually, due to their isolation, they run on generators which means power is limited to morning and evening. However, without exception they have been able to accommodate my CPAP’s requirement for all night power, in one case hooking me up to a special battery and another by setting up a temporary 100 metre line direct to the generator. Most places have only had around two dozen guests, so we all eat in the communal dining room with buffet options, which have generally offered sufficient choice for the discerning eater. In the bars, the beer has been cold and very cheap. The service of the staff has been exceptional to the point where we almost had to ask them to back off from overservicing at one lodge, where they took your dinner plate away almost before you were finished and lined up at our tent to take our bags to reception half an hour before we were even ready to leave.

If I can offer some gratuitous advice for potential Serengeti visitors, it would be to look at the option of flying from Arusha to and from Serengeti airstrip, rather than travel the 6 hours or so drive each way, to get to and from the lodges, most of which are at the northern end of the National Park. These small local flights seem to be pretty cheap, and this would maximise your time in the safari park checking out the animals rather than driving at high speed for long periods over corrugated dirt roads. I’d also strongly recommend visiting in June (as we have) rather than July or August. These parks have already been crowded with safari vehicles, with often up to a dozen juggling for viewing space when lions are on show. I hate to think how many vehicles there will be in the park during peak season, but I have heard bad stories about vehicles battling for viewing spaces, which are often very limited if the animal is partially hidden.

The final leg of our safari game park tour was to the famed Ngorongoro Crater. This is the world’s largest inactive, unfilled volcanic caldera. The crater, which apparently formed when a large volcano exploded and collapsed on itself millions of years ago, is roughly round with a diameter of approximately 20 kilometres and is a very impressive 600 metres deep, so the views from the rim looking in are stunning. Unfortunately, we have by now been spoilt on animal sightings and it was mainly ‘same old, same old’, but one highlight was a pack of eight spotted hyenas surrounding a herd of buffalo with their sights clearly on an almost newborn amongst the latter’s numbers. So can you guess who won? We’ll call it a win to the buffalos by tko!

An added bonus was finding on the way back to our digs at Karatu that we happened to coincide with their monthly market day. Now I’ve visited many, many markets in developing countries through the years, and it is hard to make fair comparisons, but I’m sure I’m not mistaken if I said this was around the biggest open air market I’ve ever seen. We estimated it was at least six football fields in size, with wall-to-wall produce, goods and people, the latter often very brightly coloured in the Maasai tradition.

So that’s it temporarily for the animal world, although I’m sure there’s more coming in Ethiopia. We only managed sightings of four of the 'Big Five' of Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant & Rhinoceros, but that is only a very minor disappointment. Next we have a brief sojourn to Zanzibar where we will be staying in the historical city of Stone Town. But before that, I'll give a bit more detail on the wildlife for those animal and bird lovers.

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Photos

Some local kids we came across in a shanty close to our lodge
The little girl in front followed us everywhere as if she'd never seen a white person before!

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Tanzania
it looks and sounds like you are having a fantastic experience. The people, the animals the serenity of this part of the world. So amazing.